Porn Stars Causing Trouble For MySpace

Already under intense public scrutiny, the folks at MySpace.com are in trouble again. According to the website Hollywood Wiretap, MySpace advertisers were less than pleased to discover that their ads were being featured on a few porn mega-star's personal pages.

When Weight Watchers found out their name was showing up on Jenna Jameson's MySpace page they pulled all their advertising from the site. T-Mobile is considering doing the same after their banner ads popped up on Tera Patrick's page. Both pages feature links to the girls' homepages which are chock-full of hardcore porn pics and videos.

The majority of MySpace users are under the age of eighteen and some of Jameson's "friends" are as young as fourteen. At this time, MySpace doesn't have an adequate age-sensitive filtering system.

Truth be told MySpace is kind of lame, Jenna and Tera are already filthy rich, and Weight Watchers should examine the ethics of marketing their self-image wrecking product to vulnerable teenagers.

The real interest of this story is the potential free speech and ethical issues that may be addressed as this unfolds. Will MySpace cave and demonstrate that the First Amendment doesn't apply when it comes to holding on to advertising dollars? And just as important, is it ok for porn stars to promote themselves in a market place that everyone knows is dominated by underage users?

If you have any thoughts on this, please, let me hear them. Thanks for reading and have a super day.