Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Is it safe?

The debate over social networking sites and child protection took a turn towards false advertising law, with NY's AG subpoenaing Facebook about protecting users from child predators. According to a letter the AG sent to Facebook: "To be clear, within the constraints of the law, Facebook has the right to operate any type of Web site it deems fit. However, it does not have the right to represent that its site is safe and that it promptly responds to complaints when such statements are not accurate." (AG's press release -- contains explicit content.)

Facebook's response was extremely conciliatory, which is not surprising given the cultural power of the child protection theme.

It took popular anxiety, and regulatory attention, about a year to get to Facebook. Could this be related to the class differences between MySpace and Facebook?

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