You’ve probably seen the news: MySpace has reached an agreement with 49 states to take steps to make their site a safer place for kids. I just have one quick comment.

I think the state governments are attacking this from completely the wrong angle. Governments can put all the pressure they want on MySpace, and as soon as MySpace has adequate controls and age verification, the kids will have moved elsewhere.

Now don’t get me wrong, MySpace certainly has an obligation to do what they can. I’m glad to see them cooperating, especially because they only have a PR incentive to do so. They actually have a disincentive from a business perspective.

The advertisers go to MySpace to reach kids of all ages, so MySpace needs to continue to make it easy for the kids to sign up. But you lose your street cred with the kids when you let the parents in.

Providing parents the controls they want while also giving advertisers the access they demand are objectives that are fundamentally at odds with each other.

Instead the states should have worked to bring MySpace, Facebook and others into the schools to create curriculum designed to teach kids how to use the Internet safely. Security in every domain of life, physical and digital, is about training, training and more training. How to use the Internet safely is a subject that needs to be taught in our public school systems at the same time that our kids learn how to use computers.

We teach our kids from an early age how to stay physically safe. We tell them not to talk to strangers. The Internet isn’t actually any different, it’s just that you have to use different tools to identify who’s a stranger.

Government needs to get private enterprises like Facebook and MySpace involved in funding and supporting these subjects in our schools.

As for the specific steps taken — they’re really just fluff. Email addresses are disposable commodities; the turn around time for abuse complaints should be 2 hours, not 72 hours (3 days, are you kidding??!?); “strengthening software to find underage users” is a pretty vague statement.

As an aside, I’d like to know who the technical advisors are to these Attorneys General. I don’t think Bruce Schneier would consider this to be an adequate agreement. Maybe that’s why the Attorney General of Texas opted-out?

Tags: internet safety, kids, myspace

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.