MySpace culls thousands of profiles
MySpace.com, the social networking website that has proved a hit with the youth market, is reported to have removed 200,000 profiles deemed "objectionable" in a bid to reassure parents and advertisers about the safety of the site.
The website was bought last year by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, but has recently attracted criticism over fears that online predators might be interacting with young people using the site.
Ross Levinsohn, head of News Corp's internet division, told attendees at a New York conference some of the material taken down had contained hate speech or risque content.
The Financial Times reported Mr Levinsohn as saying: "It's a problem that's endemic to the internet - not just MySpace. The site, in the last two months, I think has become safer."
A number of US schools have already banned the website in order to protect students against the threat of online predators, but some students have also found themselves on the wrong side of the law for content they have posted.
Last month, a 17-year-old high school student in NSW was charged with publishing threats to kill two teachers and a 14-year-old girl on MySpace.
This week, The Buffalo News reported that a New York school student had been expelled for posting a comment on the site that contained a threat to burn down the principal's house.
The site mainly attracts the youthful 18 to 30 demographic, courted heavily by advertisers, and now boasts more female than male subscribers, said Forbes magazine.
But many teenage girls are attaching provocative images to their profiles, and providing details of their home town and school, making them easy to track down.
Although MySpace does not accept subscribers under the age of 14, teachers and parents remain concerned that the public nature of members' profiles could put teens in contact with online predators.
An additional concern for MySpace as a business is to attract advertisers to its site, and to do that it it must be able to provide assurances that an advertiser's reputation will not be sullied by objectionable content.
Marketing website AdAge recently said that, while social networking sites could offer a "potential eyeball windfall", offering the reach only dreamt about by advertisers, reports that they were attracting sexual predators left many marketers in fear of the associated negative publicity.
The website was bought last year by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, but has recently attracted criticism over fears that online predators might be interacting with young people using the site.
Ross Levinsohn, head of News Corp's internet division, told attendees at a New York conference some of the material taken down had contained hate speech or risque content.
The Financial Times reported Mr Levinsohn as saying: "It's a problem that's endemic to the internet - not just MySpace. The site, in the last two months, I think has become safer."
A number of US schools have already banned the website in order to protect students against the threat of online predators, but some students have also found themselves on the wrong side of the law for content they have posted.
Last month, a 17-year-old high school student in NSW was charged with publishing threats to kill two teachers and a 14-year-old girl on MySpace.
This week, The Buffalo News reported that a New York school student had been expelled for posting a comment on the site that contained a threat to burn down the principal's house.
The site mainly attracts the youthful 18 to 30 demographic, courted heavily by advertisers, and now boasts more female than male subscribers, said Forbes magazine.
But many teenage girls are attaching provocative images to their profiles, and providing details of their home town and school, making them easy to track down.
Although MySpace does not accept subscribers under the age of 14, teachers and parents remain concerned that the public nature of members' profiles could put teens in contact with online predators.
An additional concern for MySpace as a business is to attract advertisers to its site, and to do that it it must be able to provide assurances that an advertiser's reputation will not be sullied by objectionable content.
Marketing website AdAge recently said that, while social networking sites could offer a "potential eyeball windfall", offering the reach only dreamt about by advertisers, reports that they were attracting sexual predators left many marketers in fear of the associated negative publicity.
posted by idtics at 11:45 AM
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