Cheesy Quintessence

Quite close to home, in San Antonio, it seems that a school has been disrupted due to terrorist threats posted via MySpace. After several students used MySpace to threaten to bring guns, about 2,600 students either didn’t come to class or left during class. The students posting the messages were identified and will be charged with felony. That, however, is not the most interesting part…

From the article:

Gonzales said Northside officials will also hold MySpace-dot-com “accountable.”

“It just seems to me that if you put up a public web site, and you allow students, teeangers, minors to post their thoughts and ideas, and not monitor it in an adult manner, you are asking for trouble,” Gonzales said.

This is quite ridiculous. Although I dislike MySpace–it is, in my opinion, a miserable site in every way imaginable–it cannot be held accountable for all of the content posted by its members. While moderation clearly does happen, it would be impossible for MySpace to catch inappropriate content posted by “36 million” members the moment it’s posted. Additionally, every member has agreed to MySpace’s terms of service, including:

MySpace.com is not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any user of the Website or Member of the Service. […] Under no circumstances shall MySpace.com be responsible for any loss or damage, including personal injury or death, resulting from use of the Website or the Service or from any Content posted on the Website or transmitted to Members, or any interactions between users of the Website, whether online or offline.

If that’s still not enough, I must recommend that the officials would, in order to be fair, also hold the posters’ ISPs, phone companies, as well as any other parties contributing to making the felonies possible, accountable as well.