![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chibi_trillianThis pisses me off.
No, I'm not happy that your kids got sexually assaulted by creeps they met on MySpace. No, I'm not saying it's right or condoning online sexual predation in any manner. No, I'm not defending MySpace--personally, I hate the goddamn site. All I'm saying, Parents With Lawyers, is: WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?
That's right, I asked it. Where the fuck were you guys when your FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD was meeting with some random guy she met online completely unsupervised? Where were you when your fifteen-year-old daughter was sending these creeps her picture and address and phone number and school? Where were you? When did you give your kids the "Internet Safety" talk? My parents gave me one in 1997 when I was fourteen and what it covers hasn't really changed substantially since. You want to know what "web filter" my parents used? They put the computer in the living room with the monitor pointed so they could see it if they randomly walked by. And they randomly walked by A LOT.
Last June, the mother of a 14-year-old who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. That lawsuit, filed in a Texas state court, claims the 19-year-old lied about being a senior in high school to gain her trust and phone number.
So it would have been okay for your daughter to meet with him alone if he actually was eighteen? O_o
Camwhoring's an active phenomenon, mom and dad. Your daughter (or son) may be sending strangers pictures of her (or his) body in exchange for items, paid account time, perks, money, or just some attention. It takes effort, planning, unsupervised time, an unsupervised computer, an unsupervised camera, and there are several steps along the way during which your sprog could decide that maybe responding to "TITS OR GTFO" with "TITS!" is a bad idea. Your kids are the ones who made that choice. And you made the choice not to supervise them, to let the internet be your babysitter because it's someone else's responsibility to make sure your kids don't do dumb things that could get them hurt. Not yours. The only responsibility you have is to sue someone afterwards. After all, there's no way to say "I love you" like hiring a lawyer and hitting a company for everything they've got.
I hope these cases get thrown out of court. I really do. They won't, though. They'll go to court, the parents will win, and MySpace will turn into an eighteen-and-over site with age verification. And your fourteen-year-old will find somewhere else to go play with matches, and it'll happen all over again.
No, I'm not happy that your kids got sexually assaulted by creeps they met on MySpace. No, I'm not saying it's right or condoning online sexual predation in any manner. No, I'm not defending MySpace--personally, I hate the goddamn site. All I'm saying, Parents With Lawyers, is: WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?
That's right, I asked it. Where the fuck were you guys when your FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD was meeting with some random guy she met online completely unsupervised? Where were you when your fifteen-year-old daughter was sending these creeps her picture and address and phone number and school? Where were you? When did you give your kids the "Internet Safety" talk? My parents gave me one in 1997 when I was fourteen and what it covers hasn't really changed substantially since. You want to know what "web filter" my parents used? They put the computer in the living room with the monitor pointed so they could see it if they randomly walked by. And they randomly walked by A LOT.
Last June, the mother of a 14-year-old who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. That lawsuit, filed in a Texas state court, claims the 19-year-old lied about being a senior in high school to gain her trust and phone number.
So it would have been okay for your daughter to meet with him alone if he actually was eighteen? O_o
Camwhoring's an active phenomenon, mom and dad. Your daughter (or son) may be sending strangers pictures of her (or his) body in exchange for items, paid account time, perks, money, or just some attention. It takes effort, planning, unsupervised time, an unsupervised computer, an unsupervised camera, and there are several steps along the way during which your sprog could decide that maybe responding to "TITS OR GTFO" with "TITS!" is a bad idea. Your kids are the ones who made that choice. And you made the choice not to supervise them, to let the internet be your babysitter because it's someone else's responsibility to make sure your kids don't do dumb things that could get them hurt. Not yours. The only responsibility you have is to sue someone afterwards. After all, there's no way to say "I love you" like hiring a lawyer and hitting a company for everything they've got.
I hope these cases get thrown out of court. I really do. They won't, though. They'll go to court, the parents will win, and MySpace will turn into an eighteen-and-over site with age verification. And your fourteen-year-old will find somewhere else to go play with matches, and it'll happen all over again.
