My Space -- What is a parent supposed to do?

Parent Cafe
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<p>My Ds do post pictures, pretty innocent stuff, and they haven’t had any bad messages or requests, so far, well nothing obvious anyway</p>

<p>There have been a few people asking to be “friends”, people they don’t know, who they reject, and if that person sends any kind of message, they report it to myspace</p>

<p>if more kids did that, the predaotors could be spotted and patterns found</p>

<p>for instance, if they see the same poster sending messages to lots of girls that fit a “profile”, well, they can be watched and deleted</p>

<p>I know of kids whose profiles were deleted by myspace for various reasons</p>

<p>It is a very large website with millions of members, and it does take a bit to get rid of “interesting” members, but myspace takes safety pretty seriouslly when it becomes aware</p>

<p>So it is up to everyone to be aware and share what they find uncomfortables</p>

<p>Confession time:</p>

<p>I was once looking around myspace, and followed a couple of posts, and down the line, I found these kids threatening to beat up this girl (all had to do with stealing a boy), pull her hair out, take her down, etc…it was so mean, and the posts were feeding on themselves, each getting more vile, and getting more violent and threatening</p>

<p>So, I did a bit of figuring stuff out, determined what school some of the student went to, printed out the pages and faxed them to the schools involved and reported it to myspace</p>

<p>The posts disappeared and one myspace was deleted</p>

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<p>I was once looking around myspace, and followed a couple of posts, and down the line, I found these kids threatening to beat up this girl (all had to do with stealing a boy), pull her hair out, take her down, etc…it was so mean, and the posts were feeding on themselves, each getting more vile, and getting more violent and threatening</p>

<p>So, I did a bit of figuring stuff out, determined what school some of the student went to, printed out the pages and faxed them to the schools involved and reported it to myspace</p>

<p>The posts disappeared and one myspace was deleted <<<<</p>

<p>Good for you!!! If more adults did this, myspace and xenga would be less likely to be used to physically threaten or verbally beat up another kid.</p>

<p>I really am glad that schools are taking this stuff seriously and are no longer afraid of dealing with bad behavior that occurs “off campus”. </p>

<p>There was a time when schools didn’t know what to do about stuff that happened “off campus” or at a “non school related location”. </p>

<p>I hope some wacky group doesn’t try to stop schools for issuing consequences for postings that are done off school premises.</p>

23

<p>This whole myspace thing is way out of hand - the MAJORITY of myspacers just use it to communicate with their friends. As long as your child is not being harrassed, putting up slutty pictures, or attracting the attention of online skeeze buckets, I would let it go. It gets old within a year or two…and then they move on to facebook where they list their dorm room, phone number and more…</p>

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<p>I agree, there aren’t that many problems with it, but the ones we see, should be addressed</p>

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<p>even the so-called safe myspace/xenga – those who limit access to only their friends/classmates – are still being used to post awful “mean girl” things about other classmates & sometimes nasty things about their teachers.</p>

<p>Those myspacers may be protected from pedophiles but they it is sad if they are posting ugly things about others.</p>

26

<p>Absolutely, the whole Myspace phenomenon has gotten way out of hand even if most teens “merely” use it to “communicate” with their friends. As if MSN chatting etc. isn’t enough. Like it or not, both parents and students must recognize the current negative attitude toward teen blogging - and realize they are fully responsible if they post anything that might have a negative consequence on college admissions or job opportunities in the future. </p>

<p>Actually, this is all just plain common sense.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/News/StepsNewsletter/myspace_students.htm[/url]”>http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/News/StepsNewsletter/myspace_students.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>This NY Times article probes further negative consequences of inappropriate posting/behavior as the corporate world weighs in on the blogging phenomenon:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/fashion/thursdaystyles/25intern.html?8dpc[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/fashion/thursdaystyles/25intern.html?8dpc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Important articles, asteriskea.
The word is getting out that employers are doing web searches on potential employees. I hope the “searched” have an opportunity to defend themselves.</p>

<p>A friend of mine googled her kids and found several comments about them on other kids’ blogs.
Kids don’t really get it that this is public information.</p>

29

<p>The thing with myspace, is that those stories that you here make up just a small amount of the people on myspace. And yes, it doesn’t matter how large the community is because it only takes one to track down YOUR kid. But at the same time, I really don’t see anything wrong with myspace.</p>

<p>As long as the kids are careful when they are on it, there is no reason for parents to get too concerned.</p>

<p>I see it as a great way to get in contact with old classmates that may have moved. And you can always set your page to private that way only people on your friend’s list can see your information. And just with instant messenger, people shouldn’t “friend” people that they don’t know. And most importantly, just don’t share your information with others. </p>

