MySpace Deletes 200k “Objectionable” Profiles
It seems that MySpace is responding to parental and safety concerns regarding hate and predatory speech on MySpace pages. They deleted 200k profiles. I think its a good start. They could delete about 800k more based on style choices and html coding skills.
From Financial Times here, with a nod to Drudge for the pointer.
MySpaceMySpace.com, the fast-growing community website hugely popular with American teens, has removed 200,000 objectionable profiles from its site as it steps up efforts to calm fears about the safety of the network for young users.
Ross Levinsohn, head of News Corp s internet division, said some of the material taken down contained hate speech . Some of it, he said, was too risqu .
It s a problem that s endemic to the internet not just MySpace, Mr Levinsohn said. The site, in the last two months, I think has become safer.
Advertisers have to feel confident their reputation will not be tainted by inappropriate content. Teachers and parents are concerned that, because information on MySpace is publicly available, it might put teenagers in contact with predatory adults. In terms of retaining its appeal, Mr Chernin said users had to keep feeling the site was theirs. We don t want to change the fundamental look and feel of the site, he said. We do not want users?to have any sense that it is corporatised.
I would be interested to see the criteria they chose to remove the profiles. This move will certainly have reverberations among the myspace community, and the persons removed will likely end up moving to a competitive journal. Some users, angry about this action to censor people, will also move to another site.
I bid them one and all adieu.
I was 1 of the 200k deleted from myspace , and I was really concerned to why i was deleted and for what purpose i was deleted for . Since I am not a adult preditor or even under the age of 16 . I think the person or people who were doing the choosing of deleted accounts were not really looking at the things and real reason why to delete a person . Even though there are about 10,000 under the age of 16 still on myspace on .
Hey Arthur, welcome to the blog.
MySpace is absolutely doing things in a whimsical, haphazard fashion. There are lots of things MySpace could do, and correctly too, to prevent objectionable pages. They could even have a flagging system so people can put profiles into a penalty box of sorts to be reviewed by Myspace staff.
But they dont spend the money for the staff to do that, so its all MySpace’s fault. The next social site that comes out that has real staff overview to ensure safety will be much bigger than MySpace.