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MySpace vows to protect children

But the popular site is vague about how it will guard against predators and bullies.

NEW YORK - MySpace, the world's most popular online hangout, plans to put the cyberspace equivalent of a chaperone at the party and check IDs at the door.

The huge social networking site promised Monday to take steps to protect youngsters from sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to verify users' ages.

Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, MySpace promised to create a task force of industry professionals to watch over its operations, and other social networking sites will be invited to participate.

The deal comes as sites such as MySpace and Facebook have grown exponentially in recent years, with teenagers making up a large part of their membership. This has created a venue for sexual predators who lie about their age to lure young victims and for cyber bullies who send threatening and anonymous messages.

Monday's announcement was short on specifics about how improvements would be carried out. Skeptics are doubtful that MySpace and similar sites can eliminate the problem because age-verification technology is difficult to implement and predators are good at circumventing restrictions.

Parry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org, a children's Internet safety group, said the agreement was a good first step but could have unforeseen consequences.

"There's no system that will work for age verification without putting kids at risk," she said. "Age verification requires that you have a database of kids, and if you do, that database is available to hackers and anyone who can get into it."

Aftab estimates that 20 percent of teens have met someone online that they had not met in person. Numerous examples of sexual abuse arise from MySpace encounters.

"We must take every opportunity to make the Internet a safer place for children, and I encourage other social networking sites to adopt many of the design changes announced by MySpace," Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said in a statement.

On the same day that attorneys general from 49 states, including Florida, announced the MySpace agreement, New York prosecutors announced charges against a couple who allegedly used the site to lure two girls who were younger than 15 to their home. Authorities say the couple plied the pair with alcohol, engaged in group sex with them and took them to a strip club where the girls had to dance on stage.

The only state not joining the agreement was Texas, where the attorney general said he cannot support the effort unless it takes action to verify people's ages.

Under the agreement, profiles for users under age 16 will be set to private so no strangers can get information from their profile; users can block anyone over 18 from contacting them; and people over 18 cannot add anyone under 16 as a friend in their network unless they have their last name or their e-mail address.

MySpace said it was combing through sex offender registries to identify predators, who would then be kicked off the site. But sex offenders are unlikely to open an account under their real names, as are underage children.

MySpace said it is in the process of creating a database where parents can submit children's e-mail addresses to prevent the children from setting up profiles.

[Last modified January 14, 2008, 23:27:03]