MySpace, Again: Bang Head, Repeat Step 1

MySpace Finds 29,000 Sex Offenders July 25, 2007 - 4:32am By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press Writer RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the popular social networking Web site _ more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago, officials in two states Tuesday. (WTOP)

This is not the first time I have written about MySpace and I am sure it will not be the last. So there are sex offenders on MySpace. So what? This is an issue how? Other than getting some press by spreading more FUD around, AG Cooper really does not have a point that I can see. AG Blumenthal may be "astonished and appalled," but again, so what?

There were sex offenders on the Internet long before MySpace and they will be there long after MySpace is a distant memory. If you are concerned (and as a parent you should be) then you need to be monitoring your child's Internet usage. Just like you monitor the phone calls, their TV viewing and who their friends are. Nothing has changed. To expect MySpace or the government to act as nanny or gatekeeper to keep them from harm is an unfulfillable dream.

What these AGs should be doing is reinforcing the lessons that were taught by our parents and their parents before them. You do not talk to strangers and you do not trust what you read on the Internet, especially on something like MySpace. I have talked about the futility of laws preventing children from creating these sorts of sites. If they do not create them on MySpace or where ever, then they will do it on their own personal web site, something that most 10 year-olds with a copy of HTML for Dummies can do without a lot of effort.

Cooper's argument "All we're doing is giving parents the right to make a choice whether their children can go online" does not hold any water. Parents already have that right. It is called the right of parenthood and comes with the ability to turn the computer OFF for as long as needed. No right to appeal. No need for more government red tape. And certainly, no extra work for the engineers at MySpace and other organizations who have enough real work to keep them busy.