Need Information on myspace.com

[Edwin Kruse]

I get to do a talk for a group of foster care parents in a couple of
weeks. They want me to talk about myspace.com and any dangers associated
with it for children and teenagers.

Why is myspace not necessarily a safe place? Can anyone help me out?

My thoughts so far:

1. Although you are supposed to be an adult to create a website, all you
have to do is lie about your age online and you get an account.

2. It is free so anyone can set up a site.

3. Predators or anyone can pose as another teen and begin an online
relationship with your child.

4. Pictures, vulgar language, and sexual innuendo are not monitored very
closely if at all.

5. Kids put up a lot of personal information and pictures not realizing
how quickly it can lead to them. i.e. "I walk home from school every
day at 3:00 p.m., and I go to school at Challenger middle school"

6. This service contains a type of posting or message service outside of
email that is difficult to track. (who is your daughter talking to?)

Any experiences, parental insite, or other information would be appreciated!

Edwin Kruse
Network Services Manager
TWC San Diego

[Damian]

Post by Edwin Kruse
I get to do a talk for a group of foster care parents in a couple of
weeks. They want me to talk about myspace.com and any dangers
associated with it for children and teenagers.
Why is myspace not necessarily a safe place? Can anyone help me out?
1. Although you are supposed to be an adult to create a website, all
you have to do is lie about your age online and you get an account.
2. It is free so anyone can set up a site.
3. Predators or anyone can pose as another teen and begin an online
relationship with your child.
4. Pictures, vulgar language, and sexual innuendo are not monitored
very closely if at all.
5. Kids put up a lot of personal information and pictures not
realizing how quickly it can lead to them. i.e. "I walk home from school
every
day at 3:00 p.m., and I go to school at Challenger middle school"
6. This service contains a type of posting or message service outside
of email that is difficult to track. (who is your daughter talking
to?)
Any experiences, parental insite, or other information would be appreciated!
Edwin Kruse
Network Services Manager
TWC San Diego

Go browse a few pages. Unless you are looking to make a sex date with a
teen, you probably won't go back.

[Brandon]

I saw this a few days ago on myspace, this girl was 17 and was killed by
someone she met on myspace.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9646779/
http://www.myspace.com/doowop

I get to do a talk for a group of foster care parents in a couple of weeks.
They want me to talk about myspace.com and any dangers associated with it
for children and teenagers.
Why is myspace not necessarily a safe place? Can anyone help me out?
1. Although you are supposed to be an adult to create a website, all you
have to do is lie about your age online and you get an account.
2. It is free so anyone can set up a site.
3. Predators or anyone can pose as another teen and begin an online
relationship with your child.
4. Pictures, vulgar language, and sexual innuendo are not monitored very
closely if at all.
5. Kids put up a lot of personal information and pictures not realizing
how quickly it can lead to them. i.e. "I walk home from school every day
at 3:00 p.m., and I go to school at Challenger middle school"
6. This service contains a type of posting or message service outside of
email that is difficult to track. (who is your daughter talking to?)
Any experiences, parental insite, or other information would be appreciated!
Edwin Kruse
Network Services Manager
TWC San Diego

[Kathy]

I get to do a talk for a group of foster care parents in a couple of weeks.
They want me to talk about myspace.com and any dangers associated with it
for children and teenagers.
Why is myspace not necessarily a safe place? Can anyone help me out?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace
http://ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/051019b.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5897099.htm
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/technology/ny-bzchat134467251oct13,0,5719979.story?coll=orl-technology-headlines
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/website22.htm

You can sign up if you're as young as 14. Obviously you could lie. Their
search form won't let you search for profiles of members younger than 16,
but it is a simple matter to modify the search URL to search for 14-year
olds if that's what you're looking for. You can search by age and distance
from a zipcode. Most of the profiles tell which school the members go to,
so if you were so inclined, it would not be difficult to locate a member.
http://browseusers.myspace.com/browse/browse.aspx

To me, the biggest issue is the site's popularity, the ease of searching for
the profiles of minors, and lack of any sort of moderating for a site
largely targeted at minors. You can search by middle school and high
school. If you sign up for the site, you are immediately prompted to first
upload your photos, then create a profile.

A service like AOL, which offers chat and profiles and lots of the same
features, only allows the master account holder to create new subaccounts,
and those subaccounts can be specified as for minors, and the services are
in that case restricted. There are no such restrictions on myspace.

All I can say is thank God that's not an issue for us (yet).

- Kathy