SolveYourProblem Article Series: MySpace
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How To Keep Your Kids Protected on MySpace

It’s no surprise that one of the Internet’s hottest website is also hot with today’s teens and kids. MySpace is a social networking website where people can chat with one another, share pictures and videos, meet new online friends, and keep current with the latest in films, music, and comedy. The website is outrageously popular—the 106th millionth person signed on as a member this past September (2006) —and has become the third most visited English-language website on the Internet. This popularity, tied to the ability to link up with thousands of new friends, has made MySpace a destination for many kids. It is important for you to understand how to keep your kids protected on MySpace.

Before providing you with parental guidance for protecting your MySpace kid, let’s first learn how the website operates. MySpace is free and open to anyone over the age of fourteen with access to the Internet and a computer. Once a person creates an account, he or she will set up a personal profile. The personal profile is a mini-homepage—a place where you describe yourself, your interests and your hobbies. You can also upload pictures and videos and maintain a journal, or blog. With a personal profile complete, users then invite friends to visit their page and join their social network. MySpace has a search engine where website members can be searched out and invited to join the network. Once a person’s network is set up, she can view the connections that have been made between her friends and her friends’ friends. As hard as it may be to believe, it’s relatively common to find upwards of 1,000 people a person’s extended MySpace network.

With all these connections being made between strangers and the sharing of personal information, parents of children who use the Internet must be wary. In a recent case, seven men were arrested for a rape and robbery that occurred when a woman planned a meeting with the men after meeting them on MySpace. There have also been many reports of identity theft, indecency, and minor children involvement in connection with the sharing of information via MySpace. One of the most common criticisms leveled at the networking website is that the distance afforded to people using Internet-based technology emboldens them to share more detailed, provocative, or risky information than they normally would. In addition, a place where such personal information is shared has become a destination for sexual and other violent predators on the lookout for potential victims.

While MySpace has set up rules and regulations for its website’s proper use, virtual enforcement of the rules is difficult. Although MySpace has required all registrants to be at least 14 years of age, many teenagers have found ways around this minimum. MySpace also recently shut down over 200,000 personal profiles that it felt were too provocative or were owned by kids younger than fourteen. In conjunction with Fox All Access radio and the New York Post, MySpace is also planning the launch of an advertising campaign designed to educate Americans, particularly kids and their parents, about the risks involved in sharing personal information over the Internet.

So, what can you do as a parent to protect your kids? Most importantly, follow the lead of many schools and public libraries that have blocked access to MySpace. Using your computer’s settings, you can block websites that you do not want your kids to visit. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer also has a content ratings feature that allows you limit the nudity, sex, and language that your kids can be exposed while using the Internet. If your kids are over the MySpace minimum age of fourteen and you allow them to join the website, play a prominent role in their Internet use. Keep the computer in a common area where you can monitor its use, have open discussions about what they are doing on the Internet, including who they are meeting and chatting with, and provide them with honest and detailed information about the dangers involved in meeting strangers virtually and sharing personal information over the Internet.

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SolveYourProblem.com : 2008

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