Myspace
Read today's
Boondocks first, then read.
So apparently, Myspace is being investigated by
America's Most Wanted for facilitating the following:
- In February, a 14-year-old New Jersey girl was found dead in a dumpster after arranging a meeting with a stranger on MySpace.
- A 15-year-old California girl was abducted in December and found murdered in January. Her MySpace page included personal contact information and lots of activity.
- Hartford, Connecticut officials are investigating eight sexual assault cases after teenage girls met men on MySpace.
- In Lafayette, Louisiana four teen girls were sexually assaulted by a local pervert who found them on MySpace.
- In another Louisiana case a predator lay in wait for a teen girl in the parking lot of her place of employment, which he had found on her profile page.
Now, for the record, Myspace is pretty trashy. Lots of sex ads - whatever. And sure, sexual predators could possibly find a girl to prey upon in that system. But come on! Educate your children about these people. Parents are so skittish when it comes to talking frankly about sexual predators. They do horrible things to people, and I think too many kids are naive of these things. Educate your kids not to release their
name and home address on the internet. In place of a name, how about a pseudonym - a handle, if you will. There is never a need to give out your full name and address and common sense makes that clear. Some people do want to be found. Myspace offers that feature for people who really aren't in danger of sexual predators (such as myself). Don't scapegoat Myspace for offering a way to distribute information. Sure, they're a bit trashy (Check out the rest of the internet and tell me it's any different.), but that does not imply causality in any of these tragedies. The problem seems to lie within parents and kids, and, frankly, a failure to understand the internet (which, isn't that hard, mind you) and to be aware of what their kids are doing. I'm not saying that it's easy being a parent, but it seems to be worth it to keep up with technology.
Listen, Bob. A gun is just a tool. No better and no worse than any other tool, a shovel – or an axe or a saddle or a stove or anything…a gun is as good – or as bad – as the man who carries it.
- from Jack Schaefer's
Shane