MySpace, Facebook and other online communities have become very popular over the last year. They are the newest way for young people (and others) to meet others with similar interests but they are also very scary (at least to me).
Recently, a 21 year old “mentally slow” young lady that I know was drugged, missing for over a week and was finally found by the police dazed and confused 500 miles away from home. She met someone on MySpace, arranged to met them and that is all she remembers. Needless to say there was evidence that she had been “assaulted”.
MySpace advises users to be careful what they post and has all kinds of rules, but how many of the users between the ages of 10 and 25 even bother to look at those rules? Young people are very computer savvy nowadays but still do not realize that posting the tiniest bit of information can expose who they are and where they live/work or play! Even if the user doesn’t post any personal information, sometimes their friends post things that could led to disaster. Then there is also “friend hopping” where you find someone that you know and look at their friends pictures, which leads to finding other friends by simply clicking on their pictures. (That is how I found my daughter and son’s site, when they didn’t think that I would be able to!) My 20 year old daughter recently had one of her friends post a message that said something like “Hey so you are back working at “so and so” (not going to say it here)saw you leaving “blah blah shopping center” the other night. My daughter was really ticked off and blocked her from posting on her space anymore and a bonus is that she watches more closely now what friends post to her and has as many things as she can, now set to private.
There have been a huge number of sexual predators arrested lately who have used places like Facebook and MySpace as a sort of “online catalog” for finding young victims. And if you spend even a few minutes browsing though MySpace you will find many, many sexually explicit or half naked pictures posted of both young males and females…some holding guns, liquor and even drugs!
Right now, I do have one but I have it to monitor my friends children’s sites…is that unethical? Probably but if I can keep just one of them from being harmed (again) I think it is worth being called unethical. Because of what I have been doing, several of the young people that I know have been made more aware of what they post (because I gathered info from their site and posted a private message to them letting them know that I had tracked them down). Freaked them out just a little because they thought they could not be physically located.
So, now that I have rambled on about this, what do you think? Do believe that online communites should be monitored more closely? Are they good/bad or do you care at all? Do your children have them and have you been able to find them or have you looked at them without them knowing? Do you have one? Do you allow people to access them at work? If you work at a school/college, are students allowed to access these types of sites?
Your opinions will be greatly appreciated.
