Generation Myspace

Generation MySpace

There is an increasing amount of blame being placed on the Internet as the source of corruption in teenagers. Although young in its existence, the Internet has possibly become the most important aspect of daily teenage life. The Internet has allowed for social networks like Myspace.com to become extremely prevalent. With websites like Myspace.com popping up all over the place it is not surprising that authorities have become increasingly concerned with the safety of the mostly teenaged users. The site has allowed for young girls, especially, to display personal information that could allow for anyone, in this case, adult men, to find out where they live and lead to sexual abuse. However, if used wisely, social networking sites can be a fun interactive way to keep in touch with friends, co-workers, and family.

"If you go to the mall and start talking to strange people bad things can happen," Chris DeWolfe, the site's co-founder said, "You've got to take the same precautions on the Internet." Myspace offers a free way for users to meet any of more than 60 million members. Searching by hometown, alma mater or interest, people can make new friends, reconnect with old ones and interact in other ways. But recently, authorities have shown concern with the searching options believing that they put children at risk for abuse. And surely it does, but so does the Internet in general. A couple weeks ago two men were arrested in the first federal sex charges involving Myspace. The men had lied about their age and made contact with underage girls. Like many would like to believe, cases like these are not directly the website's fault. The website only offers a collection of tools already widely used online. It could be said that people that put themselves in danger on Myspace would be doing so elsewhere if the website did not exist. Parents are used to teaching their children how to stay safe and not to talk to strangers. Now, parents must extend those precautions to the Internet. Authorities are having a field day with the discovery of Myspace. Police are able to pose as young children to trap pedophiles. Similar to stings used to capture convicts on the run, police will set up a meeting with the pedophile in order to catch and convict them. While Myspace has received a lot of bad publicity some good has come from it; police are able to take pedophiles off the streets and put them in jail.

Myspace has taken steps towards protecting it's members. Children under fourteen are not allowed access to the website while those that are fourteen-years-old are allowed only limited access. The creators have employed a bevy of workers whose sole responsibility is to find underage users; they have been trained to detect signs of a younger user. Thus far, more than 200,000 profiles have been shut down. The website has taken steps towards protecting it's users but there is only so much they can do. If the website is such a threat to teens and children I feel that it is the parent's responsibility to monitor their child's Internet activity. The site is only dangerous if you let it be dangerous.

MySpace has been criticized by the media due to some members posting nude or indecent pictures of themselves, in violation of the MySpace Terms of Service. Recently there have been a number of criminal cases concerning such materials; authorities once shut the site down to investigate it in more detail. Such images, as well as the level of profanity in some sections of the site, have led many US schools and corporations to block access to MySpace. There are also cases of adults using MySpace to find, meet, and stalk young teenagers. Such cases are typically the result of the victim displaying personal information on their profile unaware of the potential audience. Law enforcement is working to spread knowledge about this subject to users of social networking sites to help prevent cases in the future. These problems are not specific to MySpace, as any social-networking site can be used to find information about underage users, including but not limited to chat rooms, instant-messaging, and blogs. However, according to some internet privacy lawyers, the incidents of stalkings, while real, are often overplayed in the media and are made to appear much more prevalent than they truly are [Journal of Criticism].

As a personal user of Myspace I am fully aware of the risks. It only required a little bit of common sense to know that I should not display any personal information. If someone can not figure this out perhaps they do not need to be using the website. There are many ways to protect yourself and still have fun with the site. Users are allowed to make their space private, viewable only to people they have allowed to be their "friends", as well as being able to handpick who they let be their "friend". When a younger user doesn't have enough sense to know not to put his or her phone number and address on their space is when the parents should get involved. But parents have grown to fear the site partly from ignorance of the Internet and also from what they may have heard or read. What parents need to understand is that the website is not something to fear if they monitor what information their