Age-Verification Crackdown Looms for Social Media

Critics Say Laws to Block Access to Sites a 'Political Solution, not a Safety Solution'

By Jeremy Mullman

Published: Advertising Age, July 30, 2007

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Advocates of stricter identity-verification measures on social-networking sites got a boost last week when MySpace revealed it had deleted 29,000 registered sex offenders from its network, particularly in North Carolina, by far the furthest along of any state in attempting to legislate verification guidelines for social networks.

But critics say the North Carolina bill -- which requires minors to get parental permission to sign up -- illustrates the futility of trying to effectively verify who is online. "My son knows all my information, so there's nothing stopping him from signing on as me and giving himself permission to be on there," said Rick Lane, senior VP-government affairs for MySpace parent News Corp. "Verification is a political solution, not a safety solution."

The bill passed the North Carolina Senate by a 49-0 margin in May and figures to soon get a vote in the House. If it passes and Gov. Mike Easley decides to sign it, a lawsuit from one or all of the social networks -- and perhaps even from portals such as AOL, which has signaled its opposition -- is seen as inevitable.

Security questions
Providers have typically argued that adequate verification technology doesn't exist, and that imperfect verification would give minors a false sense of security.

While advocates such as North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper acknowledge that the technology is imperfect, they say the number of sex offenders already on MySpace makes not acting a worse option.

"It does give us more urgency," said Jay Chaudhuri, special counsel to Mr. Cooper. "It's illustrative of the potential harm that exists when you have predators mingling online with minors."

Mr. Chaudhuri said there are effective models of verification. He pointed to online tobacco sales in California, which require follow-up phone calls or postcards. He also cited the exhaustive methods used on most financial websites.

Negligible effect?
Some social-networking experts question whether gating online communities will do any harm. "I actually don't think it's something they should be afraid of," said Dave Gormley, chief product marketing officer for Tubes, which markets a tool that helps social-network users control who gets to view which information on their personal pages.

He said measures that increase privacy -- whether it's keeping personal information about a child from a potential predator or keeping weekend-in-Vegas photos from a would-be employer -- can enhance a user's experience on the site.

Cubicle Culture

OMG -- My Boss Wants to 'Friend' Me On My Online Profile

By Jared Sandberg

Published: The Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2007, Page B1

Paul Dyer was always able to hold off his boss's invitations to party by employing that arms-length response: "We'll have to do that sometime," he'd say.

But when his boss, in his 30s, invited Mr. Dyer, 24 years old, to be friends on the social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook, dodging wasn't so easy. On the one hand, accepting a person's request to be friends online grants them access to the kind of intimacy never meant for office consumption, such as recent photos of keggers and jibes from friends. ("Still wearing that lampshade?")

Have you found yourself in an awkward situation in an online social network? Please share your experiences2.But declining a "friend" request from a colleague or a boss is a slight. So, Mr. Dyer accepted the invitation, then removed any inappropriate or incriminating photos of himself -- "I'd rather speak vaguely about them," he says -- and accepted the boss's invitation.

Mr. Dyer, it turns out, wasn't the one who had to be embarrassed. His boss had photos of himself attempting to imbibe two drinks at once, ostensibly, Mr. Dyer ventures, to send the message: "I'm a crazy, young party guy." The boss also wore a denim suit ("I'd never seen anything like it," Mr. Dyer says) and posed in a photo flashing a hip-hop backhand peace sign.

It was painful to watch. "I hurt for him," says Mr. Dyer.

Like email and "buddy lists" before them, social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace provide a definition of the word "friend" so expansive that it includes perfect strangers. Yet, strangers are the easy part. It can be a lot creepier to interact intimately with someone you sort of know than someone you don't know at all.

"Nothing changes when a stranger invites you to be a friend," says Nina Singh, a market-research consultant. But when one of her clients "friended" her, she saw a semierotic photo of him topless, posed and softly lit. "When you see your client's pubic bone, something has changed."

Victor Sanchez, 54, a senior development director, was once invited to join a site and was surprised to see a photograph of a younger colleague's seahorse tattoo. "Sometimes it's good to learn things about a colleague much later -- or never at all," he says.

These networking sites assist existing social relationships, letting people easily plan events, share pictures and keep up-to-date with far-flung friends. Once they penetrate the office, however, such sites can create awkward moments, particularly with colleagues who commit the social felony of attempted hipness. Dare I say, "Whatup, homey?"

When it comes to the boss, there is a real dilemma. You're caught between a career-limiting rejection of virtual friendship or a career-limiting access to photos of yourself glassy-eyed at a party. "All these social relationships -- apples and oranges -- are getting crammed into one category of friends," says Tom Boellstorff, associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, who is writing a book on the virtual community Second Life.

After one senior marketing coordinator at a law firm was invited by one of the lawyers to be his friend, she felt compelled to accept the invitation, even though she had no intention of socializing with him outside the office. He remarked once after an office meeting that he noticed she had a boyfriend, as listed on her online profile.

"It was strange," she says. "I was like, 'Why are you on Facebook?' "

Prospective employers also seem to have no compunction conducting searches on job applicants before they call them in for interviews. "We'll Google them and I know that we've done MySpace searches," says attorney Caroline Kert of prospective hires.

She's mostly looking for slams against a former employer or exposed proprietary information. She says she'd never hold against applicants something like, say, a photo of them wearing a fur bikini. Good thing. Ms. Kert, a regular at the Burning Man Festival, has pictures of herself sporting just that on MySpace.

J.D. Lloyd, a law student working at a firm, isn't taking any chances. At 6-foot-2 and 250 pounds, he removed a photo of himself in a Florida Marlins baseball jersey that was a mere "youth large." "It was tight," he says. "There may or may not have been midriff in some of those pictures."

It used to be that employees were told to keep their personal lives out of work. Now, some bosses beg for it. Data analyst Valerie Jewett, 23, accepted a boss as a friend even though she likes to keep her personal and professional lives separate.

He's a nice guy, she says, but his late-30s ungrooviness was evident when he wrote a message to her on the "wall" on her homepage. The message made her roll her eyes. "What a ko-wink-i-dink to find y'all on here! Yeehaw!!"