Mother sues Myspace for 30 million.

Tar.Aldarion

Well, here is the story. What do you think?
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/20myspace.html


What a load of crap, so who disagrees?


EDIT, sometimes it won't let you view, if you have trouble.
http://www.bugmenot.com/view/statesman.com

Ruu_Old

Myspace:"Ok I think we can agree on a settlement here *writes 0 on piece of paper*. Here is our only offer" Bullsheet is right!.

Tar.Aldarion

They may win though, which is a disgrace.

We are doing this because:
A) For money.
Eh eh eh...just give us one percent of our percieved worth of myspace.
C) where's the money?

theCzar

Tragic really, not surprising the mother wants to blame myspace because if it's not myspace's fault, then the blame can only lie with the parents. There is a perception amongst some people who know little about the internet that through websites like myspace, paedophiles can some how leap out of the PC without the willing consent of the child user, and the ignorance of parents who fail to educate their children on certain dangers.

As to the cynical nature of the suit, well. Its America, and the quotes are from the lawyers.... I wrote something pretty defamatory about lawyers here, but I think I'll keep it to myself.

We could have Lawyers sue boards.ie for failing to adequately protect lawyers from libel. Then I'd have to sue boards.ie for failing to protect me from lawyers.

Hobbes

Anyone know what her myspace page is so I can add myself as a friend when she gets the money.

raheny red

Hobbes wrote:

Anyone know what her myspace page is so I can add myself as a friend when she gets the money.

Dragan

As all ready stated it's really just the parent looking for someone to blame. Is it just me or should a mother know what ehr 14 year old girl is up to....or is she just pissed that her daughter was going off to f*ck and 18 year old football playing senior and he turned out to be older????

I wonder what age the girls account said SHE was????

Ciaran500

Where do they come up with these figures?

Hmmm, one sexual assault. That'll be $30,000,000 please.

jor el

MySpace says on a "Tips for Parents" page that users must be 14 or older. The Web site does nothing to verify the age of the user, such as requiring a driver's license or credit card number, Loewy said.

Eh, how many 14-year olds do you know that have a driver's licence or credit card? That kind of policy would simply restrict it to an adult only website, meaning the kids would go back to using IRC, newsgroups, other forums, etc. and be hounded by the pedos there instead.

Myspace is a place of interaction, for people to talk to other people. If you decide to meet someone outside of this then Myspace can hardly be held responsible for what that person might do. The girl is 14 and yet she got into a man's car and went off with him. That's just foolish. And shame on the parents for not keeping an eye on what their children do online.

tba

hang on a sec...

Myspace is worth 3 billion dollas!?

pclancy

Surely MySpace had covered themselves with some kind of disclaimer or terms and conditons? Weird that they left themselves open to this. How stupid can americans be though, seems to be like they'd sue a cloud for raining on them if they could.

Sparky

Parents fault tbh.

mountainyman

It seems like a valid legal case to me.

My Space must be aware that adolescents use their service.
My Space must be aware that 'social networking' can lead to meeting in real life.

If My Space is not aware that paedophiles use their site then they are negligent.

What measures have they put in place to protect children from paedophiles?

What measures have they provided to alert parents to the actions of their children?

If it is not possible to protect children who use the service it should be closed down.

MM

mountainyman

jor el wrote:

The girl is 14 and yet she got into a man's car and went off with him. That's just foolish.

Those who make their money from adolescents must be aware that adolescents are foolish. That's what it means to be an adolescent.

jor el wrote:

And shame on the parents for not keeping an eye on what their children do online.

What measures did My Space put in place to assist parents.

MM

mountainyman

pclancy wrote:

Surely MySpace had covered themselves with some kind of disclaimer or terms and conditons? Weird that they left themselves open to this.

14 year olds can't form contracts. This girl was raped as a result of MySpace's negligence. They made money from her rape.

pclancy wrote:

seems to be like they'd sue a cloud for raining on them if they could.

If it profited from their rape that would be legitimate; or do you think that all 14 year old are asking for it. One or the other.

MM

ixoy

Parks - they have paedophiles right? What measures are in place to stop kids, who are playing there with their friends, from encountering paedophiles there? Let's shut them all down, just to be sure. It's the only way to be safe.

Kastro

Ciaran500 wrote:

Where do they come up with these figures?

