Myspace user does time
A myspace user that threatened to blow up his school, via Myspace, was arrested. Someone is watching Myspace pretty good now.
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What MySpace needs to do is to create a filter to sift through users blog posts and comments to sniff out any possible suicidal members. It seems like news of a suicide - with a corrseponding MySpace page - is a weekly occurance. A filter that both discovers suicidal tendencies alerts the necessary resources [to reach out to the individual] could surely help.
Derek Punsalan on May 1st, 2006 1:56 am
Derek: Agreed. Though with the # of users that myspace has, any trend could be seen as a monthly thing. So, do they try to watch for people that will rob, shoot, and steal? Do they look for potential rapists? Do they try to follow drug users? The point is, is their service an Internet watch-dog now? Or are they still trying to be a social content publisher?
Colin D. Devroe on May 1st, 2006 12:44 pm
The potential for so many false positives is insane.
What if you write alot about the suicide bombings in Israel? What if you post lyrics that aren’t flowers and sunshine? what if you talk about your friend’s suicide and how sad it was?
what if you have a bunch of crap that you need to let out so you don’t go arggo on the world? what if blogging / writing in myspace IS the therapy?
there are hundreds more examples of false positives.
side note/example:
in real life: if a kid writes bomb threats or whatever on the bathroom wall, when someone sees it, they report it or tell someone and hopefully it’s dealt with positively and nothing bad happens.
no one goes out of their way to look for bomb threats. the administrators or police or kids or whoever don’t go out of their way to find bomb threats, suicide notes etc.
on the internet it should be the same way. if people see it or think something is up, they should report it / tell someone / etc. a filter / trend thing would be like having people go out of their way to look for these things.
is it wrong or incorrect to sit and watch for these things to happen? can we arrest people for thinking about robbing the bank? I think about robbing the bank all the time. I haven’t made plans, I haven’t bought guns for robbing a bank, I’m not going to rob a bank, but sure, I’ve thought about it. It’s like winning the lottery, but with more risk. =) But they can’t throw me in the slammer for it. I’m not doing anything wrong. I know this example doesn’t exactly translate, but try to think about it but instead of crime, social things. it’s in the same notion - are we going to have a society like in “minority report” ?
Daniel Nicolas on May 1st, 2006 1:33 pm