So, there was a bit of news on Channel 1 I ran into that was vague as all their stories are, but pretty damn interesting. Apparently, after an incident in Connecticut a bill is in the motion to be passed requiring all facebook/myspace members to be 18 or over, and to have verification things in place. How they plan to do that is another question, as it is very hard to age proof websites. In wonderful Channel 1 fashion, they stumbled around their point, really not making it clear whether this is being pushed into other states or not.

I have a hard time really being happy with such law. True, I have a myspace and am under 18 so it would screw me over. But another perspective that I talked about with a couple advisory buddies, is that we know the risks we take when we put up such things. We take precautions, choosing to set our profiles to private in their cases, and refusing to allow anyone we don’t know to friend us. I go as far as to never post pictures of myself on there.

At this point, we’ve heard so many horror stories, and we know they’re true. Even being single, I’m not going to try to do anything to run off with a stranger who contacts me via myspace, and I’m definitely not going to meet any internet friend anywhere but a public place and without at least another person with me. Also, there are plenty of public places that are very safe

Overall, we feel that a girl getting kidnaped is very depressing via myspace, but in a lot of ways her fault, and not something to be messed with by the law.

Well, what do you think? The right idea or no?

Damn it! How will I meet underaged Connecticut girls for sex now?

Someone got taken in by TV hype! Yuffie is a fool!

Aw, Smokie, there's always those Californa girls.

Someone was just very bored, that's all...as if you take anything on channel one _seriously_.

I am completely against all forms of net censorship and regulations. And I'm very against the continued restrictions on "children". Whatever happened to parental responsibility? How are kids supposed to mature if they're never exposed to the Real World™? Why is it that the US has to have some of the highest age limits around outside of countries which feel the need to impose religious morals as laws? ...sigh...

Oh my God Becky look at her butt. It is sooo big.

She looks like one of those rap guys girlfriends. Who understands those rap guys.

I predict this will be as effective as the age checks for porn sites or 4chan...

Don't worry we'll always have our violence at least...

But gods help you if you show consentual sex or show someone smoking.

:takeout: :bash:

Hm... I wouldn't worry too much about it.

I know that xanga.com, a sort of popular blog host, this past summer introduced FCC-like blog ratings after being hardcore sued for letting little kids sign up. So now people who see your blog can rate the content-- whether it's fit for younger people to see or not. If it is considered mature, then younger kids are blocked from it. However, they introduced a procedure where in order to prove that you're an adult you have to give your credit card number. So you basically have to give your credit card number to read some of your friend's blogs if some asshole marked it as inappropriate.
It's an invasion of privacy, I think. And the internet shouldn't be censored, it's dumb enough that we have censorship laws for just about anything else.

The big thing is, parents just refuse to be parents. They should take precautions to make sure their kids aren't doing anything stupid. Check the history of the browser, move the computer in the family room or whatever so they can check every once and a while what's going on. It's retarded that parents blame sites or whatever for not protecting their kids when really, it's their responsibility, not the sites. They just can't deal with the fact that they were being too negligent and didn't teach their kids to not be so fucking idiotic.

I also think that these abductions and murders are over-exaggerated. I don't think it's nearly as common as they're making it out to be.

And now that I took the time to read the responses I realized that I just regurgitated other people's remarks. Woohoo.

myspace should just die, it isn't worthy of being on the internet

I like how John showed up for the first time in ages, took something seriously he shouldn't have, claimed myspace was the "real world", insinuated that we should encourage our children to talk to 40 year olds online who claim to be 17 year old cutters who ask for nude pics (because it will help them mature), and then vanished again.

I've been back for a while now. And I never insinuated any such thing. I used this example of bullshit as support against the continuing babying of Americans farther and farther into adulthood from parents who think that they don't have to do any actual parenting.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005190.php

Most kids are smart enough to ignore the idiots on MySpace.

I'm actually quite familiar with that study, and it's amazing incompleteness. It fails to address the fact that over 40% of myspaces have overtly sexual comments made in the message wall thing alone.
When studying teenagers a lot of people seem to think that asking them stuff will provide meaningful data. Unfortunately, surveys don't work with groups of people who are essentially compulsive liars. Also there is the issue of misunderstanding the question. If you ask a teenager "has anyone solicited you sexually online?" they will probably say no, without thinking of their "friend" from LA who asked for hot photos, or that guy they knew who "joked" about hooking up, etc.

Seriously, when you look at a study and it says that barely more than 10% of teens have been solicited online, you need to step back and think about the study itself. Likewise, when it says "43% of these solicitations came from other minors" you need to ask "How do they know?". I can make a myspace and say I'm 15. People do it all the time. I could even go to 12chan and go to the JB section to get a whole lot of photos of some kid, including nudes for trades.

This whole study is completely suspect, and none of its data should be treated as valid, and certainly not as meaningful. In short, be an educated consumer of research, rather than some fool who believes every percentage they announce of the evening news.

Youre to smart for your own good, Mike.

And, he is.

Either or, if this were to happen, I'd be over 18 by the time it'd be placed into action.

I probably would be as well. It would be awhile, if ever.

You might be, with how long it takes oppositions to come into play.