Kids endangered at Murdoch-owned MySpace

[Soldier4Christ]

Media mogul hails website linked to assaults of teenage members
Posted: February 18, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Ron Strom
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A website that encourages young people to post personal information about themselves and has been linked to a series of rapes and other crimes by sexual predators is wholly owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which also owns the Fox News Channel.

Murdoch sealed the deal for MySpace.com and its parent, Intermix Media, for $580 million in July. When the deal was announced, Murdoch said in a statement: "Intermix's brands, such as MySpace.com, are some of the Web's hottest properties and resonate with the same audiences that are most attracted to Fox's news, sports and entertainment offerings."

California Web entrepreneurs Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe founded MySpace.com two years ago after envisioning Net surfers having personal websites where they could upload photos and sound files easily, and disclose as much personal information as they wanted. At last count, over 55 million people had "space" on the site, including countless teenagers who use their pages to communicate their thoughts on everything from school to music to the opposite sex.

Law enforcement officials, however, believe teens are disclosing way too much information for their own good.

When young people post their cell-phone numbers, names of their schools and sexy photos of themselves (though MySpace says it prohibits pornographic pictures), they endanger themselves, stress authorities, who have investigated so-called "social websites" and linked them to crimes such as rape, molestation and even murder.

In Lafayette, La., last month a 16-year-old girl was attacked by a man who tracked her down at her after-school job. He had read details about her on MySpace.

In September, a 17-year-old freshman at Virginia Commonwealth University was murdered when information on MySpace allegedly led the killer to her.

Investigators looking into the murders of two other teenage girls, one in New Jersey and one in California, are trying to determine if information the two posted on MySpace helped the assailants.

In Middletown, Conn., police suspect that in the past two months, seven girls under 16 have been sexually assaulted by men they met on MySpace, USA Today reported. In most cases, the men who lured the girls said online they were younger than they really were.

The Connecticut attorney general's office is considering prosecuting MySpace for failing to protect young people – and that threat has gotten MySpace's attention. The company released a statement saying, "We share [the attorney general's] concerns about the safety and security of MySpace, and we will be working with him ... to make our safety practices and procedures even stronger and more effective."

Some members of MySpace, which has been described by law enforcement as "a buffet for a predator," are even younger than 13. The Rutland, Vt., Herald reports one MySpace profile highlights an elementary school student. It shows the 11-year-old provocatively posed on a bed. Her profile listed her age as 19, but she noted elsewhere on her page, "I'm actually 11 years old."

Another page shows a coquettish 11-and-a-half-year-old girl with hands cupping her breasts, staring into the camera. Friends comment with replies such as, "You're hot."

"Kids are not connecting what they're doing on the computer with real life," Parry Aftab, an online safety expert who has advised MySpace, told USA Today. "They do not believe they're accountable."

So how big is MySpace.com? It has become so popular it boasts two and a half times the traffic of Google. And of those 55 million members, one-quarter are registered as minors. MySpace's rival site, Friendster, has 24 million members.

"Just about every parent is aware of it and every kid is on it," website President Tom Anderson told the Boston Herald. "Some kind of reaction (is expected) as MySpace becomes part of the mainstream."

But oftentimes, parents are clueless about the fact their children have pages on MySpace. One mother told the Vermont paper: "I was shocked when I saw it. [My son's] girlfriend's friend wrote some very obscene things about him."

Besides the crime connection, teens across the nation have been suspended from school for threatening classmates on MySpace. Many schools also have policies against accessing MySpace pages from campus computers.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is one of the organizations urging parents to talk to their kids about the dangers of social websites. The organization says one in five children who use the Internet are solicited sexually.

Murdoch hailed the benefits of MySpace last year when he purchased the company.

Young people "don't want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what's important," Murdoch is quoted by BBC News as saying.

"And to carry the religion analogy a bit further, they certainly don't want news presented as gospel.

"Instead, they want their news on demand, when it works for them. They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it. They want to question, to probe, to offer a different angle."

Some critics believe Murdoch's News Corp could become legally liable for some of the lives destroyed because of MySpace, perhaps coming in the form of a class-action suit.

MySpace released a statement to WorldNetDaily about measures it is taking to enhance the safety of users, especially teenagers.

The company says it prohibits those under 14 from becoming members – though due to the nature of the Internet, it is difficult to enforce such a rule. Also, MySpace says it limits access to pages of members under 16 to only those people they know.

The firm says it is dedicating one-third of its approximately 175-employee workforce to "policing and monitoring our site on a 24 hour, seven day-a-week basis to make sure our age requirements are met, and that inappropriate images are not posted to the site. The accounts of users who violate these policies are closed."

MySpace says it's "providing mechanisms so our users can report inappropriate content" to the site.

"Once we are alerted, we take prompt action that ranges from involving law enforcement officials to deleting a user from the system," the firm states.

"While MySpace continues to develop additional measures to enhance site safety," the statement says, "it is important to note that MySpace is a modern communication tool like a cell phone, e-mail or instant messenger. MySpace encourages all members to recognize the public nature of the Internet."

