“Many of our safety features are built around age and it’s important that people honestly reflect their accurate age while on our site,” Nigam said in a statement.

Hahahahahahaha!

I have a friend, who is finally doing well again financially, after taking a severe hit during the dotcom bust. He fixes people’s computers, and helps with both software and hardware problems. He jokes with me that “so long as people are lazy and stupid” he’ll make money. Sadly, I think he’ll be a rich man before he has to find another line of work.

As the article notes, MySpace is one of lots of “social networking sites.” I can’t stand MySpace myself, between the shitty format and the inanities of the posters there, it’s clear that place is best for pedophiles and teens looking for the next big ringtone. But if I had a teen, you can be sure I’d be checking out her MySpace account, daily. As my mother used to tell me, “I’m the grownup and you’re the teen, and you don’t have “privacy” in my home.”

I’m not a computer expert, but I can think of a couple of ways to keep a lid on youthful computer indiscretions. Parents can check cookies, “histories” on browsers, and install monitoring software that keeps track of everything that comes to a computer via the Tubes. Is this time consuming? Well, of course. Parenting always is. If you can’t make the time, you need to rethink your priorities. Kids are like early campaign money: the more you invest at the early stages, the more impact that investment has in the long run.

This is a throwaway post, but it still pisses me off, because this 1) isn’t going to work and 2) is a stepping stone for draconian legislative bullshit to censor the Internet. The suits at MySpace are going to market this to parents, who are too ignorant of the internets to understand what a useless “feature” it really is. Some white teen girl with an email account will go missing, and Hillary will join forces with McConnell, and amend the video game bill and make blogs illegal. All because our leaders and many boomers are too lazy to learn about new technology.

Look, I’m an idiot when it comes to machines. Cars, bread makers, computers- they all confound me. Yet somehow, I’ve managed to avoid sending the contents of my bank account to Nigeria, and picked up hot, adult women on dating sites without giving my sensitive private information to stalkers. It can be done. If you’re too lazy to learn how the computer works, don’t buy one for your teen.
I also remember being a teen. The #1 thing I remember about that phase: I lied a lot to adults. Any parent who trusts in technology dependent upon the truthfulness of teens deserves the major headaches such foolishness will bear.

Update: Just to be annoying, I’ll link to this disturbing report about why the TV is no better. Quoth this piece, “Today, says the study, the average American kid sees over 1,000 acts of murder, rape and assault on TV each year.” No wonder there was so little public reaction to Abu Ghraib.

Update: The Chinese are dealing with the problem in their own, special way.