MySpace Age Verification - for Parents

unlametheweak writes "North Carolina is thinking of the children by passing a law requiring parents to verify they are parents before letting their children onto social networking sites. Notwithstanding the whole concept of an Internet ID for people in general; children are now being tracked by cellular phones with GPS, spied upon with Parent Controls (MS Vista has built-in parental spyware), and also strategically placed Nanny Cams, keyboard loggers, etc. 'Few of the proposals we've seen so far seem like good ways to [protect children], but North Carolina's approach at least has the virtue of novelty--unlike most video game legislation, which relies on similar rhetoric but has been almost universally struck down by the courts, sometimes at great cost to the states.' Is the zoo-like Minority Report world in which children are growing up in today doing more harm than good? How will this affect a 14 year old, much less a 17 year old "child"?"

Re:NC is a scary place

[Aladrin]

Unless you've changed your name (and you'd have documentation for that), your birth certificate WILL have your full middle name. It's not your name, otherwise.

Re:17 year olds are not children

[canUbeleiveIT]

<quote>then, in your opinion, at what age does this immaturity magically disappear?</quote>

Well, according to the auto insurance companies [wikipedia.org], age 25 is statistically a good indicator that they better understand risks. I also believe that there is some sort of evidence [washingtonpost.com] that brain maturation isn't complete until around that age.

Re:Sigh

[Kamots]

"If you have to spy on your kids, they probably won't feel comfortable talking to you about things that are actually quite important"

Indeed.

When I was 19 and off at uni, I wound up calling my parents wanting thier input on the idea of going drinking with friends. (19 is underage for those of y'all outside of the US)

If they'd been spying on me my whole life, this would have been nothing more than one more thing that I would have had to hide. Instead, my parents got to be involved with my decision, and I took thier input seriously.

Compare that to one of my old high-school friends when as soon as he turned 18, moved halfway across the country, and the last time his parents saw him was when he wound up in a 3-day coma following a OD...

Well, maybe there's a reason that I'm so strongly against spying on your kids...