Hmmm, one sexual assault. That'll be $30,000,000 please.

i better start saving incase i forget to get someone to sign my sexual encounter confirmation contract..

thelordofcheese

This is nonsense, websites have no obligation, or indeed realistic way of protecting users from their own actions.

Myspace is just a subsection of the internet, asking what "measures have they put in place to protect children from paedophiles" should really be what measures does the internet have to protect children from paedophiles. which is again, none.

Internet Safety should take place at the users machine, and with the users themselves.
There are many ways to restrict browsing for younger users, one can't blame the internet or MySpace, they're just tools. The person using them needs to be responsible enough, or have some form of adult supervision.

And besides how, exactly, would MySpace implement features to help parents protect their children. I'd love to hear some ideas, because i've been wracking my brain for a while and can't think of anything that makes a lick of sense...

pclancy

mountainyman wrote:

14 year olds can't form contracts. This girl was raped as a result of MySpace's negligence. They made money from her rape.


If it profited from their rape that would be legitimate; or do you think that all 14 year old are asking for it. One or the other.

MM

How were myspace negligent? They have advice for parents/kids, they try as much as they could to verify ages and they are simply a public space for communication like millions of other chatrooms, bbs and forums. I dont see what else could have been done in the situation. The parents ARE to blame. If you let a kid loose on the net its the same as letting a kid loose in a town if not way worse. You can be anyone you want to be online and its easy deceive younger or nieve people. If the girl was walking down a street late at night and was raped do the council get blamed for owning the street she was raped on? Should they have had signs up saying "Danger of Rape"? Her parents shouldnt have let her out on the street in the first place. You CANNOT let children off online to do what they want, they have to know the dangers of giving out personal info and her parents failed her bigtime on not drilling that into her.

Exactly explain what you mean by your last sentance before I get offended by it.

Pompey Magnus

The kid should sue her mother next for not teaching her a bit of basic cop-on, never get into a strange man's car.

It wasn't me!

What I pick up on from all of this is that the woman has put a price on teh sexual assault of her daughter. To be honest, it's effectively theft, but in teh days of suing everything that moves, now lawyers can do your stealing for you.

Stark

I want to sue Myspace for eyesight damage.

Narcissus

This kind of crap irritates me.

What measures could they take?

Myspace:This is a website that you can use, however be warned, there's a possibility that you will get assaulted or raped if you meet someone on-line, and then meet them in real life and then get into their car and go off with them.
Ridiculous :mad:


The parent's fault, and now they're probably trying to take advantage of the situation to get some easy money, which is pathethic really.

tba

mountainyman wrote:

14 year olds can't form contracts.

Correct they can however agree to a terms of use agreement which is what myspace uses.

mountainyman wrote:

This girl was raped as a result of MySpace's negligence.

The girl was raped as a result of many other peoples negligence too. Where does vicarious liabilty end or even begin for that matter?

mountainyman wrote:

They made money from her rape.

As did the news agencies reporting the fact and the lawyer prosecuting the case, as did boards.ie for having this thread

mountainyman wrote:

If [a cloud] profited from their rape that would be legitimate; or do you think that all 14 year old are asking for it. One or the other.

A cloud is not a real person and as such cannot be prosecuted, if it could however it would fall in to the same above point.

snappieT

I'm just waiting for the day bebo is sued for copyright infringement by checking if uploaded flashes are copyrighted. It's an accident waiting to happen, and people DO browse bebo to look at these copyrighted flashes, may click on an ad or two, and this revenue goes to bebo, not the copyright holder.
That's why I make my own flashes (which have my username in them), yet still there are 6 people on bebo with the exact same flash. Confused.

CurtisHeaven

OK this is what I think of all this....First of all My Space is a free service, they owe this girl and her money grabbing mum nothing! If the mother had any cop on what so ever she would see this. If she gave a sh1t she would know exactly what her young "innocent" daughter was up to and would have monitored her emails and chat.
I work for an internet company monitoring chat rooms/message boards etc to make sure things like this don't happen but it is impossible for me to go in and look at peoples messages to see who they are emailing and chatting to.
I think its an absolute joke and if this family get a penny out of my space I'll be well hacked off. Why aren't they sueing the man who tried it on with the 14 year old?? I'll tell ya why...coz they know they wont get a penny out of him coz he's probably trailer trash like themselves...maybe even a big conspiracy they have all put together to try get some easy money...
This kinda crap really grinds my gears! Why on earth sue a free service that they allowed their daughter to use, I bet there is something in the Conditions of Service for My Space to cover their backs with stuff like this!

mountainyman

Many parents are unable to monitor their kids email.
They by the computer to help their kids education.

