Ordeal about MySpace

[Mrs Behavin]

Anybody happen to catch Nightline the other night on ABC? In case you didn't, one of the hot topics discussed was MySpace. It is no secret to anyone who reads the newspaper or watches the 6 o'clock news that MySpace has been in the limelight because of "sexual predators" trying to "abduct and corrupt" the youth of the world. To this I say bullshit! I see dozens of profiles a day showing 14 year old girls dressed like sluts, wearing four inches of make up and 32 layers of eyeliner, displaying their age as 18 years old and profile lines stating "Oh, I'm So Sexy" or "Hey There, Wanna Check Up On It?" Come the fuck on! The youth of today's world are already corrupt enough due to the undying need to be "older" than they really are. I seriously doubt there are tons of people on MySpace stalking "innocent young girls" who just happen to have tramped up profiles and ages 4 years greater than their own.

On Nightline, there was a story of a 12 year old girl who was a drug-addict and attributed it all to MySpace. She claims that MySPace allowed her to easily fing drug dealers in her area, as well as older men to have sex with her. Now, at the age of 14, she has been checked into a drug-rehabilitation clinic and has been away from her family for 5 months. Her parents would rather place the blame squarely on the shoulders of MySpace instead of their daughter, who even admitted that at the age of 12, had already tried weed, crack, X, and had slept with numerous guys older than herself...but of course, it wasn't her fault, it was all because of MySpace.

One again, COME THE FUCK ON! When are parents and children going to stop passing the blame and grow up enough to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their children.. Parent;s, monitor your children online, take some responsibility for YOUR children. Children, if a profile name sounds like something that comes out of a cheap horror movie, like "DARK ANGEL OF DEATH WHO EATS THE BRAINS OF GIRLS"...chances are you DO NOT WANT TO ADD THEM AS A FRIEND. Apparently there is new legislation in Congress now to block MySpace in all public schools and public libraries across the United States. All because little girls want to act grown and don't want to accept the consequences and parents don't want to accept the fact that their "innocent little girls" are posing as 18 year old crack whores trying to buy drugs.

Eventually, if this continues, MySpace could be totally outlawed from the Internet. Restrictions will be put in place in order to make MySpace "safer". I don't know about you, but I use MySpace to keep in touch with my family and friends, use it for messages, and just to have a space that is my own. Just because some children want to act grown, does that mean I may have to eventually give up my MySpace?

 

[JMilley]

Myspace is the biggest joke. I stopped using it long time ago. I don't think there's anything to it that makes it dangerous, I mean most people just come and say "HEY WHATSUP I LOVE YOU LOL" and leave, but of course, small percentage use it for other stuff. I guess outlawing myspace.com won't do any good, they will just create another freakin' site like that, no big deal :shrug

 

[SloMoFo]

yea some of the young girls on there are like just baiting the pedos in

the pedos dont like me..im too old for them ..and if any old farts talk to me i just ignore them

 

[AtlanticBlue99]

MySpace, as I have found, is for young emo kids, pedofiles, and normal people who are overshadowed by young emo kids and pedofiles

 

[Pink_Floyd87]

They should turn Myspace into a huge area of land and have houses made of glass, and then capture all of the curently active members and take them there, locking each of them in a house, to rid the world of emos and nasty 14 year old girls wih yellow teeth and a cosmetics cabnet worth of makup on thier faces. And that is my plan to rid world hunger

 

[UncleBacon]

when I search around I use 22 up for age range....

 

[99mustang232]

people will do anything to shift the blame off themselves, look how people use video game violence in comparison to something like the columbine incident. it comes down to this, while under the age of 18yrs old your parents or legal gaurdians are responsible for your actions. some parents/gaurdians need to be more involved in what their kids are doing on the computer and what information they are giving out. if you actually read myspace's terms of services when you sign up or if you review them it says "go away" to underage kids. i agree myspace is being used by pedo's to find prey, but this has happend before myspace was created... hell look at any of the "personals" type sites or even AOL for that.

on a side note i saw an episode of the montel williams show that was discussing similar related stuff, and had a guest that at the age of 13 had been Instant Messaged by someone who was believed to have been the same age, after lenghty chatting the pedo was able to obtain needed information in order to find out what school she went to, then stalk her and resolve her home address. needless to say one day they agreed to meet, and while telling her mom she was going to baby sit... she was waiting for her 14yr old friend and his "grandfather" to pick her up at the street corner. As she starts to second guess the situation and walk home a car pulls up and the man her "stalker" tells her to get in or he will kill her family. she gets in, and is then rapped for a series of 3+ hours.

this subject is serious but do place some of the blame on the parents/guardians... you gotta know what your kid is up to or atleast educate them all you can and hope they make the best choices when those situations arise.

