Can MySpace lift the curse?

[Carol]

Indeed there are. VERY sick.

A story comes to mind...a man was leading up a group that was protesting/boycotting Home Depot because they were not contracting to get lumber from ecologically sound resources. IIRC the protests and boycotts had no effect on changing Home Depot's policy.

The group then changed its tacticts and invested in Home Depot stock...and then built a campaign to attract like-minded Home Depot investors to bring up their lumbering practices through investor relations.

THAT move was successful in influencing policy.

Geo, if you or I or anyone chooses to leave MySpace, we certainly can. We have that freedom. We also have a voice. Once we close up our account, we are already "lost" as a customer. We are an outsider that may be perceived as someone with an axe to grind.

But if we voice our concerns as active members, then we are the voice of people then that is a voice from people that have a stake (albeit small) in the community.

 

[jks9199]

While MySpace isn't perfect and is an open ground for abuse, I think a lot of the blame needs to rest on the parents of these kids too, not just MySpace. How the heck are they being given such freedom at to have the ability to meet these predators because it seems like these predators don't just live next door? Why aren't these parents educating their kids about the dangers of revealing too much information online? Why aren't these parents watching over their kids shoulders or installing software to track where their kids go online and who they talk to?
I think it is good that MySpace is implementing all these new efforts, and I hope they continue to improve, but I don't think they should be blamed or at least recieve full blame for the all the crimes that have happened because of it...It just seems to me that people are looking for someone to blame and MySpace is an easy target...

MySpace is no different -- and no better than -- letting kids hang out at the mall, or the beach, or anywhere else. If the parents aren't paying attention -- they won't have a clue what the kids are doing, and the kids will probably find their way to trouble. But, with care, there's nothing inherently evil in MySpace, FaceBook, or any of the similar social networking sites.

Kids shouldn't be making plans to meet up with people that they & their parents don't know. If they insist on meeting someone -- their parents should be there, too, and it should be in a very public location.

But the kids that are hooking up with the perverts aren't the ones whose parents are involved...

 

[Ping898]

Obviously Shesulsa, the choice to keep or cancelyour account is yours.
In the end, MySpace is just getting a lot of the heat because it is very popular....
One need only look in the news to be reminded it is not the only threat....and probably not even the most immediate threat...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/01/25/sex.ruse.ap/index.html

PRESCOTT, Arizona (AP) -- Authorities investigating a 29-year-old sex offender suspected of repeatedly enrolling in schools as a 12-year-old boy said Thursday they seized a video showing him engaging in sex acts with a child.
....
Officials at another school, the Imagine School at Rosefield in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, said Rodreick attended class from August through November before they dropped him for poor attendance.
He spent a total of 50 days in class, and apparently did not raise concerns.

 

[Kacey]

We had our annual (sometimes semi-annual) inservice on spotting gang activity in the middle school I work at, and the presenters added a section on myspace... they had a few interesting comments. One, many kids are now starting to have 2 profiles - one they let their parents see, and one for their friends. Two, if you go to my space and put in the name of any gang, you can find all sorts of information - including the time and date of the next gang fight, videos of gangers being jumped in (2 or more minutes of getting hit without being allowed to fight back - or it goes on longer). On the other hand, a fair number of kids in my district and surrounding districts have been caught advertising their gang affiliation on myspace, and are either no longer in school (their choice or ours) bullying and recruiting other kids... but they're getting wiser to that one.

 

[Drac]

Kids shouldn't be making plans to meet up with people that they & their parents don't know. If they insist on meeting someone -- their parents should be there, too, and it should be in a very public location.
But the kids that are hooking up with the perverts aren't the ones whose parents are involved...

Gospel truth there...

 

[Carol]

Gospel truth there...

Amen

 

[Kreth]

He had a bottle of wine, some Vaium, a sexy nightie and a camera..

Yeah, but was he cute in the nightie?

 

[Jonathan Randall]

Child Online Safety,

Monitor
Assess
Educate
Monitor
etc...

