NetIDme Welcomes Social Networking Safety Measures
MySpace has announced a range of measures designed to help protect children who use the popular social networking site. The agreement, which was endorsed by 49 states, will involve setting up a safety taskforce to including social networks, state reps and age verification providers. The states are hoping the task force will help create industry-wide safety standards for things like verifying the age of users, identifying predators, and reporting inappropriate content.
Texas AG, Greg Abbot said:
“We do not believe that MySpace.com — or any other social-networking site — can adequately protect minors” without an age verification system. We are concerned that our signing the joint statement would be misperceived as an endorsement of the inadequate safety measures.”
Keeping predators off MySpace has proved a major issue for the social networking site. Tens of thousands of offenders have been identified on the site, prompting the deletion of 29,000 profiles in July 2007.
NetIDme CEO Alex Hewitt said:
“We are very pleased that MySpace has taken the first steps towards protecting their users from predators. We hope to see all other social networking sites quickly following this example.
Some sites have already implemented, or are working towards implementing age and ID verification systems that help protect children. However, I would urge parents to ensure that the sites their children use have adequate systems in place.
If users are unable to set up completely anonymous accounts, the popularity of posting unacceptable material will decline. It’s well known that ‘bad behaviour’ drastically reduces when there’s a chance of being caught.
Hopefully, it’s only a matter of time before all social networking and community sites will be obliged to increase protection for young people. MySpace have taken the first step, and we welcome their efforts in the fight against online predators.”
Add comment January 17, 2008
