31 March 2007

Myspace news blog & a reader's response

(I wrote this back in 4/8/2006, and I'm updating it today)

Evergreen Times - Crimes connected to MySpace have parents, police on guard - Reported by Julie Davis Barry

A-HOLE! This article is pretty ignorant of the fact that everyone's profiles under 16 are privatized. But I guess their point is that there was the option where anyone under 18 can view ur profile if ur profile is private, so a pedophile posing as a minor could get away with looking at youngster's profiles. Besides, if you go down to the last part of the story, a lot of that stuff many of my (safe) friends are doing on Myspace as I speak.

So Ms. Barry, are you trying to say that everyone on Myspace is gonna get kidnapped for posting their stuff (name, photo, school, etc) on there profile! I mean, 99.9% Myspace users have their personal photo on - including minors. And only about 1% got kidnapped. Besides, you didn't notice that Myspace has a directory of high schools from all 50 states? When you're saying that we shouldn't state what kinda school or extraciricular (sorry for the crappy spelling) activities we go to? Wow, my fellow Myspacers, welcome to Soccer Mom planet.

In my view, those things happen becuase of lack of maturity and common sense. Those girls we see on the evening news got kidnapped all because they actually decided to do talk to strangers online without the knowledge of their evil nature. A message to all my fellow Internet users: Just don't talk to strangers online, just communicate with people you truly know in real life on Myspace.

Oh yeah, one more thing about discourageing posting personal photos on Myspace: Since personal photos are the main source of identification on Myspace due to the way the site was designed, your friends won't really know it's your profile without your nagging if you don't have your photo on Myspace. So I do not discourage not putting ur photo online, yet make sure you are hard to find for pedophiles and child aductors. (added today) And now that anyone can set their profiles private, this ain't a big deal no more. News articles like this are OBSOLETE!


NBC Nightly News Video on Myspace Mobile - originally aired Friday 4/7/2006

Once again, Myspace makes controversy on the news, now that its Mobile service has been released. Heck, it's been out since I estimate February or so. NBC reported it as controversial because now that Myspace is available on mobile phones, kids are in danger because it's easier and quicker to upload pictures, comments, etc. on Myspace through a mobile phone because parents are less likely to be supervising. Currently, the service is available only to Cingular customers, according to the Mobile options page on your Account Settings. Even as a liberal, I see this as a danger because people going to schools that ban Myspace on their computers can now find a way to use Myspace on campus and get away with any wrongdoing - IF they use Cingular. So I think that schools should ban people from bringing Cingular phones on campus if they want total safety from Myspace on campus - or ban people from even brining phones with those so called "cell phone jammers" - install those throughout campus.

I suggest to any Myspace Mobile user out there to be careful when using it - use the same safety procedures as you would online. Don't post too much personal info, such as your phone # or home address, don't say anything if you can't say anything nice at all, you know the drill. :-)


Regarding the "ban": and old friend named Paul commented: "These blanket bans won't work. Just like teaching abstinence doesn't work.".

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