MySpace's four commandments for safety

15-01-2008

by Stephen Errity

Social networking site MySpace has unveiled a new statement on the 'Key Principles of Social Networking Site Safety'.

The document was prepared in collaboration with the Attorneys General of 49 US states, acting as part of the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking. It sets out four 'Principles of Social Networking' intended for industry-wide adoption. The joint statement was announced in New York by Attorneys General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer for News Corporation-owned MySpace.

The first of the four principles concerns 'site design and functionality', examples of which include reviewing every image and video uploaded to the site, making the profiles of 14 and 15 year old users automatically private and protecting them from being contacted by adults that they don't already know in the physical world, and deleting the profiles of registered sex offenders.

The second principle calls for more resources to be devoted to education and safety tools for parents and educators, while the third obligates social networking providers to cooperate completely with law enforcement, with MySpace's 24-hour police hotline being singled out for praise. The fourth principle commits MySpace and the Attorneys General to organising an industry-wide Internet Safety Task Force to develop identity and age verification software tools.

Speaking at the launch, Nigam said: "We thank the Attorneys General for a thoughtful and constructive conversation on internet safety. This is an industry-wide challenge and we must all work together to create a safer internet. The principles we have adopted set forth what the industry needs to strive towards to provide a safer online experience for teens and we look forward to sharing our ongoing safety innovations with other companies."

A representative of the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children will serve on the task force and the organisation's president and chief executive Ernie Allen commented: "MySpace has taken significant steps to be more secure and private and to identify those who attempt to do harm on their site. The collaborative effort between MySpace and the Attorneys General is a major step that will make using social networking sites much safer for teens."

Back in May 2007, under growing pressure to do more to protect underage members, MySpace agreed to give state authorities details about registered sex offenders known to have been users. Originally the News Corp.-owned site refused to turn over the data because law enforcement officials hadn't followed the required legal process.

Last October, MySpace rival Facebook came under pressure from the New York and New Jersey Attorneys General after state investigators posing as 12-14 year old children on the site were solicited for sex. Facebook later handed over the details of suspected sex offenders' profiles to the investigators and agreed to act promptly in any future cases.