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Child Item

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

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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.

thebaz

DaveMcG wrote:

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.

Thats a bit harsh -- that could be interpreted that f*cking dipsh*t deserve whats coming ... i think the point is f*cking dips*ts and the vulnerable need protecting ?

There is many at fault here, and blaming mother alone is a cop out , in fact the guy who raped is responsible, and he should pay for his actions.

28064212

mountainyman wrote:

14 year olds don't have any cop on.

Exactly, so why did her own mother let her go and meet a stranger alone?

mountainyman wrote:

We KNOW CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED BECAUSE OF MYSPACE

Do we? Just because it was one of the methods of communication used, does not mean it's their fault, anymore than the company that made the alleged assaulter's car is at fault

Dave!

thebaz wrote:

Thats a bit harsh -- that could be interpreted that f*cking dipsh*t deserve whats coming ... i think the point is f*cking dips*ts and the vulnerable need protecting ?

Yeh probably a bit harsh, I'm just p*ssed off that the mother could be so disgusting as to take up this case.

MySpace did nothing wrong here, the mother should have been protecting her vulnerable daughter, as is her job as legal guardian.

thebaz wrote:

There is many at fault here, and blaming mother alone is a cop out , in fact the guy who raped is responsible, and he should pay for his actions.

Well that goes without saying, and one would hope that he ends up in jail if the actually did commit an assault, but the fact is that the mother is trying to place the blame on MySpace, and is not taking any herself, when as far as I'm concerned she is the one at fault. The child is 14, so the mother should take an interest and monitor everything that is done on the computer, but she didn't take any interest, and then when the child gets assaulted she throws a hissy fit at... MySpace? Where was she when her child was deciding that she wants to meet up with a stranger?

mountainyman

Dragan wrote:

You never replied to my comment about schools, parks, sport clubs.........

OK at the risk of sounding like a nutter...
Parks or park playgrounds; I think that you shouldn;t be able to hang around playgrounds if you are over 16 unless you are looking after someone under 12. Sports clubs; obviously they shouldn't employ paedophiles and should take steps to vet staff and coaches.

If I turned up tomorrow and offered to run a Cul Kicks camp for 12 year old girls (not boys and not yonger than 11 or older than 13) the GAA would tell me to eff off.

MM

He said when he was contacted her that he was a highschool senior, wouldn't that make him 17-19 anyway? I mean, whos to say she wasn't lying about her age and it was actually the 19 year old who was tricked?
It's f*cking ridiculous that they're trying to put the blame on MySpace for this, it's all down to neglegent parenting aswell as the daughter being a little whore, MySpace aren't in anyway to blame. Surely enough they were the medium through which the two contacted each other, but as has been said in the thread before, parks, bars and many other places are open to older guys meeting younger girls, yet they're not responsible for it happening or being sued.
It's all about the money and here's hoping the case falls through. It'll be an interesting one to follow anyway.

thelordofcheese

mountainyman wrote:

We KNOW CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED BECAUSE OF MYSPACE.

Nonsense, we know nothing of the sort, screaming sensationalist bunk does not make it fact.

mountainyman wrote:

How can you defend this. the site should be closed down at once.

MySpace should be closed, mostly because of the amount of annoying content, the embedded audio and the way every css script used seems to be designed to rape the eye balls of the person viewing it, but for being some sort of shopping market for paedophiles is not one of them.

The point, is not so much that we defend MySpace, is that we advocate that people take proper precautions when allowing their children go online, passing the blame onto MySpace is nonsense.

thebaz

DaveMcG wrote:

The child is 14, so the mother should take an interest and monitor everything that is done on the computer, but she didn't take any

It is just impossible these days to track 13, 14 and 15 year old online or computer usage , many if not most kids in the western world have computers in there bedroom or in the living room -- and most teenagers today , use bebo , and want to use so privatly . The reality is most do not end up getting raped, and are aware to some extent of the potential dangers of strangers. In fact i would go so far as to say, that like locking your child up for fear of being abducted or dangered, not giving your teenagers some form of independence online , maybe in fact be harmfull, as they need a certain amount of fun and develop and earn responsibility.
In fact i'm sure there are many 13, 14 and 15 year olds reading boards unsupervised ... i'm not condoning the mothers action of suing, and earning some dosh , but parenting today is difficult with many or most families having both parents working ... these are the reality of living in the western world today , for better or for worse.

28064212

mountainyman wrote:

Parks or park playgrounds; I think that you shouldn;t be able to hang around playgrounds if you are over 16 unless you are looking after someone under 12.

So a 14 year old isn't allowed to have supervision? Who's going to police this by the way? It's impossible for any kind of organisation to take responsibility for any sizable group of people. The only people who are capable of giving a child the protection and supervision needed (outside of schools perhaps) is their parents

28064212

thebaz wrote:

It is just impossible these days to track 13, 14 and 15 year old online or computer usage , many if not most kids in the western world have computers in there bedroom or in the living room

That's very basic parenting. Any kind of 'parenting' or 'keeping safe online' guide will tell you no child should be allowed use a computer unsupervised. Allowing a child to keep a computer in their room is practically asking for trouble

mountainyman

A simple way for myspace to anticipate and dealt with the problem would have been to make under 18s pass a test on internet safety and include safety checks in their algorithims.

They did nothing and a little girl has been raped.

This is gross negligence and myspace should pay. What is 30 million for a ruined life?

How many more children will they allow to be raped.