--Infy

Great list! MONITOR your children. Predators (whether adult bullies or sexual predators) zero in on those children who are not watched or cared for by their parents. When I was young, a school librarian would be a terrible bully to a number of students - but NEVER to those whose parents were active in their child's school life and attended Open Houses and such.

Still, IMO, a thirteen something (or younger) should NOT have unwatched Internet access - if they're on, you're in the same room. My brother did this with his children and my sister does this with hers.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Great list! MONITOR your children. Predators (whether adult bullies or sexual predators) zero in on those children who are not watched or cared for by their parents. When I was young, a school librarian would be a terrible bully to a number of students - but NEVER to those whose parents were active in their child's school life and attended Open Houses and such.

Still, IMO, a thirteen something (or younger) should NOT have unwatched Internet access - if they're on, you're in the same room. My brother did this with his children and my sister does this with hers.

Excellent advice Johnathan!

 

[shesulsa]

For every parent who gives their children extremely limited internet access (my daughter has virtually none at home, save her need to research information) there is a child who understands the danger of places like MySpace, chatrooms, etcetera and who finds a way to do it anyway.

My daughter created her MySpace accounts at school in the computer lab. She and her friends look up penis.com there too. Now, for those of you who haven't been around MT for very long, the ones who do and who know what I do in my spare time will tell you I teach self-defense to girls, adults, and pairings of girls and their guardian. My daughter assists me and talks to teens about how little value there is spending time on MySpace and in chat modules when you could be out *doing* something - shooting hoops, serving the community, outdoor stewardship, etcetera. So just because a child espouses values and engages in healthy, time-consuming and virtuous activities and you know where they are almost every minute doesn't mean that they won't find a way to get on line and chat with strangers when you're not around.

That said ...

Ping made a good point earlier - why not go after all the big online chat venues? What about MSN? Yahoo? AOL? After all, MySpace is just a one-stop shopping place for the personal on-line information - webpage, email, blogspot, chat forums, etcetera. Is it deep pockets?

What do you think the future will be in age verification on online communities and will our technology for this be cost-effective for in-home use?

 

[MA-Caver]

Obviously parents want computers to babysit like they wanted televisions to babysit so they can do what they need/want to do.
They could create a KIDSPACE and ban anyone 14 yrs or older and have it run/monitored by LEO's (secretly... so to catch those damned predators). Either that or just ban the kids...
As an educational tool the internet is invaluable. For everything else it's an crap shoot.
Still as I've always said, the parents are ultimately responsible for everything... EVERYTHING that goes on with their kids' lives... at least until they're 18.

 

[Infinite]

So wait... if I create oh I don't know an online forum for martial arts lets say... and a few 13 year olds decide to sign up am I then supposed to invest massive ammounts of cash to protect them? Or am I supposed to spend massive ammounts of cash to ban them?

Your putting ALL the onus on myspace to come up with a solution when in fact it isn't really there problem.

--Infy

 

[MA-Caver]

So wait... if I create oh I don't know an online forum for martial arts lets say... and a few 13 year olds decide to sign up am I then supposed to invest massive ammounts of cash to protect them? Or am I supposed to spend massive ammounts of cash to ban them?

Your putting ALL the onus on myspace to come up with a solution when in fact it isn't really there problem.

--Infy

You're right it isn't MYSPACE's problem. But they still need to understand what's out there and do the best they can to help parents protect their children.
I've said that parents are ultimately responsible, but they need not bear the whole burden. Teachers, coaches, (MA) instructors and anyone else who comes in contact with a child needs to help reinforce what's good and what's bad.
Problem with that is what IS good and what IS bad? Who decides? Society supposedly makes the determination as a whole, local communities set up ordinances and laws, spreading out to counties and then state then out to the national level.
The internet is a international community, thus really can't be regulated by anyone... except by the user. That squares it back down to the home... where the parents are the head of the household.