At the end of the day a girl was raped. MySapce have done nothing to help.

It is time to close down these scial networking sites.

MM

Dragan

mountainyman wrote:

Many parents are unable to monitor their kids email.
They by the computer to help their kids education.

At the end of the day a girl was raped. MySapce have done nothing to help.

It is time to close down these scial networking sites.

MM

So surely we should close down boards.ie and all other forums, as people meet up through them, and public parks as already mentioned because padeo's can hang out there and get there jollies....lets not forget pubs and clubs because some ladies has been the victim of sexual assault while out drinking and dancing.

Also, let shut down all churchs and schools, because priests/monks/nuns/teachers have sexually assaulted students....and students have assaulted them.

Better shut down sports clubs etc, because some coaches have been fiddling the kiddies too.

Sound a bit extreme???

So does shutting down Myspace because a young girl was stupid enough to meet someone in private on it. Very sorry for the poor lass and her family but she should have known better, or thought better if you want to put it that way.

Narcissus

At the end of the day a girl was raped. MySapce have done nothing to help.

Why should they have to do something? They are not at fault.

It is time to close down these scial networking sites.

MM

Why not close down the whole internet then?

Hobbes

CurtisHeaven wrote:

First of all My Space is a free service

MySpace is far from a free service. While you aren't handing over cash to them directly MySpace is selling on all your data and browsing habits to Advertisers/spammers.

They even bragged about it a week or so ago.

And before anyone goes "omg! I better go to bebo", they are all doing this.

28064212

mountainyman wrote:

Many parents are unable to monitor their kids email.

Then why are they letting their child on the computer? No child should be allowed to use the computer unsupervised anyway. And by supervised, I mean looking over their shoulder and reading every single word, not somewhere in the same house

28064212

Hobbes wrote:

MySpace is far from a free service. While you aren't handing over cash to them directly MySpace is selling on all your data and browsing habits to Advertisers/spammers.

They even bragged about it a week or so ago.

And before anyone goes "omg! I better go to bebo", they are all doing this.

So do Google, what's your point? If you want to use there services, that's the price you pay instead of cash. They make it pretty clear that they do it

jor el

mountainyman wrote:

MySapce have done nothing to help.

They also did nothing wrong. And so far, rape has not been proven by a court of law, the cops have arrested a man on suspicion of sexual assault.

Myspace can't be held responsible for something people do outside of it's control. The girl and the man even exchanged telephone calls, how could Myspace control this exactly?

Many parents are unable to monitor their kids email.

Kids shouldn't be given a computer in their own room that's connected to the Internet. The Internet PC should be in the living room or other area where any activities can be monitored. If the parents are unaware of how to keep checks on their kids then they need to learn. It's not Myspace's responsibility to teach parents how to be parents.

How exactly could Myspace have prevented this? Moderate every single post, comment or email that goes through the site? What if the conversation moves to Hotmail or the phone, should telephone companies monitor conversations on children's phones in case their being solicited by an adult?

thebaz

Sparky-s wrote:

Parents fault tbh.

How is it the parents fault ?
Should they track and monitor the 14 year old continuosly when online ?
not feasible in this era .
As an adult i have a myspace account and have had a few inquiries from ladies of questionable intentions .

I have little sympathy for Mr Murdock, and i think they need to take some responsibility , same goes for bebo i may add .

garthv

Thats ridiculous....Its like suing the pub you went to if the exact same thing happened.

colf

mountainyman wrote:

Many parents are unable to monitor their kids email.
They by the computer to help their kids education.

At the end of the day a girl was raped. MySapce have done nothing to help.

It is time to close down these scial networking sites.

MM

All parents should be monitoring their email. They bought the computer to help their kids education, they also should be educating the child on internet safety, same as safety in the outside world. Many parents do not supervise their children while they are online and use the internet as a form of keeping them quiet. Just because they are quiet doesnt mean they arent talking to someone they shouldnt be. People are to nieve these days about the internet and would be the first to jump on the bangwagon and blame all isp's websites. I think they should be looking closer to home before casting the first stone. The girl was 14 therefore a child and should under no circumstances be left onsupervised online. That responsibility is up to the parents. If they cant supervise their child they shouldnt have a computer or internet access in the first place.

