Since a recent agreement between all 50 state attorneys general and MySpace, tweens and Internet geeks can rest assured friends in their Top Eight are not pedophiles or stalkers.
Under the agreement, made Jan. 14, MySpace, owned by News Corp., promised to better protect its under-18 users through the creation of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force and the introduction of “age locking”– a process allowing users under the age of 18 to block users over 18 from contacting them and prohibiting adult users to browse for users under 16 years old.
MySpace, with the help of a third party company, will also create a registry of email addresses for children under 18. Parents who want to prohibit their children from joining MySpace can submit their children’s email addresses to the list.
“We hope in the future to have similar agreements with other social networking sites,” said Amie Breton, spokeswoman for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. She said Coakley started with MySpace because the site is “the most popular.”
Jay Senter, spokesman for Common Sense Media, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that advocates for family-friendly media, said he applauds MySpace for taking “important steps,” because it provides peace of mind for parents and children using the state, he said.
“[Other sites’ efforts] seem to be efficient and successful,” he said. “So there is technology out there that is effective.”
Though Senter said online predators using social networking sites may not be a widespread threat, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children statistics suggest the problem is rampant.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children deputy director John Shehan said the recent legislation is worthwhile because one in seven children has received an unwanted sexual solicitation over the Internet.
“To hear that MySpace is taking additional steps is fantastic,” he said. “Seeing that attorney generals were able to make a collaborative effort is a major step.”
The NCMEC’s cyber tip-line, created in 1998 to act as an emergency number for reports of Internet predators, received 2,000 reports last week, he said. More than 180 reports regarded online enticement of children for sexual acts, Shehan said.
He said although the new technologies will be helpful, there is no one way to make social networking sites safer for children because of the number of online sexual predators.
“There is no silver bullet,” said Shehan. “It really takes a multi-pronged approach. You need parent involvement, education and law-makers working in cohesion.”
Despite the recent legislation, children using the social sites will still be able to get around their parents’ protective measures, said Boston University College of Communication freshman Jackie Reiss.
“If a kid wants a MySpace page, they’ll figure out plenty of ways to circumvent new security measures,” she said. “If parents give one email address to MySpace to block, the kid can just go and create another e-mail account in five minutes.”