This is a fascinating case, but it does raise the question: can MySpace counter-sue the parents for not policing the kids? Many teens are far more tech-savvy than parents know, understanding such processes as how to mask IP adresses, and adept at programming in Java and HTML. Ultimately, the teen has to be policed as well as the adult MySpace user. Families of sexually abused girls sue MySpace, alleging negligence
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 19, 2007
Four families whose underage daughters were sexually abused after meeting people they encountered on the social networking site MySpace have sued News Corp., the site's parent company, alleging it was negligent in not creating safety measures to protect younger users.
In separate suits filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, an attorney for the families said the virtual site is like a day care facility or a restaurant that didn't adequately protect its customers.
"These virtual sites are no different," said Jason Itkin, a Houston attorney representing the families. "MySpace has not taken the steps necessary to protect its customers. They know that these predators have been there."
The families want MySpace to toughen its age verification system "so that people are as old as they say they are" on MySpace, Itkin said. They are seeking damages "in the millions" he said.
The lawsuits, similar to one filed last year in federal court in Texas by some of the same attorneys, raise a broad cultural question: When it comes to monitoring children's online behavior, where does parental responsibility end and corporate responsibility begin?
"Blaming MySpace won't solve the larger problem," said Liz Perle, editor in chief of Common Sense Media, which monitors children's media from San Francisco. "Parents are aware of where their children are when they go to a party. They need to be aware of where they are online.
"We teach our kids how to be responsible and not drink and not smoke. We have to put media communication on that level," Perle said. Common Sense Media offers tips for parents at www.commonsensemedia.org.
MySpace policy bans children younger than 14 from the site. Teens 14 or 15 years old can show their full profiles -- which can contain a variety of personal information -- only to people on their list of known friends.
However, it is up to users to confirm their ages to the site. MySpace announced Wednesday that it was developing software to allow parents to see if their children were creating multiple profiles -- one to show to their folks, another to show to the rest of the world. Dubbed Zephyr, the parental tools are expected to be available this summer.
In a statement Thursday, Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace, said: "Ultimately, Internet safety is a shared responsibility. We encourage everyone to apply common-sense offline safety lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue about smart Web practices."
But Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is leading a coalition of 34 attorneys general pondering legal action against MySpace, called Zephyr "a shortsighted and ineffective response to a towering danger to kids.
"Children can easily evade the software's purported protections by creating profiles from computers outside the home," Blumenthal said. "This software does nothing to stop predators or protect kids from inappropriate material."
Blumenthal wants MySpace to increase its minimum age to 16 and to require that parents confirm their children's ages. He suggested that the site use "publicly available data" to confirm the ages of older users.
In light of several high-profile cases of predators meeting underage MySpace users online, a number of companies have developed versions of spyware and other tools to help parents monitor their children's online wanderings.
But such tools "are only Band-Aids. They're good tools, but they don't teach safe usage to your children," said Common Sense Media's Perle. And once their children leave the computer screen, she said, "parents need to know where their 14-year-olds are going and who they're meeting."
Itkin said the families he represented were "all diligent parents who are doing the best they can." One parent even equipped her daughter's cell phone with software that would tell the parent when the teen was using it. He did not know if the parents had any monitoring software on their computers.
"But even the most diligent parent can't supervise their child all the time," Itkin said. "These children would have never been lured away from their homes if they hadn't met these predators in the first place."
Rebecca Jeschke, a spokesperson for San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation, said MySpace might have some protection under a section of federal law passed as part of the Communication Decency Act of 1996. According to the law:
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
Still, some of the details revealed in the Los Angeles filings will frighten many parents and further concern the operators of social networking sites.
According to one of the lawsuits, a teen identified as Julie Doe III created a MySpace profile when she was 15. Last year, a 25-year-old adult male MySpace user, a complete stranger to the teen, initiated contact with her. He lured Julie out to a meeting, drugged her and sexually assaulted her.
The Houston Police Department and the FBI located Julie, still heavily drugged, according to the suit, "with multiple X marks carved into the side of her pelvis by a sharp blade, presumably by the 25-year-old MySpace user." She spent seven days in the hospital and has been undergoing psychological counseling. The 25-year-old pleaded guilty to sexual assault and is serving a 10-year sentence in a Texas state prison.
Three of the four girls represented in the lawsuits are back in school, and all have undergone extensive counseling.
Chronicle staff writer Ellen Lee contributed to this report. E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.