CurtisHeaven

I don't know how anyone can pass the blame to MySpace for this. It was the kids idea to join up, her idea to chat to this stranger, her idea to go meet him. My Space offered her a way to chat with friends etc online, she chose to take it a step further and go meet some one off there.
It is very easy for a parent/gaurdian to keep an eye on emails etc coming and being sent from their kids emails...The parents just sat her on there to keep her quiet expecting some one else to look after her.
Does that mean if I decide to meet some one from boards and he/she ends up to be nuts and sexually assaults me I can sue boards.ie becuase they didnt do anything to stop it? Nah....didnt think so. My choice to go on here and meet some one and end up in that situation, even tho this girl isn't an adult being 14..who is responsible for her? My Space? No...the parents are her legal guardians.

stevenmu

mountainyman wrote:

Many parents are unable to monitor their kids email.
They by the computer to help their kids education.

At the end of the day a girl was raped. MySapce have done nothing to help.

It is time to close down these scial networking sites.

MM

Most child abuse is carried out by members of the childs immediate family. What are we doing to prevent this ?

I propose we take all the children and send them off somewhere that no one will ever find them. It would be negligent not to.

thebaz

in this day and age there is no way you can monitor a 14 year online usage continuosly -- maybe in an ideal world -- but with computers and the internet the tv of the 21 century , and 13, 14 and 15 year olds wanting there independence , no family could possibly permanently track there teenagers internet access . Only way would be for housholds to sell the pc or cease internet subscription - teenagers are teenagers and like there independce -- its easy to say blame the parents , if you don't live with teenagers or live in the dark ages.

joe_chicken

mountainyman wrote:

At the end of the day a girl was raped. MySapce have done nothing to help.

What have YOU done to help. I suggest the girl sues YOU for not making her fully aware that everyone is not good, and some people do bad things sometimes.

Or, alternatively, that could be the job of her mother

mountainyman wrote:

It is time to close down these scial networking sites.

Turn off da interweb??? Sure da's where I geh all me kiddy porn

Dragan

It not really a question of continuous monitoring…it's a question of a foolish child and the reasons that led to the actions they took.

I would hope that 99% of 14 year olds would realise that it might be a bad idea to go and meet ANYONE from the internet. Even if the guys story had been true, and he had been a football playing senior this would have made him 17 to 18. What would a 14 year old do with a 17 or 18 year old anyway????

The simply fact is that the child took the action to meet someone, who even if there cover story had off been true, they should not have been meeting in the first place.

That is the general root of the issue tbh. What happened was unfortunate, but very, very preventable if the kid had of either been thought better or had a bit more cop on.

edanto

mountainyman wrote:

At the end of the day a girl was raped. MySapce have done nothing to help.
It is time to close down these scial networking sites.
MM

It's not the fault of myspace. Or the parents. It's still alleged, but assuming the allegations are true, then it's all the fault of the bloke invovled.

It's him that the parents should be sueing.

The girl should have been more careful; and if the parents are saying that myspace, of all people, have some responsibility, then I don't think that they can escape responsibility themselves.

They should have been involved enough in their daughters life to know who she was meeting, how it was arranged and to be able to tell her how to be safe. Surely if they say that myspace should have taken more precautions, then they are guilty of the same trumped-up offense?

Sueing myspace is just trying to transfer the blame, for something awful, onto a site that only facilitated the meeting. It would be like sueing a telephone company - patently stupid.

It will probably have the effect of making myspace change the signup so that warnings in HUGE TEXT come up about proper web precautions, which will be a good thing to come out of something horrible. If myspace is as popular as everyone says, then it will attract a lot of noobs that need the advice.

Dave!

mountainyman wrote:

This girl was raped as a result of MySpace's negligence.

More like this girl was raped as a result of her being a f*cking dipsh*t.

It's the mother's fault, that's all there is to it. Obviously in the 14 years they've had a relationship, the mother has been ignoring her child, if she didn't know that she's the kind of moron that would meet up with someone she met on the internet, on her own.
MySpace shouldn't have the responsibility to look after all of their however million members. Those members' parents should have the responsibility to monitor whatever their child is doing on the internet, especially if the child is a f*cking moron.

She's just trying to take any responsibility away from herself... Makes me sick really. Throw the money-grabbing thief in jail for a week.

BTW, am I the only one who at 14 had the cop-on not to do sh*t like this? I don't think I am.

edanto wrote:

It's him that the parents should be sueing.

