Jack Bauer Saves Kids From MySpace

“Chloe! Get me through to myspace.com-slash-blinggurl14! STAT!”

Fox Corp pulls its best spokesman to try to educate parents and kids about “online street smarts.” Which really means MySpace.

From CNET here:

Fox Interactive Media announced on Thursday a multimedia campaign to help kids and parents improve their online street smarts.

Kiefer Sutherland, who plays government agent Jack Bauer on Fox’s popular “24” TV thriller will be featured in a public-service announcement that will play on Fox-owned television networks, both national and regional, as well as online Fox properties such as game-centric IGN Entertainment and its Rotten Tomatoes film reviews site.

Accompanying the public-service announcement will be an “Internet Survival Guide for Parents” published by Common Sense. The nonprofit organization specializes in family-oriented reviews of movies, TV, games and Web sites.

Fox’s sponsorship of the Internet safety campaign may help boost News Corp.’s standing among politicians and parents. Its MySpace.com social-networking site, which was measured by tracking firm Hitwise last week as the single most visited U.S. Web site, has recently come under fire for facilitating interactions between minors and sexual predators–not to mention for providing a stage for “cyberbullies.”

I am all for raising awareness, but this is a public image stunt more than any real effort to police MySpace of pretatory people.