Ampers & Dot

With the plethora of news on social networking recently, it’s pretty fair to say that it has truly become part of mainstream society. No longer just for IRC junkies looking to discuss last week’s Battlestar Galactica (although I’m sure there’s a channel for that), or hackers in their mom’s basement sharing conspiracy theories, (actually, you don’t even really need to be computer literate any more…) social networking is for everyone.

Let’s actually take this a few steps further. Facebook, which I was introduced to the spring of ‘05 and takes its name from the directories of students given to college freshman, is no longer just for college students; MySpace, usually known for its shadiness, is now a strong focus of some political campaigns; and during this time, LinkedIn, generally known for being the most “professional” of the social networks, is doing everything it can to keep up with the less-than professional networks.

Everyone is social networking now: from kids to parents, students to grandparents. They’re all out there.

And that’s the probem: growing popularity only means growing risk. Sure, there were a lot of people who got away (or didn’t) with terrible and illegal activity on the early days of MySpace, mainly because no one was watching. But now there is such a large web out there that predators (not just the type that Chris Hansen catches) are flocking to social networks in search of new pray. As much as “authorities” are trying to monitor what’s going on online, there is only such a finite amount that can be done at this p0int.

Let’s site some examples I found around the web during the last few weeks.

• Facebook found (and subsequently fixed) a gaping security hole opening up account settings
• Facebook’s  development API  was  utilized to create the social network’s first Malware (that actually took a month longer than I would have guessed)
• CrimeinCharlotte.com, a well titled site, collected images off of local teens’ MySpace pages which depict gangs or illegal activities. Seriously, are people that stupid?
• If you haven’t heard of the Megan Meier saga, read about it here.  It’s sad and disturbing- and shows how MySpace can be horribly exploited (though I still completely side that myspace did nothing wrong and this mom should be in Jail for doing that to a 13 year old girl)

Well here’s where this rant takes strange twist, which is actually the point to this entire post: MySpace is actually the responsible one in this story.

Today, MySpace announced that they will be spearheading a new “industry wide internet safety technical taskforce”, aimed at making it safer for people of all ages (primarily minors) to engage in the participatory web.

This taskforce is targeting age-verification, alternate social media sites to deter minors from the masses, stronger parental involvement, and better education on online risks and avoidance.

TechCrunch has a great piece on what this taskforce will mean to the other networks beyond MySpace.  And you know what: I’m impressed.

This needed to happen.  As funny as Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” is, you have to remember that for each online sexual predator they catch, there are probably a dozen they didn’t.  That’s just scary.

Although I’m obviously skeptical of where this will go and what will truly come of it, someone has needed to step in for a long time.  This is going to be the starting point for the future of social networking regulations- which is a strange and uncharted area and I can only say that I’m ambivalently interested to see where it goes.

Now if someone can only explain to me how they’re going to improve age verification, I’d really appreciate it.  And just remember that “A parent’s approval” is easier to forge online than in person…

LAST NOTE: MacWorld is tomorrow.  I’m not a crazy Apple fan- but I love watching what Jobs pushes out each year.  12pm Eastern Time is when Steve’s keynote begins.  Check out Gizmodo (biggest apple fanboys?) site- they’ll likely liveblog it.