Ahh but mate, he probably doesn't have as much money! It's gonna take aLOT of money to wipe away the memory this poor girl has of the horrible incident. Yeh, I think $30million is just the right amount.

Dr Galen

if this wins then doesn't that set the precedent that we should shut anything that might be a bit dangerous........
i'm sure shopping centres/swimming pools/public parks/playgrounds/roads/streets and many many more places all have impressionable teenagers and paedo's knocking around at one time or another, so lets hold them all responsible for everything and shut em all down.

Has this dude actually been convicted of anything yet?

eiretamicha

Hobbes wrote:

And before anyone goes "omg! I better go to bebo", they are all doing this.

LiveJournal doesn't sell information. They, in a similar fashion to boards.ie, offer free accounts, or paid accounts with a few upgrades. Much better than myspace, IMHO.

mountainyman

jor el wrote:

How exactly could Myspace have prevented this? Moderate every single post, comment or email that goes through the site?

An easy and simple solution; that would have prevented this little girl from being raped. MYSpace were negligent in not implementing it.

jor el wrote:

... should telephone companies monitor conversations on children's phones in case their being solicited by an adult?

perhaps not sure how to do that.

dragan wrote:

That is the general root of the issue tbh. What happened was unfortunate, but very, very preventable if the kid had of either been thought better or had a bit more cop on.

14 year olds don't have any cop on.

You people (collectively- NOT Jor El and Dragan specifically) are like the people on the forties who now say they didnt know what was going on in Industrial schools.

We KNOW CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED BECAUSE OF MYSPACE. How can you defend this. th e site should be closed down at once.

This makes me :mad:


MM

Dragan

mountainyman wrote:

You people (collectively- NOT Jor El and Dragan specifically) are like the people on the forties who now say they didnt know what was going on in Industrial schools.

We KNOW CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED BECAUSE OF MYSPACE. How can you defend this. th e site should be closed down at once.

This makes me :mad:

MM

Really, thats quite the assumption to make......i am not saying that no one has been raped through Myspace, i'm saying that you an many other people no doubt that would call for it to be closed down are kidding yourselfs.

You never replied to my comment about schools, parks, sport clubs......everywhere else that kids are being assaulted and raped through. Do you think we should close them to????

It worries me that people are more concerned with placing blame and closing things down than wondering if the guy who was picked up for the crime got bail.

Dun laoire

Not alot mentioned about the girls welfare after her ordeal!!
It's all about the $$$$

28064212

mountainyman wrote:

jor el wrote:

How exactly could Myspace have prevented this? Moderate every single post, comment or email that goes through the site?

An easy and simple solution; that would have prevented this little girl from being raped

What makes you think that it's easy? There's currently 70 million users of MySpace. You want to try reading all their posts? How is a reader supposed to decide whether or not something illegal is going to happen?

Chinafoot

mountainyman wrote:

They made money from her rape.

And what exactly is her family trying to do? They are trying to profit from her alleged sexual assault.

Surely their focus should be on seeing justice carried out and this guy put in jail if he is guilty?

It's pretty disgusting that a mother would use her daughter like that.

Oh and as for the placing of blame. A lot of this is on the parents and on the child itself. To call for the closure of MySpace because "WE KNOW CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED BECASUE OF MYSPACE" is alarmist bullshít.

Comparing it to what happened in the industrial schools here is quite frankly an offensive and ridiculous argument to try and make.

edanto

mountainyman wrote:

An easy and simple solution; that would have prevented this little girl from being raped. MYSpace were negligent in not implementing it.

Are you for real? Every post, message and image should be moderated? Have you no sense of scale?

You people (collectively- NOT Jor El and Dragan specifically) are like the people on the forties who now say they didnt know what was going on in Industrial schools.

So children are being beaten, forced to work and in some cases buried under the myspace servers? Don't trivialise either sad case by trying to connect them.

We KNOW CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED BECAUSE OF MYSPACE. How can you defend this. th e site should be closed down at once.

NO WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING LIKE THAT AT ALL. (do the caps help?). Ther is an allegation that one poor girl was assaulted after meeting a stranger (alone) and going to his house. The guy was a predator, not a myspace employee/director. At the bottom of the main myspace page, there is a link to 'safety tips', which include all the regular advise about how to avoid situations like this and the fact is that the girl didn't follow that advice. It's not the fault of the internet that a bad thing like this happened.