MySpace - A Contrast In Culture

The headlines today are about the founders of MySpace winning a Webbie.

NEW YORK -- The founders of the popular social networking site MySpace.com are among the winners of this year's Webby online achievement awards.

Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe will receive an award next month for breakout of the year.

Unfortunately, after that one headline, the rest aren't very good. Not at all.

Police say a 13-year old girl has fallen prey to a sexual predator - one she met on the website MySpace.com.

A 27-year old man from Connecticut is now under arrest and facing sex charges. His alleged victim never showed up for school earlier this week so her mother reported the girl missing.
Investigators searched the teen's computer and found evidence that she met her suspected attacker on MySpace.com.

They found the girl and the suspect at a hotel.

Comments

[MrsLevy'sNiece]

Kids should be policed by their parents. It's not the webs job to
watch your kids.

[Crazy Politico]

The thing about it is that Myspace, Xanga, etc, have just made the predators more prevailent. They've always been there, they were there with AIM and Yahoo chat rooms, also, even on the old BBS systems. New technology works both for good and bad.

[Phoenix]

Parents can't watch children twenty-four hours a day. Period.

And this is hardly the first time this has happened. It's a predator's goal to find his victim, and he'll do it no matter where or how.

MrsLevy'sNiece, Your auntie is a perfect example of how relentless a predator can be. Where's Grandma?

[Stella]

It's a predator's goal to find his victim, and he'll do it no matter where or how.
MrsLevy'sNiece, Your auntie is a perfect example of how relentless a predator can be. Where's Grandma?
Posted by: Phoenix | Tuesday, May 09, 2006 at 05:36 PM

I agree - and for MySpace to facilitate the predator is unconscionable.

As far as the Levy family is concerned - everytime one of them pops in to post a nasty, "striped hyena" comes to mind for some reason.

[Crazy Politico]

It's actually not that hard to police kids on the net. install a firewall and use it to disable access to myspace, xanga, etc. I've banned dozens of URLS on mine.

If your kid has a computer in another room, WinVNC will allow you to watch it, and take control. Totally freaked out my nephew when his Dad decided to take over the machine.

[Phoenix]

I agree parental controls on home computers is a great thing. But that doesn't solve the problem with cell phone/Internet connections and going over to a friend's house whose parents haven't set up controls.

It's sad that with every good intent and every new high-tech device designed to make life easier, safer or more fun, there brings with it an element of evil. The evil is always man, not the device.

[Bill]

I love how people say things like 'well, if my kid goes over to a friend's house they can use that computer and I have no control.' Don't parents talk to each other any more? Doesn't anyone ask 'hey, what's goin on over there anyway? Do you let them go on the computer by themselves?' It's like people just send their kids off into a void and act like there's no control. At least computers keep kids inside. When I was 12 I was meeting up with friends and looking for things to do outside. Now I'd probably stay in and play videogames (oh, wait, that makes kids violent...)

[Phoenix]

Bill,

I'm thinking you don't have children or, if you do, they're very young. You don't know what your kid is doing over at a friend's house. And if you ask, you probably won't get the truth if the kids are up to something you disapprove of but that they think is no big deal. When your kid is 16, will you be sitting beside him the whole time he's on the computer? Will you be beside him when he goes out with friends? You will, or do, send your kid off to school. Rest assured you have no control over what goes on there except to the extent you trust you've raised your child to do the right thing ALL the time. Conscientious parents worry all the time. Realistic parents recognize that there are plenty of circumstances out there in the 'void' where they can only hope for the best because they really do not have control. Keeping them at home solves nothing. It just puts off the inevitable - the real world.