 

[hhayes]

I have been watching the "predators" at night sometimes too. it is ridiculous. parents should know what their children are doing and if they are doing drugs and having sex with older men and what not, parents SHOULD have known or know. how could they not. and if they are letting their children run around like adults at the age of 13 and 14, that is their fault and in my opinion is neglect. although MYSPACE allows contact to so many people, it is not the problem. what will they do next, get rid of email?

 

[IntruderLS1]

GREAT post Mrs. B. I can't tell you how much I wish there were more out there like you.

Responsiblitly is what the world needs. We're all full of excuses. It's time for people grow the flawk up.

Thanks for the great read.

 

[99mustang232]

Teen blog watch is on
District 128 addresses MySpace phenomenon

In a move that has drawn national attention to this Lake County school district, the Community High School District 128 board unanimously passed rules changes Monday night that will hold students accountable for what they post on blogs and social-networking Web sites.

For Libertyville and Vernon Hills High Schools, the changes will mean that all students participating in extracurricular activities, including athletic teams, fine arts groups and school clubs, will have to sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of "illegal or inappropriate" behavior posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinary action.

Officials of District 128, which includes the two schools, said about 80 percent of the district's 3,200 students participate in one or more extracurricular activities.

Associate Supt. Prentiss Lea said the changes are part of an effort to get the district community more knowledgeable about the growing Internet blog phenomenon and more aware of the pitfalls of such sites as MySpace.com.

"By adding the blog sites [to the student codes of conduct], we wanted to raise discussions on the issue," he said. "We have taken the first steps to starting that conversation."

Word of the changes had stirred discussion in the district among parents and students.

Some contend that the new codes of conduct will reinforce that students are accountable for the information they post online. But others, including one mother who spoke at the meeting, argue that monitoring students' online postings is an invasion of privacy.

Lake Bluff resident Mary Greenberg, the only person to speak during the public comment period, told officials that the district is overstepping its bounds.

As parents, "we have to watch what they're doing," said Greenberg, who has a son at Libertyville High. "I don't think they need to police what students are doing online. That's my job."

District officials will not regularly surf students' sites for rules violations, officials said. But they will monitor them if they get some indication--specifically, a tip from another student, a parent or a community member--pointing them in that direction.

School administrators would treat incriminating information found on the Web the same as they would any other evidence of wrongdoing, as pieces of a larger investigation into the offending behavior.

The new pledge will be used in all activities for the next school year, including those that start over the coming summer break, Lea said.

In the pledge, which both students and their parents must sign, the students agree that they won't use alcohol, tobacco or drugs or "exhibit gross misconduct or behavior/citizenship that is considered detrimental to his/her team or school."

The code of conduct states that "maintaining or being identified on a blog site which depicts illegal or inappropriate behavior will be considered a violation of this code."

article source: click here

 

[UncleBacon]

thats fucking stupid too...imo

 

[hhayes]

yip

 

[UncleBacon]

I blame shit on bad parenting

 

[Pink_Floyd87]

 

[99mustang232]

MySpace Restricting Adults' Access To Teen Users

Move follows $30 million lawsuit, several high-profile incidents.

MySpace.com's tagline is "A place for friends." But in the shadow of a string of recent high-profile incidents involving teens and older users, the popular social networking site is planning to roll out a series of new rules that will restrict how some of those friends can interact. Specifically, it will limit the amount of contact adults can have with the site's younger users.

According to The Associated Press, the new rules, expected to be announced Wednesday (June 21) and take effect next week, will bar MySpace users who are 18 or over from requesting to be on a 14- or 15-year-old's friends' list unless they already know either the youth's e-mail address or full name.

Any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other attributes, such as display name. That is different from the current options, which allow adults to be added to a youth's list to view the full profile. Under the new rules, that option will disappear for adults registered as 18 and over, according to the AP. (Partial profiles only show gender, age and city, while full profiles have information on schools, hobbies and any personal details the user posts.)

