i want to know how they are going to control myspace by its younger and older viewers...?

Question

power to set your own age, its seems unlogical to me.

Answer 1

I think that myspace is no more dangerous than any other website. People who meet people off the internet know the dangers and they do it anyway. When joining myspace kids lie and say they are 18 so maybe parents should limit there childrens access to the net or be parents and know where there kids are and what they are doing.

Answer 2

MySpace plans new age restrictions

NEW YORK - MySpace.com is planning new restrictions on how adults may contact its younger users in response to growing concerns about the safety of teenagers who frequent the popular online social networking site.
ADVERTISEMENT

The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old unless the person viewing the profile is already on the teen's list of friends.

Under the changes, announced Wednesday and taking effect next week, MySpace users who are 18 or over could no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old's friends' list unless they already know either the youth's e-mail address or full name.

Any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other attributes, such as display name. The difference is that currently, adults can then request to be added to a youth's list to view the full profile; that option will disappear for adults registered as 18 and over.

However, users under 18 can still make such contact, and MySpace has no mechanism for verifying that users submit their true age when registering. That means adults can sign up as teens and request to join a 14-year-old's list of friends, which would enable the full profiles.

"There is far less than meets the eye in these newly announced MySpace measures," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. "These steps are inadequate because they lack any age verification and leave the minimum age too low."

The partial profiles display gender, age and city. Full profiles describe hobbies, schools and any other personal details a user may provide.

Driven largely by word of mouth, MySpace has grown astronomically since its launch in January 2004 and is now second in the United States among all Web sites by total page views, behind only Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), according to comScore Media Metrix. The site currently has some 87 million users, about a quarter registered as minors, according to the company.

At MySpace, which was bought last year by News Corp. for $580 million, users can expand their circles of friends by exploiting existing connections, rather than meeting randomly or by keyword matches alone.

It offers a mix of features — message boards, games, Web journals — designed to keep its youth-oriented visitors clicking on its advertising-supported pages.

MySpace has recently become a target of parents, schools and law enforcement officials concerned that teens who hang out at MySpace can fall victim to sexual predators.

Just this week, a 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. And earlier this month, a 16-year-old girl who tricked her parents into getting her a passport flew to the Mideast to be with a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace. U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home.

MySpace officials say the new restrictions have been long planned and are unrelated to recent events.

Besides the contact restrictions, all users — not just those 14 and 15 — will have the option to make only partial profiles available to those not already on their friends list.

All users also will get an option to prevent contact from people outside their age group. Currently, they may only choose to require that a person know their e-mail or last name first; that will remain an option to those 16 and over, even as it becomes mandatory for those younger.

MySpace also will beef up its ad-targeting technology, so that it can avoid displaying gambling and other adult-themed sites on minors' profile pages and target special public-service announcements to them.

The changes follow a number of safety-related measures that includes the hiring of a former federal prosecutor and Microsoft Corp. executive as its online safety chief. MySpace already has developed safety tips for parents and children and devotes scores of employees to monitoring the site around the clock.

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
news.yahoo.com

Answer 3

I think the whole idea of MySpace is dangerous in itself. They will never be able to protect kids on that site, no matter what they try to do.

Answer 4

They aren't. I said it before, The kids are going to lie to get to the older rooms and the old men are going to lie to get in the kids room. My Space is dangerous and the reason my teenager is not allowed on.

Answer 5

How else is it going to know your age?