MySpace lawsuit attorney says there's no difference between a virtual community and a daycare center

Lawyers are paid to make the ridiculous sound reasonable, so life's too short to be spending too much of it pointing out examples.

But let's burn a little of my remaining earthly time this morning ... because this steaming pile of flapdoodle from a Texas attorney suing MySpace makes the ridiculous sound, well, quick, somebody find me a word that's more ridiculous than ridiculous.

From today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Four families whose underage daughters were sexually abused after meeting people they encountered on the social networking site MySpace have sued News Corp., the site's parent company, alleging it was negligent in not creating safety measures to protect younger users.

In separate suits filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, an attorney for the families said the virtual site is like a day care facility or a restaurant that didn't adequately protect its customers.

"These virtual sites are no different," said Jason Itkin, a Houston attorney representing the families. "MySpace has not taken the steps necessary to protect its customers."

Let's skip right past the obvious points that there have been sexual predators since the beginning of time, they don't need no stinking Internet to find victims, and if your son or daughter is out in parts unknown meeting up with complete strangers, go look in the mirror to see who's primarily responsible.

No, I want to focus in on the daycare thing: According to Mr. Itkin, there is no difference between a daycare center and "these virtual sites" such as MySpace.

No difference. None. Zip. Nada.

Now I don't want to fall back on the obvious here and point out that one difference is that a daycare center is generally housed in a physical building with a few staff members and a number of kiddies so small that you can count them, whereas MySpace is housed -- well, everywhere on the planet -- and serves a clientele that is just a wee bit bigger. From Wikipedia: "With the 100 millionth account being created on August 9, 2006 and a news story claiming 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006, the site reportedly attracts new registrations at a rate of 230,000 per day."

I want the diaper concession at any daycare center serving that kind of crowd.

But, let's be fair, Mr. Itkin is a learned fellow (you can go read of his academic and professional achievements), so it's reasonable to presume that his "no difference" point was in relation to the responsibility held by both a daycare center and a virtual community to protect children.

Oh, in that case, well, the man has a ... he has another steaming pile of flapdoodle.

Of course a daycare center is responsible for making sure it hasn't hired a sexual predator and for providing enough on-site supervision to ensure that that an employee does not take up child molestation for the first time while on the clock. Nary a reasonable person would disagree.

The virtual site with 100 million users located in every corner of the globe? That "place" where the only interpersonal interactions possible are of the virtual variety. There may well be disagreement among the reasonable as to how much responsibility such a site bears for any crimes committed back in the physical world over which it has absolutely zero jurisdiction.

Here's the only way you're going to assure that there are no sexual predators MySpace: Shut it down. (Fear not, MySpace fans, politicians don't read this far down.)

Hmmm, not bad, that probably took about a half-hour. Now I can get on with my life.