Typical that the National Center for Made up and Exaggerated Statistics (NCMEC) is involved in working with MySpace on safety issues.Kids and predators can still lie about age to get around new MySpace rules.
Claiming to be 14, Marissa Marlowe used a false identity to log onto the popular Internet social networking site, MySpace.com.
Truth is, she’s only 12.“Everyone had one so I wanted to be on,” she said. “And you can’t have one unless you’re 14, so I put I was 14.”
MySpace.com has added safety features to attempt shielding children against predators. One feature blocks those over 18 from being “friends” with a 14 or 15-year-old unless an e-mail address or first and last name has been provided.
Typical because as with most things the NCMEC does, it is only interested in getting publicity for acting like they are going to do something. They already get more than 40 million per year, but publicity gets them even more money while organizations that really search for missing and abducted children get nothing.
As long as you hear NCMEC associated with safety features at MySpace, there won’t really be any improvement, but there will be a lot of publicity.
Age requirements mean absolutely nothing when they do not ask for proof of age and even then it doesn’t really mean anything.
Here is why;
With no one asking for proof of age, then both the kids and the predators will lie about their age, so that age requirement is totally useless.
Even if they required proof of age, kids would get someone older than them to create a MySpace account for them. There would even be websites that offer to do it for the kids.
The predators would do the same thing. They would talk someone younger into creating the account for them. And those websites that offer to set up accounts for the kids would also help the predators set one up.
People sell MySpace accounts on Ebay if they have a large number of friends added to the blog. Spammers buy the accounts to spam the kids with email. What keeps predators from buying these accounts?
The NCMEC knows even less about Internet Safety than they do about finding missing children and that isn’t very much. As long as your child’s safety is in the hands of MySpace and the NCMEC, you will need to take your child’s safety into your own hands.
Kidsearch Network Website
Runaway Teens
Make a Donation to Kidsearch
Missing Children Blog
Quoted story source: BocaRatonNews.com