 

[Infinite]

You're right it isn't MYSPACE's problem. But they still need to understand what's out there and do the best they can to help parents protect their children.
I've said that parents are ultimately responsible, but they need not bear the whole burden. Teachers, coaches, (MA) instructors and anyone else who comes in contact with a child needs to help reinforce what's good and what's bad.
Problem with that is what IS good and what IS bad? Who decides? Society supposedly makes the determination as a whole, local communities set up ordinances and laws, spreading out to counties and then state then out to the national level.
The internet is a international community, thus really can't be regulated by anyone... except by the user. That squares it back down to the home... where the parents are the head of the household.

All good and valuable points and I agree. Myspace does a fairly decent job at putting together faq's and guides for parents AND children. They also warn you while creating those profiles not to put anything identifiable.

As someone else said her daughter went to school and set up her myspace account. There are ways and children will find them. I'd bet that her myspace page doesn't look exactly the same as everyone elses. I'm willing to bet she didn't put her address or anything and probably not even a last name.

If she did then the lesson wasn't learned and she isn't ready to be on the net. I think that's the part that is missing parents are never sure when ready is ready. They don't fully understand the dangers so it makes it difficult to assess if a child does as well.

--Infy

 

[Drac]

Yeah, but was he cute in the nightie?

They didn't say..BUT I can tell you the arresting Sheriffs threatned to put him in the nightie and take pictures and POST them if he lied to them about his presence in the area..He stopped lying...

 

[shesulsa]

So wait... if I create oh I don't know an online forum for martial arts lets say... and a few 13 year olds decide to sign up am I then supposed to invest massive ammounts of cash to protect them? Or am I supposed to spend massive ammounts of cash to ban them?

Well ... a couple of points:

1. I'm asking about the technology that may or may not be available to forums like this one to verify identity and age requirements just to find out what the feasibility is for automatic verification. I didnt' say the onus is on MySpace, just asking about the available technology.

2. I ban people from this site every day for false or incomplete information in their profle or if they happen to put in a birthday that shows they are younger than the required age, so I know what's involved in manually doing this.

Your putting ALL the onus on myspace to come up with a solution when in fact it isn't really there problem.

1. No, I'm not putting ALL the onus on MySpace (see above and read what I wrote) and ...

2. It becomes everyone's problem when children are irresponsible whether we like it or not. If a child breaks the law, this requires the attention of law enforcement and the possible need for facilities to house the kid - can you say tax dollars? Then when that child goes back to school, s/he must have an individualized education program which will require at least four school district employees get involved and spend extra time they don't have to assemble this plan. Then this kid will require some kind of therapeutic intervention, perhaps a combination which will take resources, and then there's the venue through which this child chose to express his/her unruliness. This all plays into the demographics of a residential area and school district performance levels which affect the sale of real estate and the flow of local commerce.

Just a clue here for you folks who can't seem to understand this: Good parents can raise kids who chose to turn bad.

 

[Drac]

They could create a KIDSPACE and ban anyone 14 yrs or older and have it run/monitored by LEO's (secretly... so to catch those damned predators).

The Feds do it all the time...

 

[Infinite]

Well ... a couple of points:

1. I'm asking about the technology that may or may not be available to forums like this one to verify identity and age requirements just to find out what the feasibility is for automatic verification. I didnt' say the onus is on MySpace, just asking about the available technology.

2. I ban people from this site every day for false or incomplete information in their profle or if they happen to put in a birthday that shows they are younger than the required age, so I know what's involved in manually doing this.

Ok so I'll take these two points as a seperate issue. Age Verification technology is almost exclusivly in use at XXX sites. The reason being is that basically the only way to verify age is to ask for a credit card. Children can't get credit cards (at least not unless their parents give them ones). This cuts people off at the age of 18. Prior to 18 there is no technology availible because there is no centralized registry in which to verify against.

