MySpace defended itself on Thursday against new lawsuits charging it had failed to protect five girls from being lured into sex traps by predators on the popular teen social website.
The suits demand unspecified millions of dollars in damages from MySpace and its parent company, News Corporation, for “negligence, recklessness, fraud” and misrepresentation.
“MySpace serves as an industry leader on internet safety and we take proactive measures to protect our members,” MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a statement. “Ultimately, internet safety is a shared responsibility. We encourage everyone to apply common-sense offline safety lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue about smart web practices.”
The suits were filed separately on Wednesday in the Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of the families of the girls, ages 14 and 15 and from the American states of New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
Each of the girls was lured into meetings with men who had spoken to them on MySpace and then plied them with drugs or alcohol and sexually abused them, according to the suits.
One of the men accused in the assaults is serving a 10-year prison sentence and the others are awaiting trials, according to lawyers for the girls.
“Blaming the families of abuse victims who were solicited online, as some have done, is a cynical excuse that ignores the fact that social networking sites can lead to heinous abuse by internet predators,” said Adam Loewy, a lawyer for some of the girls.
MySpace teamed with background verification technology company Sentinel Tech Holding last year to block convicted sex offenders from the popular teen-oriented website.
The alliance with Sentinel came as MySpace tried to quiet critics that contend the social networking website at which teenagers share their lives and secrets in online diaries and personal web pages provides pedophiles with a rich hunting ground.
The two companies are working together on Sentinel Safe, a technology that would identify convicted sex offenders and block their access to MySpace. Sentinel Safe was to be ready for deployment this month.
MySpace was modified last year to let users control access to their web pages by making them “private” and to restrict adults from making unsolicited contact with members younger than 16.
MySpace also started free training programmes for teachers and parents interested in understanding how to use the website, which claims approximately 135-million members worldwide.
MySpace is backing proposed legislation that would require convicted US sex offenders to register their email addresses in government databases, which could be used to screen them from the website.
“In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users,” said plaintiffs’ lawyer Jason Itkin. “We believe that more must be done to ensure that social networking sites are made safer.”
A similar suit filed last year on behalf of a 14-year-old girl seeking $30-million in damages is pending in a Texas state court. — AFP