MySpace already prohibits users who are 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old unless the person viewing the profile is already on the teen's list of friends. Users under 18 will still be allowed to contact minors, and because the site has no reliable mechanism for verifying that users are submitting their real age when registering, adults could still sign up as teens and request to join a 14-year-old's list of friends, which would give access to the full profiles.

Besides the new contact restrictions, all users will have the option to make only partial profiles available to those not already on their friends list, the AP reports. All users will also get an option to prevent contact from people outside their age group. The site will also rework its ad-targeting software to avoid showing gambling and adult-themed ads on minors' pages and instead display safety-themed public-service announcements.

Since the purchase of MySpace's parent company last year by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for $580 million, the site has come under increasing scrutiny for a series of incidents ranging from teens posting inappropriate material about their teachers (see "Cops Investigating Fake MySpace Page That Defamed Minnesota Teacher "), to death threats and photos of illegal activities (see "Twenty Students Suspended In Latest Round Of MySpace-Related Busts"), which have led to bans from a number of schools citing fears about child predators. Of the site's estimated 87 million users, more than 20 million are registered as minors.

The move to beef up security comes just two days after a 14-year-old girl filed a $30 million lawsuit in Texas against MySpace and News Corp. claiming she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met on MySpace (see "Teen Sues MySpace For $30 Million Over Sexual Assault Claim"). The suit alleges that the site has "absolutely no meaningful protections or security measures to protect underage users." And earlier this month, a 16-year-old girl tricked her parents into getting her a passport so she could fly to the Mideast and marry a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace. U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home before the arranged marriage took place.

MySpace hired former federal prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam to be the site's first chief security officer earlier this year and rolled out a series of public service announcements about online safety. MySpace officials told the AP that the new restrictions have been long planned and are unrelated to recent events.

 

[JMilley]

Re: RE: Ordeal about MySpace

Teen blog watch is on
District 128 addresses MySpace phenomenon

In a move that has drawn national attention to...

thats fucking stupid. pledges work as good as the abstinence pledge worked for me.

 

[Ms_Kitty]

Great post Mrs B!!!!! Like most people have already said, it's for parents to start facing the fact and accepting the blame for the role, or lack their of, that they truly play in the childrens lives. Everyone is so quick to lay blame on everything and anything that is a part of their childrens lives, but if parents played a more active role and knew what their kids were doing with their time, how they spent their time and who they spent their time with; the conclusion..........alot of these problems wouldn't exist!!!!!!!!! Alot of parents have allowed video games, the internet, movies, television, etc.....to take over as their "parents/role models" for their children. My adivce to these parents, "Get off your lazy asses and do the job you took on when you became a parent!"

 

[SilentEyz]

I agree completly that parents need to take the time with their children, know what thier kids are doing online, who they are talking to, what information they are giving out.

You have all these groups out there aimed at protecting kids from "predators", But you have just as many Kids out there, looking for them. The problem comes from both directions. Kids need to go back to being kids, the availabilty of kids brings out the worst in people who, would never even consider the idea outside of the internet, but if you put a steak in front of a dog, chances are the dog is going to eat it, and that is what these kids are doing.

Truth be, Kids need to shut off the Computer ( or better yet their parents need to ) and go do things, find activitys that can entertain them more then seeing how many men they can get on their friends list. Parents need to take responsibility, Society needs to take responsibility.

 

[Dodge_Sniper]

Any website can be as bad as Myspace, given the right members. If 600+ sexual predators and 14 year old sluts joined here, it would have the same result, and they'd try and shut us down. It's just another case of people not blaming themselves for their own actions. Myspace is perfectly harmless if you aren't doing it for the wrong reasons. Me, I have one to talk to my friends from school or people I know that don't have AOL, Yahoo, MSN, or any of that shit. If they are over 20, and They start acting freaky, I simply delete anything they say to me, and don't respond. I never put any pictures of myself up, sure, some bear a slight resemblance, but are otherwise not me. Just pictures of my favorite movies, and my friends. I don't post phone-numbers, any of that shit. In the end, it's like I've said before. If you go and put all that stuff on your profile, you DESERVE to get raped. That's like going into a black neighbor hood, screaming the word "Nigger", and then blaming the neighborhood when you get your throat cut out.

 

[Butterfly]

I agree.... parents are so caught up in their 'careers and lives', that they don't actually make time to find out what their kids are really up to.

As for the 12 year old blaming MySpace for access to drugs... she needs to Own her actions!! As a teen I also knew where to get drugs, I made the Choice, NOT to get them.

For the record, I don't have a MySpace