<p>Some people keep adding friends so that they have 100’s of people that are their “friends” but how much of their “friends” do they actually know in real life. That’s when kids get into trouble.</p>

<p>But as long as you are talking with people that you know in real life, and you don’t give out personal information (such as your high school, where you work…etc.) if your page is public, then you should be fine.</p>

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<p>With 50 MILLION plus members, its amazing there are so FEW problems</p>

31

<p>real simple: just say NO! Since I pay for the computers and electricity, I’m allowed to set rules in the house. They can join myspace thru their college computer systems.</p>

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<p>I don’t think it has to be all or nothing///i remember when AOLAIM first came out, parents freaked out because of a few problems</p>

<p>I know many kids it helped- kids who were kind of shy could talk to people on line they knew and it gave them confidence to approach people at school</p>

<p>MYspace is pretty harmless IF kids are smart, respectful, cautious, not gullible, and if parents keep an eye</p>

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<p>The biggest problem I see with myspace and similar sites is that kids forget that what they post is totally public. Anyone can read it. H “accidently” found our nephew’s page through a classmate’s link. We regularly read his blog. (So funny to later get the “family news” that we already know. . )I’m sure his parents don’t read it, though, or they’d make him take out the foul language! (One of my pet peeves–what’s the matter with kids today? Even intelligent, educated kids are posting the f-word everywhere–just so crude, trashy and low class! How does this reflect on you, your school, your family reputation?!) H also found the blog of a young lady from our church and mentioned something about it to her when he saw her. . .nothing bad, but she was MORTIFIED that someone unexpected had read her blog. Kids–remember–this stuff is public. Are you writing anything you don’t want grandma (auntie, cousins, neighbor, employer, guy from church, etc.) to read? Better not, because you’d be surprised who is out there.</p>

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<p>What I also see is that it is a “brag space”</p>

<p>I see posts</p>

<p>Wow, that was so much fun swimming with you ALL day (as in aren’t we the best couple and everyone on the planet needs to know how close we are cause our relationship is public not private)</p>

<p>or</p>

<p>Hey, it was so cool, your text messages to me yesterday were SOOOO greaat (as in hey, look, we are flirting with each other and we want everyone on the planet to know)</p>

<p>or</p>

<p>this is a classic</p>

<p>Sorry, we didn’t include you in the conversation but Sam knows a secret about me and its REALLLLY bad and no one can know, so we didn’t talk to you…</p>

<p>then:</p>

<p>You can’t know, if you send a bulliten I will kill you, I mean it, the secret is so bad and I would get in soooo much trouble</p>

<p>or another one:</p>

<p>I lost all the stuff, I was so wasted I can’t remember where I put it, I hope my mom doesn’t find it cause that would be bad, we need it for the party at the hotel tonight (girl is 16)</p>

<p>Oh phew I found it, but not sure what the green ones do, ah well…i will tell you later</p>

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<p>tell your children to use facebook instead, its much more safe and practical</p>

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<p>my Oldest is evolving to Facebook, the youngest is starting</p>

<p>facebook is less “flashy” and obvious</p>

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<p>Dean J, I was really interested to read on your UVa admssions blog that many admissions officers really DO check the kids’ MySpace if there is a question of whether or not an EC is for real. You said:</p>

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</p>

<p>That’s something I suspected all along and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.</p>

38

<p>I would like to ask a question that is probably on the clueless side. If a person sets his myspace profile to be private, does that prevent strangers from viewing it? If they can still see it, how do they do that?</p>

<p>I personally don’t like my daughter to be on myspace, and she deleted her account. Then, a trusted adult at her school told the kids that it was safe if the account is marked “private”. True???</p>

39

<p>I don’t know if the following web link will be of any help to you but it seems that according to MySpace TOS the privacy feature is reserved for children under 15 years of age and any other use of it is deemed to be fraud. </p>

<p><a href=“http://collect.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.faq&faqQuestionId=42[/url]”>http://collect.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.faq&faqQuestionId=42&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Obviously, this is points to a serious flaw in the MySpace setup - this particular feature is the only way that users have to try to block strangers from viewing it. Since my children don’t use MySpace, I can’t give you any first hand information and so I hope someone who is less clueless than I am will give you more info.</p>

<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>If the profile is “private”, only the member’s friends can see the info. However, some kids will accept any friend request so that they have a high number to show to others. </p>

<p>Roshke, the website in that case wan’t MySpace. I don’t think many admission officers will take the time to look up MySpace pages. One thing to be cautious of: MySpace pages DO show up in Google searches.</p>