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In January, police arrested a 21-year-old man whom they accused
of raping a 14-year-old girl he met on MySpace. Another man was arrested for finding
the work address of a 16-year-old girl on MySpace and sexually assaulting her in
the parking lot of her work. Clearly, to protect our children online, we must be
very aware and very careful about MySpace.
So what is MySpace? It is a social networking
website which allows members to post information about themselves - blogs, photos,
personal profiles, and pretty much anything else they want to post. Users can then
browse the database of members and add other people to their list of friends, receiving
notification when their friends post new content. For anyone knowledgeable about
online safety, this should set off some warning flags. There is nothing stopping
children from posting contact information such as phone numbers and e-mail addresses
which can then be used by child predators to get to those children.
So how do we
protect our children? Banning them from MySpace would likely be socially crippling
to an early teen, since in many places the site will be used by a majority of a
child’s peers. Really, the best protection is to watch their MySpace page and insist
that your children remove unacceptable material.
Also, MySpace provides a list of
its own advice, which can be found at
http://www.myspace.com/Modules/Common/Pages/SafetyTips.aspx.
The tips include a reminder that information posted is available to the public,
a warning not to post things that may embarrass you later, and a warning not to
pose as someone older or younger. As parents, we should educate our children on
these rules and make sure our children are not violating them on their MySpace pages.
MySpace can be a great way to meet people and keep in contact with friends. If we
exercise some common sense and safety techniques, we can get the most out of this
technology.
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