One of these days, they’re going to find a dead hooker in Chris Hansen’s trunk. We’re just saying. Dude’s creepy.
Anyway, today marks a sad day for perverts and other creeps across the country, as Match.com begins pretending it has some standards because otherwise they get sued. That and why Boomer moms are going to be the next trend the TV news bellyache over, here at Uproxx News.
Match.com No Longer Matching Pervs
First up, Match.com, America’s favorite website for awkward first dates, drunken hookups, and complaining about Flash banner ads is going to start screening its members. Needless to say, this is because of an idiotic lawsuit.
A woman in California is suing Match.com because she was sexually assaulted by somebody she met over the website. This is undeniably a horrible thing, and we hope the man in question is held accountable to the full extent of the law and that the survivor can begin the healing process.
That said, we’d like to know how Match.com is in any way accountable for things that are completely out of its control, like the behavior of the people who use the site. What are they supposed to do, install shock collars? It’s not even clear the rapist was in the database in the first place, and it’s not like magic rapist-detecting software exists that can somehow be installed on dating sites, not least because such software would probably shut down eHarmony for good (we kid, we kid).
Despite the fact that they’re being blamed for something they probably didn’t know about, Match has decided that they’re going to start comparing user names against the national sex offender database, which we’re sure is going to be lots of fun when they start accusing people of being rapists. Lots of sex offenders forget to check in with the cops when they move, for some odd reason, thus creating trouble for people with the same or similar names who live near their former address. Similarly, there are lots of unregistered sex offenders, and sex offenders who haven’t been caught yet.
In other words, this is an utterly token gesture to try and reduce damages in court, won’t actually protect Match users, and means Match.com will be slapped with another lawsuit, this time for defamation, within a year. Hooray litigation and public paranoia!
Boomer Moms Give Their Kids Too Much Credit. And Money.
In what will no doubt be the subject of dozens of hand-wringing editorials, including a profoundly asinine one from Anna Quindlen if she hasn’t finally been banned from print, a new survey has discovered that over half of Baby Boomer mothers are financially supporting their kids fairly heavily, with some having the kids hang around indefinitely.
Let’s just try and short-circuit all the whining about “children who never grow up” and actually look at the survey for a minute. It was of 441 Baby Boomers, hardly a full scientific sample, and run by The Kitchens Group, a consumer survey company run by Elizabeth Kitchens. Kitchens is a highly respected consumer survey executive.
She also happens to be writing about book about female Boomers and how they support their kids.
In other words, it’s crass media manipulation to try and turn a relatively minor thing into an attention grab, especially since it appeals to the news’ biggest demographic, a bunch of aging self-centered people who think we should be paying their entire retirement because of all the good things the ’60s gave us, like a huge underground drug economy and mindless consumerism disguised as rebelling against the man.
We’d be upset if we weren’t so impressed and envious. Ten bucks says Kitchens gets at least a Today Show interview out of this one.
[news-links]
- Match.com to begin pointless screening of losers who thought they could talk to the chick in the white t-shirt from the Flash ads (CBS)
- Boomer parents give their adult kids money. Gee, a news item that flatters Boomers. What a shock. (Reuters)
[/news-links]
[news-morenews]
- Meanwhile, in freedom of speech news, the United Arab Emirates is doing its level best to spy on its own citizens, but those stupid smartphones are letting people do things like trade data securely without the Emirates police being able to spy on them! How are they supposed to maintain a repressive police state in these intolerable conditions? By smacking smartphones with new legal restrictions, starting with BlackBerry: companies with less than twenty BlackBerry accounts can’t use BlackBerry Enterprise Server under new rules. Yeah, that’ll totally prevent unrest, guys. It worked so well for Egypt, cutting off the Internet. Have fun with that! (International Business Times)
[/news-morenews]
[news-stats]
- Speaking of idiotic hand-wringing over motherhood, according to nebulous statistics that are engineered to create controversy, mothers kill their children at least 100 times a year. And none of them are the mothers of that shrieking brat on the bus. (Yahoo!)
- There are 728,435 registered sex offenders. And, actually, only about an average of 4% are missing. On the other hand, that’s about 30,000 perverts…(Politifact)
[/news-stats]