Social Networking Law Would Be Worthless

If we can put a man on the moon, we can verify age on the Internet." These are the words of Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. A proposed law recently introduced to the Connecticut General Assembly would require Internet social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to verify users' ages and obtain parental permission before allowing minors to post profiles. Although about a dozen states are currently considering laws like this, Connecticut is the first state to actually draft such a law and submit it for review and concern over this matter is understandable. No fewer than six alleged assaults took place between older men and young girls who had been contacted on MySpace in Connecticut last year. Unsurprisingly, we are hearing the battle cries of "Protect the children!" once again.

Under this law, Web sites might be required to cross-check personal information against existing public records to make sure that names, addresses and birth dates match. Parents might need to be contacted directly by a representative from the Web site if necessary to verify permission. Blumenthal suggested that obtaining parental permission might consist of printing out a form to fill out and mail to the site's office, but other than that, had few suggestions as to how web sites like MySpace could comply with the law. The intent of the proposed law is crystal clear - to protect children from predators on the Internet, particularly on MySpace. That's about it, though. The law suggests no specific ways of verifying parental permission and is unclear about how sites can ensure that minors don't simply fake permission. According to Blumenthal, those matters would be left up to MySpace and its ilk. In other words, legislators want to create a law applying specifically to social networking sites, give these Web sites few, if any, guidelines for how they can best comply with the law and then fine them $5,000 a day for every day that they do not comply.

Normally, age can be verified online with a credit card. MySpace could even require a driver's license number as well to verify a user's age. There are several problems with that, though. First of all, complying with such a law would essentially require that MySpace suspend all user accounts until a credit card number is entered. Secondly, a minor could always borrow his or her parents' credit card under other pretenses or even swipe it when no one is watching and use the number to fake parental permission or age. Finally, entering such information to verify identity on a Web site like MySpace would exponentially increase the risk of identity theft. If you have a MySpace account, you're probably well aware of the increased number of phishing attacks, or "MySpace viruses," going around lately. It is no stretch of the imagination to presume that putting credit card information on MySpace will lead to more identity theft and thus more useless, annoying and unenforceable legislation to deal with the new problem.

Children and young teens' safety on the Internet is an important matter but the state of Connecticut is approaching it in entirely the wrong fashion. The proposed law is vague, generally unmanageable and offers the Web sites that it applies to extremely few guidelines for effective compliance. MySpace has already taken steps to help protect its users less than 18 years of age. One new change requires that users over the age of 18 know the e-mail address or full name of a minor before they may befriend that user or view his or her profile. Additionally, virtually every Internet service provider today has parental control options available. Parents who don't want their child to get onto MySpace can always block the Web site. If all else fails, parents could even try talking to their children about the matter.

I know, I know. Why should parents be bothered to communicate with their offspring about Internet safety when they can instead simply pester their representatives to pass a law about it? That mindset, in my opinion, is one of the biggest problems with this entire matter. People want Web sites like MySpace to be held accountable for their children's safety when in reality, that responsibility lies with the parents who birthed and reared those children. MySpace doesn't force children and young teenagers to create accounts, and MySpace is not the one setting up meetings between predators and their potential prey. A young teen who finds nothing wrong with meeting a stranger from the Internet in real life did not develop that attitude from MySpace.

Ultimately, this really does all come back to that one little lesson we all should have learned when we were much younger - "Don't talk to strangers." The Internet is really not much different from real life in this regard, but I suspect that the lack of face-to-face contact helps people to let their guard down when they really shouldn't. I'll agree with Blumenthal that something must be done to help protect children and teens from Internet predators, but passing more unenforceable legislation is rarely the best solution to any problem. It's like slapping a band-aid on a gaping wound that needs stitches, and it's putting the onus for children's safety on the wrong people, on web sites instead of their parents. Those who want a solution that is a bit more than simply teaching children common sense might consider pressing middle schools to offer short Internet safety classes, just as they sometimes offer sex-ed classes. Hopefully, they won't be approached in the same manner as sex ed classes - "If you log onto MySpace, you will be raped in real life!" - but at any rate, it's at least a better solution than another annoying and useless law.

Weekly Columnist Laura Alix is an 8th-semester political science major. Her column regularly appears on Mondays.