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“McGruff” Invades Blogosphere
MySpace has apparently had enough media bashing and negative attention of late and has decided to hire in a security expert to help allay fears that it’s online blogging service has become a safe-haven for predators and pedophiles. Hemanshu Nigam, who is currently serving as the director for Microsoft’s consumer-security outreach and child-safe computing strategies will become their new “crime dog” as of May 1. The announcement came the day after MySpace began running public-service ads warning bloggers on their service about the many dangers posed by sexual predators on the ‘net. It remains to be seen how well the millions of users will take to being watched over with closer scrutiny than ever before.
I can’t help but wonder whether there will be even more controversy involved in this decision by MySpace to put a “watchdog” on their team. Even though a blog is in full public view to be read by anyone that wishes, many people choose to stay semi or completely anonymous by using pen or nicknames only. I wonder whether invasion of privacy issues will come into play in this situation. Too soon to tell!
Will it be “high noon” with blazing guns for predators? I say hangings too good for ‘em!
Technorati tags: MySpace, sexual predators, McGruff, pedophiles, blogging, privacy,
April 12th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Yeppers, gonna be interesting. The thing that either Myspace has “spaced” or has been placed in a position of having to change, is the very nature of what made this site a quarter million new subscriber a day site….their “tolerance” “lenience” or whatever else you wanna characterize it as, that so attracts our youth. I’ve weighed in a bit on this issue, but somehow don’t really think it’s 100% up to Myspace to take responsibility for all the freaks out there. Yeah they’re culpable to some extent, but only insofar as they deviate terribly from the norm….hence the hiring….I see a major decrease in Myspace popularity if significant changes come. Although I’m seeing all sorts of media/marketing types talk about all the things you can do with Myspace, I still believe it is primarily a kid site, and whereas the spending power of these kids has greatly improved through the years, I think major security/privacy changes will slow this beast’s growth…But as you say….I guess we shall see!!!
Tom