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Myspace is being sued by the parents of some young girls who were apparently sexually assaulted by men they met via Myspace.

Myspace is just a Web site, albeit a big one. You can guarantee that there are men using MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and every other chat program, you can guarantee there are men using every other “networking” Web site – along with Myspace.

It’s actually your responsibility, as a parent, to protect your 14-15 year old daughter on the internet. I believe I would be very protective over a daughter of mine, I believe because I understand how the internet works I would be quite good at it. It’s very possible, without invading privacy, to check what your daughter is doing by communicating with her (any of you parents out there tried that recently?)

Questions you could ask:
Have you added any new friends or contacts today?
Do you know that new friend from school?
Did this friend contact you, or did you contact him?
What are you using the internet for recently, anything I can help with?
How does this Web site/chat program work?

All of those questions would allow you to communicate with your daughter, discover who is being added as a friend and allow you – if you bother to properly educate yourself – to be aware of who they are talking to, without invading their privacy or asking them to divulge any information they might not want to give you.

Forty year old men cannot pretend to be a 14 year old boys/girls when he meets your daughter face to face. If you are honest with your child, if you understand the internet and let them know the (non-face to face) internet is a dangerous place, day or night, they will accept your willingness to protect them.