Today MySpace and a bunch of attorneys general made a big announcement about how they plan to tame the "Wild West," i.e. the internet and keep kids safe. While I'm a big fan of kids and teens being safe online, I'm interested to see if some of the technical strategies will be effective. Here are the highlights from the press release:

Site Design and Functionality. The Principles incorporate safety initiatives that MySpace has already implemented and initiatives it will work to implement in the coming months. Examples of safety features MySpace has in place include reviewing every image and video uploaded to the site, reviewing the content of Groups, making the profiles of 14 and 15 year old users automatically private and protecting them from being contacted by adults that they don’t already know in the physical world, and deleting registered sex offenders from MySpace. Examples of improvements MySpace will make include defaulting 16 and 17 year old users’ profiles to private and strengthening the technology that enforces the site’s minimum age of 14.

I'm surprised to learn that MySpace reviews every image and video as well as group content -- vs. reacting when something is flagged. I wonder if it's automated, human or both. Update: from the follow up email: All hosted images and videos are reviewed for compliance with Terms of Use (this includes over 7 million new images and videos uploaded everyday).

The move to default 16 and 17-year-old profiles to private feels extreme to me -- can they change this default? I feel like older teens should have the option to create a public profile on MySpace to showcase their music or other creations. As one of the AGs said during the press conference, "You wouldn't let your children drive a car..." but 16-year-olds can drive, and they should be able to have a public profile. Update: I'm told all teens can override this option and make their profiles public, though I wonder how many know they can go in and change this setting... I don't know why I thought 14 and 15-year olds couldn't override this (my bad!). This is still could be really bad for the widget/layout space.

The follow up email they sent also mentions that "adults can never add under 16’s as a friend unless they know the under 16’s last name or email address (adult must know the user in the physical world)." This means 14 and 15-year olds can no longer be friends of YA authors, celebrities or musicians...(Update: see Tommy's point in response to this in the comments).

Supposedly, MySpace is scanning key words to discover underage users and delete them from the service, but what about all of the teens, which is a lot of them, who list their age as 99?

Education and Tools for Parents, Educators and Children. The Principles acknowledge that MySpace has already been devoting meaningful resources to Internet safety education including a new online safety public service announcement targeted at parents and free parental software that is under development. MySpace will explore the establishment of a children’s email registry that will empower parents to prevent their children from having access to MySpace or any other social networking site. In addition, under the Principles MySpace will increase its communications with consumers who report a complaint about inappropriate content or activity on the site.

Increased education is great as along as it's not predator-focused and fear-based. And better customer service is always a good thing. The children's email registry? Um...how easy is it to create another email address? This seems symbolic more than anything else.

Law Enforcement Cooperation. The Attorneys General view MySpace’s cooperation with law enforcement, which includes a 24-hour hotline, to be a model for the industry. The parties will continue to work together to enhance the ability of law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute Internet crimes.

Great.

Online Safety Task Force. As part of the Principles, MySpace will organize, with the support of the Attorneys General, an industry-wide Internet Safety Technical Task Force to develop online safety tools, including a review of identity authentication tools. While existing age verification and identity products are not an effective safety tool for social networking sites, the Task Force will explore all new technologies that can help make users more safe and secure including age verification. The Task Force will include Internet businesses, identity authentication experts, non-profit organizations, academics and technology companies.

I'm curious to see what they come up with. Most age verification tends to be cumbersome and clunky. Will they ask all existing users to verify as well? If it becomes too hard to sign up on MySpace or Facebook, the next generation of teens may seek out another "place for friends" -- oh wait, they have already, it's called Facebook!

P.S. I was sent a list showing what MySpace has done and plans to do compared with other large social networking sites -- I can't print the list because it was sent "on background," but it did clearly show that MySpace is doing the most in terms of safety. They're also the biggest site and have taken the most heat on these issues, though Facebook has also recently been on these AGs' radar.

P.P.S. See the AP story -- it mentions the creation of a "high school" section as well.

One more interesting tidbit: danah boyd mentioned that MySpace now caps the age you can fill out at 68 so all those 99-year-old teens I still see are "legacy" profiles -- they've been warned, but they haven't been deleted. She says, many of the teens she has interviewed are tweaking their age in the +10 years to -4 years range.

Posted by anastasia