MySpace "Dangers"

I first heard of myspace several months ago when it started getting negative press on American Family Radio as a portal to various vulgar and profane things on the Internet. I immediately became anti-MySpace; fearful that young people (okay, young girls like my 13 y/o daughter) would be solicited online. In uncharacteristic fashion, I let my jury render a verdict based on heresay evidence.

Then, I went to wedding in May and found that an entire family of a friend was "on" myspace. Soon after I returned, I was encouraged to join MySpace to I could stay in touch with my friend and others. I did. Early on, it was just another novelty. No big deal really; oh, the comments were cute and all, but I would much rather chat on IM than mess with MySpace.

Now, if you expect to me confess to becoming a MySpace junkie, you're going to be let down. Sure, I've searched the web for backgrounds and posted maybe a dozen comments total to the four friends I have out there. (Yes, only four!)

What are the dangers? I see a few...

1. Crude and Raunchy Comments: The "nice" comments members go after to send each other are comingled with a lot of crude and raunchy comments. Such sites have not warnings on their homepages stating that the content may be offensive. Expletives and sexually suggestive themes are prolific as is the profanity (four letter words are common place).
2. "Propositional" Invitations: One of the supposedly fun things about MySpace is the ability to look at other member's profiles and, based on what you see/read, you can ask permission to be their "friend." This gives you permission to post comments and other functions to those who grant permission. About two weeks into my MySpace career, an attractive young lady asked to be my friend. Before I rejected her invitation, I scanned her profile and learned that she had a live webcam on another site that I would be able to access to see "more" of her. One day last week, I received eight requests from potential "friends," PYTs all, each of them providing a thumbnail pic in a reveal and/or provocative pose.
3. Anonyimity: There is nothing that I have seen that forces a person to truthfully identify themselves by age or gender. This opens the floodgates for perps who would disguise themselves in order to gain access (vitual and actual) to children and/or teens.

Parents of underaged children, beware! Even if your child or teen is as wholesome and pure as apple pie, he or she is highly likely to see the unwholesome side of our culture through MySpace. Minds that young are probably not mature enough to filter out the trash in order to enjoy the treasure that is out there. I'm new to this cyber-socializing thing, but I hope someone with the resources will create something suitable for children and teens so they can enjoy the it without being exposed to the crude and raunchy aspects of MySpace.

What options do you have if your children are already hooked on MySpace? Find a place online like Geocities that allows persons to build their own limited website. It's free. Or for less than $50 bucks a year, you can get 'em their own website with a .net domain name. What is your child's innocense worth?

Am I going to abandon myspace? No..not for now; just like I'm not abadoning PG-13 movies (and yes, I have shut some off recently..or left the room). Am I offended by the crude and the raunchy? Yes; I wish it wasn't there. Will I jump at the chance for another more clean-cut cyber socializing option, yep and I'll take as many of you with me as I can.