Because, you know, MySpace is responsible for the actions of online predators.

NEW YORK - Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said Thursday.

The law firms, Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, Texas, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston, said families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies.

“In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users,” said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer.

The families are seeking monetary damages “in the millions of dollars,” Itkin said.

“Hopefully these lawsuits can spur MySpace into action and prevent this from happening to another child somewhere,” he said.

Memo to parents: The owners and administrators of websites like MySpace are not responsible for what your kids do online.  If MySpace knew about someone who was actively preying on kids on their service and refused to delete his/her account of cooperate with law enforcement then I could see holding the company responsible.  But suing them because they didn’t do enough to protect your kid?  That’s baloney.

The best way to protect kids in their online lives is to be involved in their online lives.  Monitor what they’re doing.  Check out their internet history.  Read their profiles and blog postings.  And if the kids complain that you’re invading their privacy take away their computer, PDA, cell phone or whatever until their attitude adjusts.  Parenting is the individual responsibility of the parents, not of corporations who run websites.

We’ve done enough in this country to shirk parental responsibility and abdicate authority for discipline and life lessons to people like teachers, principals, police officers and social workers.  It’s high time we saw parents stand up and take responsibility for protecting and disciplining their own children.  We could start by seeing a judge throw this bogus lawsuit out of court.