Mother sues Myspace for 30 million.

Tar.Aldarion · 22-06-2006 02:32AM #1

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 · 22-06-2006 02:36AM

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 · 22-06-2006 02:44AM

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 · 22-06-2006 03:42AM

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 · 22-06-2006 05:26AM

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

raheny red · 22-06-2006 07:51AM

Hobbes wrote:

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

Dragan · 22-06-2006 08:04AM

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 · 22-06-2006 08:54AM

Where do they come up with these figures?

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

jor el · 22-06-2006 09:27AM

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 · 22-06-2006 09:34AM

hang on a sec...

Myspace is worth 3 billion dollas!?

pclancy · 22-06-2006 09:34AM

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 · 22-06-2006 09:35AM

Parents fault tbh.

mountainyman · 22-06-2006 09:42AM

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 · 22-06-2006 09:43AM

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 · 22-06-2006 09:46AM

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 · 22-06-2006 09:53AM

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 · 22-06-2006 09:54AM

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 · 22-06-2006 10:03AM

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 · 22-06-2006 10:07AM

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 · 22-06-2006 10:12AM

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! · 22-06-2006 10:13AM

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 · 22-06-2006 10:20AM

I want to sue Myspace for eyesight damage.

Narcissus · 22-06-2006 10:27AM

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 · 22-06-2006 10:30AM

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 · 22-06-2006 10:38AM

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 · 22-06-2006 10:48AM

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 · 22-06-2006 11:11AM

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 · 22-06-2006 11:18AM

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 · 22-06-2006 11:18AM

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 · 22-06-2006 11:21AM

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.

22-06-2006 11:21AM

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

Mother sues Myspace for 30 million.

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