On Thursday, CNET reported that families in New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas have filed civil suits against MySpace.com and News Corporation. The lawsuits allege "negligence, recklessness, fraud, and negligent misrepresentation on the part of the companies" that resulted in the solicitation and sexual assault of their daughters by adults on the social networking site.
In the South Carolina case, two girls aged 14 and 15 were lured into meeting two adult males who gave them alcohol and drugs before sexually assaulting them. The perpetrators are awaiting trial.
Criminal charges have been filed in all of the cases with the perpetrators sentenced, already imprisoned or awaiting trial.
MySpace.com did not comment for the story beyond an announcement that it plans to release Zephyr, monitoring software intended to help parents oversee their children's activities on the website.
MySpace has taken steps to try to protect minors and has assisted law enforcement in tracking and capturing sexual predators. However, the parents in all these civil suits obviously think more should have been done.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Maya,
I hadn't read about this case yet. But I think its very interesting that the parents think My Space should have done more. What were the parents doing?
I'm sorry, but parents do have to take some accountability for wathcing what their kids are doing on the internet. While My Space wouldn't be blocked by any software because its not an adult site, why didn't the parent monitor what the kids were doing on my space.
Let alone, how did they let their kids go meet these people.
Yes, I think My Space does have some responsibility, but they can't do it all. It isn't fair (in my opinion) to file a civil suit against a company that has not control over who uses their services and how they use those services.
Marie
Post a Comment