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The popular website, myspace.com, allows millions of kids to join a social network. Many of those who visit the website are high school age or younger.
MySpace is a website offering users the ability to network with through user profiles, pictures, blogs, and an internal e-mail system. As of February 2006, it's the world's sixth most popular website with 56 million users.
User profiles can include general interests such as music, television, books, and movies. Users also have the option to include personal details including marital status, physical appearance, and the amount of money they make.
MySpace has been criticized recently because users have uploaded nude or indecent pictures of themselves which is a violation of the myspace terms of service. Authorities shut the site down for a time to conduct an investigation. Some images, as well as the amount of profanity contained in some sections of the site, have have forced some education institutions as well as businesses to prohibit students and their employees from accessing the site. There are also cases of adults using the site to find and meet teenagers. Such cases are typically the result of the victim displaying too much personal information on their user profiles.
How can parent help their kids when they're online. Internet security expert Robin Raskin encourages parents to log onto myspace and check it out for themselves.
"For parents, I would say go into these sites and register as a user. This is not a closed world. You can go in and once you're a registered user you can see profiles. Tell your children you're there."
Raskin says it's a good idea to remind kids that myspace is being used by people they may not think of, including law enforcement officials.
"The Quiet" is a band of Hollywood 20-somethings says marketing their music on a shoestring budget was tough until they set up a page on the popular website myspace.
Lead singer Brendan Ryan, "It basically gets us out there to an audience we wouldn't reach otherwise." Now they have fans all over the country and the world. "We're able to reach people in Europe. We're able to reach people in Australia."
It's good for marketing, but online security experts say beware it's also a place where employers and schools are going to check up on their workers and students.
"It's happening with more and more frequency that college counselors and the guidance counselors are using it." Security expert Robin Raskin says what teenagers put on their myspace page today could come back to haunt them when they try to get a job or apply to college. She says keep embarrassing information off the website.
Pope John, the 23rd high school in Sparta, New Jersey made headlines when it banned the myspace website. Father Keiran McHugh told students they were not to use myspace at school or at home. "I called an assembly and I told the students they must remove their sites of such a nature." he says.
Administrators were concerned about predators and character assassination. "People can be destroyed and we don't have to go to school to be bullied you can be bullied and harassed online and on myspace," he continues.
Students like Alyssa Lohr were stunned. "I was very very suprised and obviously I was a little upset," she says but Father McHugh says it was a wake up call for parents. He received calls from all over the country. "It was amazing how many educators and people in position of authority did not know about this."
Alyssa has reconsidered, "I realize it was probably the right thing to do because girls are starting to get hurt and meeting people on myspace that they don't even know and it is becoming really dangerous."
