BBC NEWS — July 31 — Many schools have already banned social network sites. The Deleting Online Predators Act tries to limit the access paedophiles have to social networking sites primarily at schools and libraries. The act has already been approved by a large majority in the House of Representatives on 26 July. Critics say the act is too broad and could mean a huge number of websites are cut off from users. MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Friendster and many others count large numbers of children among their users. The DOPA Act leaves the final definition of what counts as a social networking site to the FCC. Some MySpace users have created an online 'Save your Space' petition and aims to gather more than one million signatures in a month. FULL ARTICLE @ BBC NEWS
Mark Brooks: Too little, too late. MySpace has been laying low on this subject. Looks like the 'head in the sand' approach didn't work. Constant press attention has morphed into political attention and now into legislation that looks like it will pass. I was surprised the new MySpace Chief Safety Officer didn't show up at the recent San Francisco Internet Dating Convention that was focused on background checks and safety. This bill is getting ramrodded through to the Senate and is a political hot potato. Child safety…who's going to vote against that? What repercussions will the rest of the online personals industry need to deal with in the coming years? Online personals safety is now front forward and on the minds of a lot of politicians. I can see this political attention manifesting. The State Attorney Generals will be on the prowl next. DOPA will be useful only in the short term (3-5 years). Kids use cell phones. Cell phones have internet access. Will cell phones be blocked next? Hey, check out helio.com for MySpace enabled sexy cell phones. MySpace has already circumnavigated school and library computers. FULL TEXT OF BILL
Mark, you are 100% correct here. The bill passed by a vote in the house of 410-15. The last time I saw a vote like that was the Patriot Act in response to Sept 11, 2001. This bill will most likely pass the Senate. Its name alone “Online Predator” in an election year will force Senators to vote in favor of protecting families and children.
Once this bill passes, the FTC will most likely look at the MySpace model and define that as social networking. Then MySpace will be forced to comply with the legislation.
Then, based on my experience, the nasty stuff would start. State Attorney Generals will start looking at MySpace’s activity in their State. All it takes is one online predator in their state and …. blammo… the State would file both criminal and civil suits against MySpace. The company would have to pay $Millions to the state just to settle.
And once ONE State Attorney General takes action, and the state gets revenue as a result from settling the case……you can bet many other AG’s in other states will most likely follow.
Correct Mark. The “Head in the Sand” approach to PR was clearly nowhere’s near the best tactic. Over the next few months, this will go down as a textbook case of what not to do in PR: Ignoring the topic.
This could have been ‘nipped in the butt’ a long time ago. The first reports about this came out the first week of February 2006. By March, it was on the news almost daily.
The tactic MySpace should have taken was:
(1) Announce that they eschew such activity.
(2) Announce that they have now a full time staff of employees producing and monitoring ‘fake profiles’ of children and will report child predators to local law enforcement. (Law enforcement officers do this all the time and it works in fiding the bad guys).
(3) Announce that they support freedom of speech and expression. The above would keep the companies principle while showing a moral right.
(4) Several weeks later, report that the number of predators has been reduced/removed from the site, as the program would work.
At this time, the above may be FAR too late for MySpace. They are now a target. And the Bill before the Senate, while not mentioning their name, implies just that.
Marc Lesnick
Conference Organizer
Internet Dating Conference