April 11, 2006

Good news, MySpace will have a new "Child Safety Czar" in May. Mr. Hemanshu Nigam, currently the director of Consumer Security Outreach & Child Safe Computing at Microsoft will head up safety, education, privacy and such for News Corp. web properties - including MySpace.

He has more than 15 years (one might say he's a seasoned executive) experience in online safety, serving as an advisor on cyberstalking and online child safety to Congress and the White House.

This is one of a series of measures MySpace has implemented to protect their young users.  Apparently, it claims to have deleted more than 200,000 profiles of underage kids (you have to be at least 14 to get your own account - and if you're under 16, you can only see your friends' profiles) since inception. 

And there has been plenty of coverage this week about their big online safety program of public service banner ads, in conjunction with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Advertising Council. 

Meanwhile, they continue to add 250,000 new users every day. 

Have you asked to see your kid's MySpace profile yet?

Posted by at April 11, 2006

Comments

Alex email - www.welt-blick.de

Thats really good news. You cant protect them above all, but I think its a good change...

sherri email - bumpesc.prblogs.org

Wow, I think that’s great that My Space is having this “Child Safety Czar.” Although I’m involved in a social network similar to this, facebook, I think these networks are getting outrageous. Young children are definitely at risk at being “cyberstalked.” (By the way, I like that term.) At a certain age, teenagers are just naïve and ignorant about certain situations that they may not be aware of. There should definitely be an age limit for membership on these networks. Higher than age 14, I would suggest. My cousin who’s in high school completely shocked me when I viewed her profile. The type of language she was using surprised me. She was just asking to be sexually harassed. Kids of that age have no business on these networks. And if they’re going to be, then their definitely needs to be some form of child safety awareness. It’s so easy to stalk someone on these networks. One feature facebook just added is “status.” You can tell people where you are and what you’re doing and facebook will not only let them know, but it’ll also tell them what time you wrote it. I can just see someone saying for instance, “Sherri’s status was updated 5 minutes ago saying she’s at the library, I wonder if I hurry, I could probably find her up there.” Now tell me that’s not creepy. So good jog My Space, if there’s not going to be a decent age limit, at least educate people on the seriousness of “cyberstalking.”

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