Is MySpace Stealing Your Child’s Future?

It is on MySpace.com and many other virtual hangouts that these teens find a home for self-expression and a way to meet other teens online. They will routinely post pictures and videos, showcase their accomplishments, blog their thoughts and feelings, “connect” and hang out with other teens, rate each other’s space, watch music videos, and download photos, videos, music, ringtones, and more. call and games

This is also a place for teens to pretend to be someone else, create nasty rumors about others, discuss their drug use and sexual escapades (real or imagined), post sexually explicit videos and images, actively promote their sexual prowess, find partners of all persuasions, and post and exchange copyrighted videos, music, and images.

Well, there must be an age limit’ – And yes there is, more or less. According to MySpace, users must be at least 14 years old to join. According to the Terms of Service, if a user is under the age of 18 and misrepresents her age, the account may be deleted. Although MySpace tries to enforce its rules, they are hard-pressed to monitor more than 20 million users.

If your child is under 16 and says so, then only the basic information (name, photo, age, gender, interests, city and state) is available for anyone online to see. You can’t see anything else.

But if your child’s profile says they are over 16, then their entire “space” is open to the public. Regardless of her age, most teens say they are “16” or older. Open to the public means that anyone, anywhere online can see your profile, picture, posts, friends, etc. of his son. It also means that anyone with a MySpace account can post to your teen’s blogging space (unless the teen specifically blocks it).

There must be limits to what a teenager can post there. You’d think so’ – Although, MySpace.com says your child’s profile “cannot include the following elements: phone numbers, street addresses, last names, and any photographs posted by you cannot contain nudity, violence, or offensive subject matter Information provided by other MySpace.com members may contain inaccurate, inappropriate, or offensive material, products, or services,” it happens anyway.

Teens don’t think twice about posting their names, addresses, the school they attend, and personal information on their “space.” They post: images of themselves (clothed and unclothed) in sexual poses with members of the same and opposite sex; pictures of your drug and alcohol use; violent images and videos, and posting rumors or lies directed at other teens. There are even teenagers who will post scanned images of their school ID or driver’s licenses! You do not believe me? Go to Google.com and search for driver’s licenses in the Image search area. This readily available cornucopia of information is a sex offender/pedophile’s dream!

In a recent survey of adolescents at a Southern California high school, students responded to the following question:

Which of the following have you put online? Do not include secure sites.

83.2% Your name
61.1% pictures of you
6.5% Images containing drug use
71.3% your city
6.5% Images with sexual content
31.0% your full address
6.0% Images containing tobacco use
49.1% the name of your school
9.3% Images containing alcohol consumption
16.8% The location of your school
3.8% Videos with sexual content
20.7% the name of your parents
4.9% Videos containing drug or alcohol use
23.4% The names of your brother or sister.
15.2% Images or videos protected by copyright
2.7% Your driver’s license number
21.2% Music protected by copyright
6.0% your student id

Nearly 70% of these high school students have a MySpace account.

No problem. My son does not have a MySpace account. Do not be so sure. The inherent dangers of MySpace exist for both MySpace users and non-MySpace users. How can that be, you ask? It happens when someone else signs up her daughter or son for a MySpace account. When my 13-year-old granddaughter’s friend signed her up for an account, she began receiving dating, relationship, and sex requests, quizzes to see if she preferred boys or girls, and sexually explicit images and videos. The friend just needed my granddaughter’s email address to do it.

In the same survey, 19% of online high school students discovered that someone signed them up for something online (forums, quizzes, virtual communities, etc.) without their knowledge, and 24% received at least one or two requests per week by email. for a date, sex or relationship for someone they didn’t know.

I still don’t see how MySpace can affect my son’s future. What if I told you that everything put on the World Wide Web stays on the World Wide Web? That means that what your child posts on MySpace or anywhere else on the Internet can later be discovered and used against your child by co-workers, divorce lawyers, government agencies, etc. What your child posts today may come back to haunt you tomorrow. Think back to your wild days in high school, was there anything you did or said that you didn’t want your spouse, child, or employer to know about? Fortunately for you, those memories belong to you. Unfortunately, today’s children will end up sharing those memories with the world.

Take a look at some of the memories that have come back to haunt others:

• Emails from FEMA Director Mike Browne shed real light on the Hurricane Katrina disaster. He probably wishes he hadn’t sent those emails.
• Michael A. Mullen (aka Agent Life) was charged with murder after writing about it on his blog.
• Carl Edward Johnson was convicted of sending threatening emails. Although he used fake email addresses and forged email addresses, the police found him.
• A Florida teenager has pleaded guilty to a DUI manslaughter charge after prosecutors discovered a confession on his online blog.
• Internet bloggers were jailed on charges of allegedly posting material critical of a judge online.
• Gerald Velardi through a rock over an overpass causing damage to a truck with trailer. The posting of him on the weblog helped convince him.

If I ask MySpace to cancel my child’s account, then everything is fine . Think again: Did you know that if you press the Delete key on your computer, the file isn’t actually deleted until another file is saved to your hard drive? Even if you ask MySpace to remove the information from its servers, it still lives in other places: file and drive backups; people who downloaded the information to their computers, search engine caches, etc.

The only real way to protect your child is to be proactive.

Children should:

• block people from posting to your space ‘” yes, any registered user can post to any space.
• modify your images to distort their features or replace them with something else.
• don’t participate in rating other’s spaces ‘” your words will never go away.
• do not post personal information.
• say they are under 16 if they are. ‘” This provides additional MySpace protections.
• cancel their account if they are under 14 years of age

Parents should:

• gain computer skills take an online course on protecting your child’s future at Parent Smartz
• actively monitor your child’s computer use.
• teach your child about online risks and the danger of posting personal information.
• tell your child not to reply to instant messages or emails from strangers.
• find out if your child has a MySpace or other virtual hangout site and check out that site
• if necessary, contact MySpace to remove your child’s site.
• make sure your child chooses gender-neutral usernames that are not sexually suggestive or contain personal information.
• make sure your child never uses their login name in a chat room or forum.
• the most important thing is to be vigilant and act on your suspicions

Be wise, be proactive. Protect your child from himself!