I thought Danni’s blog (see first link below) on ‘MySpace behaviour’ was interesting. It seems people have different opinions on this. For example, last week I went out with a mate of mine in the London and I told him about a someone I had linked up with via the internet. His face dropped in shock as he said “Hang on, you met up with a random guy on the net??” To be fair, he had good reasons to be shocked. The internet can be a dangerous place to meet people. I remember watching Panorama back in January. This particular episode was about paedophiles using sites such as MySpace to come into contact with teenagers. One girl on the show accepted a request from a 25 year old woman on MySpace and had made conversations with her via messaging. This was Okay for no person details were exchanged. However, this girl and a friend had a conversation about a field trip they were going to and stated exactly where they were going via commenting (messages on one’s profile which the entire world can see!!!). When they went on the trip, a creepy older man approached the girl and it transpired that he was the 25 year old woman she had added. Luckily, she wasn’t attacked by the man, but the fact that she had not only been deceived, but also stalked can't go unnoticed. Not to mention, there was also that enormous risk that she could have been attacked.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but situations like these are the responsibility of the individual. The girl shouldn’t have posted personal information via commenting and if she did receive any of that information on her comments, she should have deleted them straight away. If she wanted to discuss the field trip with her friend, she should have done so via messaging (conversations that no one else can see).
Just because there are risks involved in socialising sites, does not mean that it is necessarily bad. Although you do need to take precautions when meeting someone from the net, for example, agreeing to meet in a public place, taking a trusted friend with you, keeping your mobile with you and so on. Also, person information such as address and where you hang out shouldn’t be shared on your profile. It’s ever so annoying when I hear stories such as the one I’ve described. Its literally common sense to keep information like that secret!
I know that the least you should be is fourteen to use MySpace. One might think that this should rise to eighteen because that way, paedophiles won’t bother with preying for potential victims. However, some teenagers might pretend to be eighteen, as social network sites are seen as cool. Yet, it can be argued that since the paedophile has no solid proof that they are not eighteen, then there shouldn’t be a problem. However, what if the teenager’s default shows otherwise? What if the paedophile becomes infatuated by the eighteen year old who looks about twelve? But then, there are people who are eighteen who look underage (I’m twenty and some people think I’m a school girl). I don’t think any more restrictions (anyone under 18 on MySpace has their profile set to private automatically) are going to help. I think teenagers and young people should be taught about the dangers of socialising sites and the precautions they must take if they decide to meet anybody.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace(see the child safety section)
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