Webwork - 7:09 pm on Jan 19, 2007 (gmt 0)

Lawyer bait, eh iBILL? How about a little programmer bait? :-P

iBILL, you're a smart and experienced guy and programmer. Can you think of any measures MySpace might have employed to either detect or reduce the risk of predatory behavior by adults or dangerous behavior by minors?

iBILL, do you think that MySpace is aware that a place like TheirSpace must be a magnet for pedophiles, sexual predators, for sexual opportunists? You're a smart programmer. Can you conceive of some systematic changes that might detect, thwart, deter, . whatever . . sexual liaison activity involving minors and adults?

Anything at all? If not then I wonder if MySpace is equally helpless?

iBILL, pointing to the lawyer in me disregards everything else that matters, such as the hope that MySpace works as hard as I do - even harder in the realm of their expertise (online social networking and technology) - to protect children whilst allowing them a measure of freedom so necessary to maturation.

You're waaay smarter and, I daresay based on having raised a few glasses of beer with you, more human than the reductionist comment suggests. Despire your otherwise cranky exterior I don't believe for a moment that your comment to the effect that "it's all about the lawyer's greed" is where you see the debate ending. That would suggest that you don't have a mind that works overtime trying to see how to programatically thwart or reduce all manner of bad online behavior.

Say it ain't so, iBILL! Say your mind already is writing the outlines of programming routines to detect the nasty stuff of social networking! IF 'sexually provactive words or sex code' THEN 'send alert-warning about the risks of anonymnity' AND IF . . . Automate it, right? Maybe have a routine that sends an email to parents every time there's a login and . . .? C'mon fella, you telling me there's nothing to be done?

Unless, of course, you don't really enjoy a challenge to your programming skills, and you're not quite the programmer that I've made you out to be, as someone who programs systems that detect and thwart bad behavior. ;-P

And, yes, I know that there's other issues, such as privacy involved here.

[edited by: Webwork at 7:22 pm (utc) on Jan. 19, 2007]