MySpace Reaches Safety Agreement

I've read the details of MySpace's agreement with a group of attorneys general to work together to make the social networking site safer for teens. But I can't seem to ferret the big, big changes that will make the social network safer than the safety measures already in place on the popular site.

The big news is that MySpace and 49 attorneys general agreed on ways to make the site safer for kids, averting threatened legal action. Texas' attorney general is the holdout, saying that without agreeing to put an age-verification system in place, he could not support the agreement. The only problem with a true age-verification system is it requires a database of children's names and ages, private info most parents don't want in a database that could be hacked or abused.

So what did come out of the agreement? 

•  A task force of industry professionals will be created to come up with new ways to ensure members' safety, and other social networks including Facebook will be invited to participate.

• Profiles for users under the age of 16 will be automatically set to private so they cannot be viewed by strangers. Already, members can block anyone over age 18 from contacting them; and members over 18 cannot add anyone under age 16 as a friend unless they know their last name or email address.

• Faster response to complaints. MySpace will respond within 72 hours to inappropriate content and devote more staff and resources to finding it.

• Create a high school area for kids under age 18.

• Strengthen software to find underage users.

• The weakest change -- Allowing parents to submit email addresses of underage kids to prevent them from using them to set up accounts. Sorry, but kids know how to set up email addresses that parents don't know about.

On the face of it, the agreement doesn't appear to bring about too many changes. But too many changes could risk the appeal of a social network to kids who use it wisely now.

For more info, check out Anne Collier's astute take on the agreement on NetFamilyNews, and the AP link below. 

LINK: MySpace agrees to new safety measures [AP via Yahoo! News]