Update! The lawsuit against MySpace has been dismissed by a Federal judge!
Last June we reported that the family of a 14-year-old girl had filed a lawsuit against MySpace for failing to protect their daughter from Pete Solis, a 19 year old “predator”. At that time we said explained that “After exchanging email addresses and telephone numbers, and talking for a month or so, they went on a date. The 14 year old and her mother now claims that Solis “sexually assaultedâ€? her during that date.” Solis, for his part, claimed that the girl had lied in her MySpace profile, claiming to be 15 – the age of MySpace consent, as it were. You have to be at least 15 for a profile to be public and finadable on MySpace.
Now this girl’s family, along with three others – and the same attorney – have filed cases against MySpace in Los Angeles, claiming in the lawsuit that MySpace had not done enough to protect their daughters from predators which they claim, MySpace knew were there.
Whether MySpace knew that these predators were hanging out on MySpace is one thing, certainly.
But another, and what I want to know is – did these parents of these “injured” teenagers know that their teenagers were hanging out on MySpace?
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Once again, this comes back to parental responsibility, something that these parents are apparently sorely lacking. Again, the issue isn’t does MySpace bear some responsibility – the issue, as I see it, is do these parents bear any responsibility?
Apparently not as, according to one of their lawyers, “MySpace is like a daycare facility” that didn’t adequately take care of its customers.
EXCUSE ME?
You’re using the Internet to babysit your children? The Internet is not television!
Ok, I’m sure that’s not what he meant. What he meant was that a daycare facility has an obligation to not hire child abusers. But that is not analogous to MySpace. The other analogy was to a restuarant, the implication being, apparently, that a restaurant has a duty to not hire staff who will harrass you (which in itself is untrue).
But you see, it all breaks down, because a restaurant does not have an obligation to screen its customers in order to protect other customers.
The fact is that anyone can sign up for MySpace, and if a predator signs up for MySpace they are no different in their relationship to MySpace than if a 13 year old signs up for MySpace. They are both “customers” of MySpace.
The difference is that the 13 year old is a minor, which means they have parents who are legally responsible for them.
So why are those parents trying to make MySpace responsible?
Maybe Tom should adopt all these kids. They’d probably learn better values.
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So when are the parents going to take responsablility for taking care of their children? So far it’s the teachers jobs, the police’s job, the webmasters job? Seriously..so much for parenting.
i agree with TashaBabe. you shouldn’t put too much personal stuff and don’t talk to ANYONE that you don’t know personally. i mean, who lets there 14 year old daughter go meet someone who is older than them and doesnt no them well??? if i were a parent, i would say ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
i agree with everyone above me. being a teen ager my self and having a myspace, i dont see how ANYONE can blame myspace for these incidents. myspace is not dangerous people!!! im sorry if some people have irresponsibl children who are silly enough to put personal information on the very public internet. and im also sorry there are parents who let their daughters go on dates with older strangers.
take some responsibility guys
Who the hell lets their 14 year old daughter go on a date without first meeting the guy and doing a little check like his age??????? this just equates to bad parenting!
I feel for the girls and all those whom were taken advantage of but the blame needs to go on the right people, the girls are young and made bad desicions which got them into a situation they never should have been in.
Who let these girls go out or be alone with these predators and why were they not supervised at such a young age if they are aloud to date? in this day and age we know that there are toooo many crazy phycos in the world and must be extra care with our kids.
My daughter has a myspace page but I do not expect MYSPACE to make sure she does the right thing,talk to the right people or even not say bad words… that is MY JOB!!! and I take it seriously, I monitor her page as I do her day to day activities… we as parents must keep our kids safe, we can not and should not expect anyone else to do our job.
I wonder if any of the parents monitored use of, denied access to or simply disconnected the computers. If not, try it – it should work!
What I want to know is where were these kids parents when these things were happening??? I suppose these parents want My Space to pay for their kids college education also!!!! Grow up people take some responsibility for yourown actions!!!!!!!