BrianGarst.com

Just when you think the lawyers have defeated sanity and removed personal responsibility entirely from our lives, a story comes along to restore a bit of hope for a future dominated by reason over emotion.

Yesterday, a Texas judge tossed out a lawsuit against MySpace, the world’s biggest social-networking site brought by the family of a 13-year-old girl assaulted by a man who found her through her MySpace page.

. . .In dismissing the suit, the judge wrote: “To impose a duty under these circumstances for MySpace to confirm or determine the age of each applicant, with liability resulting from negligence in performing or not performing duty, would of course stop MySpace’s business in its tracks and close this avenue of communication…”

In the end, according to the judge, “If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace.”

These same parents would want to know who little Julie Doe is playing with on the playground, so why do they think they don’t need to know who she is playing with on the internet?

Parents: Neither MySpace nor any of the other social networking sites are daycare centers. They are not responsible for the welfare of your children. You are.