MySpace sued for things they don't have control over...

AP: "NEW YORK - Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said Thursday.

The law firms, Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, Texas, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston, said families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies.

'In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users,' said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer."


While the assaults themselves are a horrific violation of human rights, dignity and law, and we feel for the parents and the teens involved, the blame rests with the individuals who committed the acts, not MySpace.

We'll bypass the usual comment on parental responsibility, etc. They didn't want this for their children (nor did MySpace), and yes, perhaps if the parents had been more aware of what the small humans in their care were doing (in their houses, using their computers and broadband connections, and under their direct legal supervision), this might never have happened... If they'd raised their children to be cautious online, yatta... But the reality is that kids are their own persons, and what they lack in judgment, they make up for in enthusiasm and ingenuity. Just as parents are often blissfully aware of their kids drug habits, drunken binges and sexual proclivities, they have no idea what they're doing on the internet, or in the real world. But they are closer to the source than myspace -- a collection of interlinked web pages that are simply in one place and easy to use.

The parents, in attempting to hold MySpace responsible for what their kids were ultimately subjected to offline by third parties engaged in criminal conduct, would apply a standard of assumed responsibility to an online destination that's not found anywhere in real-space -- including theaters, shopping malls, Walmart, strip malls, backyards, or anywhere that kids can potentially interact with 'others'.

The Internet is not some hidden darkly magical place divorced from the real world -- the same laws (or lack of laws) should apply. The kids were not abused on MySpace. That would be impossible. They were assaulted in the real world at a physical location -- MySpace was only the medium by which they were able to initially communicate. That could have easily been Yahoo IM, a Cingular moble phone or through a mutual friend.

In the real world, you don't sue a mutual friend for an introduction that lead to something bad later on that they had nothing to do with.

While we do sincerely feel for the victims here, the perps are the ones who did the abusing. Lashing out at MySpace is a cynical move. Telling is the tens of millions in compensation being sought. MySpace may not have anything to do with this, but they're the ones with cash...



2/15/07: Update: The judge in the case has tossed out the lawsuit. With this much cash at stake and no real downside, the family will likely appeal...