So basically unless someone starts a not for profit group that has access to minor's records (not very likely) there will be no way to automate this process. You CAN how ever automate several other features such as checking the geography of the users IP with his stated zipcode. If those don't match up you know they are lieing at least about that.

So your choices are verify they are adults 18 or older or don't verify at all. Verifying if they are an adult requires cash you have to pay for the service.

It is an interesting security problem I'll work on it and see if I Can find a path out of this forest.

1. No, I'm not putting ALL the onus on MySpace (see above and read what I wrote) and ...

2. It becomes everyone's problem when children are irresponsible whether we like it or not. If a child breaks the law, this requires the attention of law enforcement and the possible need for facilities to house the kid - can you say tax dollars? Then when that child goes back to school, s/he must have an individualized education program which will require at least four school district employees get involved and spend extra time they don't have to assemble this plan. Then this kid will require some kind of therapeutic intervention, perhaps a combination which will take resources, and then there's the venue through which this child chose to express his/her unruliness. This all plays into the demographics of a residential area and school district performance levels which affect the sale of real estate and the flow of local commerce.

Just a clue here for you folks who can't seem to understand this: Good parents can raise kids who chose to turn bad.

Oh I fully understand that you can raise a kid and they can and will make stupid choices that is in fact what being a kid IS. Notice I said one of the primary problems is knowing if the kid is mature enough to handle the net. As we don't know all the dangers it becomes hard to establish if the child is ready.

So I'm not into the social liberal bent on things... I personally think if a child screws up I shouldn't have to pay for him to go to foster care. Now if the parents of the child screw up I'm all for paying for foster care.

School has turned into the great baby sitter. Everyone pays taxes to allow everyone the ability to have their kids watched for most of the day for most of their young lives. At one point we were teaching them but now we are just keeping them for the most part.

For the teachers out there that are teaching I commend you but alas you are the rare breeds. I do not wish to demean the process of teaching it is noble and I respect it very much.

--Infy

 

[shesulsa]

Ok so I'll take these two points as a seperate issue. Age Verification technology is almost exclusivly in use at XXX sites. The reason being is that basically the only way to verify age is to ask for a credit card. Children can't get credit cards (at least not unless their parents give them ones). This cuts people off at the age of 18. Prior to 18 there is no technology availible because there is no centralized registry in which to verify against.

So basically unless someone starts a not for profit group that has access to minor's records (not very likely) there will be no way to automate this process. You CAN how ever automate several other features such as checking the geography of the users IP with his stated zipcode. If those don't match up you know they are lieing at least about that.

What about a state ID card issued to no one under the age of, say, 14 ... or if that's too young, use the DL? But then there is the identity protection issue.

School has turned into the great baby sitter. Everyone pays taxes to allow everyone the ability to have their kids watched for most of the day for most of their young lives. At one point we were teaching them but now we are just keeping them for the most part.

For the teachers out there that are teaching I commend you but alas you are the rare breeds. I do not wish to demean the process of teaching it is noble and I respect it very much.

I don't think of the school as a babysitter per se, though if they are to be in charge of minors and claim to be in charge of their safety and claim to have monitoring systems in place, then they need to fulfill that promise. And with ALL DUE RESPECT to teachers out there (I share Infy's sentiment in the quote above), teacher have been given too much to do besides teach and shape their charges.

 

[Infinite]

What about a state ID card issued to no one under the age of, say, 14 ... or if that's too young, use the DL? But then there is the identity protection issue.

This highlights the problem I was indicating. How are you as a private citizen going to get access to minor's or even adults DL or State ID #'s?

So I'm sitting around trying to figure out a way to identify people without needing anything that would be illegal and its trumping me soundly.

I don't think of the school as a babysitter per se, though if they are to be in charge of minors and claim to be in charge of their safety and claim to have monitoring systems in place, then they need to fulfill that promise. And with ALL DUE RESPECT to teachers out there (I share Infy's sentiment in the quote above), teacher have been given too much to do besides teach and shape their charges.

Ahmen sister.