Radio talk-show host Jaz McKay of KNZR noted a pastor in Bakersfield, Calif., recently spent 30 hours online researching MySpace and came away with a binder full of documents and images – some of which were clearly pornographic, he says.

McKay believes authorities need to investigate the site for violations of child pornography laws.

Noting the hundreds of millions the company was sold for, McKay asked on his show yesterday: "With that kind of money, why don't they hire more people to monitor the site?"

Daniel Weiss of Focus on the Family Action says the bottom-line solution is for parents to come to grips with the dangers of the Net.

Said Weiss: "Parents need to understand that anytime they let their kid go online alone it's as if they allowed a stranger into their child's bedroom and the stranger closed the door."

[academianutz]

I realize that this topic is not current.  However, it is new to me, and I understand first hand that MySpace's version of security measures is a joke.  My daughter, who is now 15, started out on xanga when she was 13.  I had no idea what it was and assumed it was one of those instant message things and that she was talking to her friends.  At that point, I had no idea how sneaky my little girl was.  Anyway, last year I first heard of MySpace from my adult daughter who was all into posting her kids pictures and making slide shows, etc.  I thought it was neat.  I started my own a couple of months later.  During this time, my ex-husband called me, saying a neighbor had come over to make sure that he was aware that our daughter was posting her name, age, school, and address on a web site.  Further investigation of this found that my daughter had a MySpace site.  Clicking on one of her friends I saw my daughter's photo crudely and obscenely altered.
I called the kid's mom and the picture disappeared.  I don't think she was aware of his MySpace account either.
My point in posting this is to say this:  No matter what age my daughter reported when she opened the account, In her profile, the basic information next to her picture was her true age.  If the folks at MySpace are getting rich of this, they could at least install screening software that would flag suspicious age discrepancies.  My daughter and I have discussed this matter and she's been restricted for breaking MY rules on MySpace 3 times.  This her final chance.  If she acts unbecomingly again for a 15 year old girl as I have instructed, she has to delete her account altogether.  Now, you and I both know how good that's going to work.  Some other kid can build her a new site and the only thing that's changed is my ability to monitor what goes on on her site.  I don't really feel as a parent that I have any authority in the situation.  Even If I got rid of the computer, she'd do it at other people's houses.  To the pastor who originally posted here: Do you have any ideas for parents?  This child is immature, more so than my other 3 kids--naive and dangerous to herself.  I am in college, close to getting my degree in Psychology and Biology--the filters I am familiar with would greatly hinder my coursework.  I don't know what to do.

SF in TX

[Soldier4Christ]

Hi academianutz,

Welcome to Christians Unite. Please feel free to revitalize any of the threads.


Most of the internet filters are set up with passwords where a parent can change them according to the user. There are also filters that can be used that are site specific (i.e. to block out MySpace sites).

I work with teens, pre-teens and their parents daily in my neighborhood. It does get difficult in dealing with them when you have one that is somewhat rebellious and tends to be influenced by their peers more than their parents. Primarily it is most important that you insure your daughter of the dangers involved and that you are very concerned about her safety. Yes, many teens will take that "I have a handle on it" attitude and think the parent is not as savvy as they are. That they know better than we do. As parents we must persevere for their sakes.

I realize that you have your plate pretty full with raising teens and going to college but it takes getting involved in our children's lives. In this I mean really involved to the point of knowing everything that they are doing and who they hang out with. Some people say "That's an invasion of their privacy". I say that is being a parent that loves and protects their children.

One of the most important things is prayer, prayer and more prayer. Pray for her daily, pray with her daily. Get her involved in Bible studies and Church events. Teaching her the things of the Lord. Those in public schools today get so much indoctrination in the ways of the world that their learning of the ways of the Lord are drastically lacking.

I had a very difficult child myself so I can appreciate what you are going through.  Mine is now 19 with children of his own and tells me that he is glad that he had a parent that loved him enough to get in between him and the things of this world.

It is indeed hard but the payoff is beyond measurement.

[nChrist]

Hello Academianutz,

WELCOME!

I look forward to reading your posts and having fellowship with you.

I echo many of the things said by Pastor Roger. I would say that there is much more than what first meets the eye on many sites used by teens. It's very sad that the worst always involves child molesters and predators of various types. I speak from 25 years of law enforcement experience and would urge all parents to know more about what their children are doing. It's bad enough that many of the kids pass horrible materials back and forth, but the predators have much more than that in mind. The kids many times become victims of much more personal crimes, and the frequency of these crimes would shock most parents.

I wish we could get more teens interested in becoming active members here on Christians Unite. We do have quite a few teenage members, but they are rarely active. We don't have any way here for people to distribute horrible materials using the forum. This does not hint that we have any control over private email accounts, but private mail on the forum is shut off because of past experience we had no control over. All we can say is Christians Unite is a completely safe place for children to use.

We encourage our members to set their email addresses as hidden in their user profiles because of all the possible problems with private email. If they choose to display their email in every post, we have no way to protect them. In terms of security on the forum, our ADMIN has made Christians Unite one of the safest places on the Internet. Since the private mail is shut off on the forum, anything done here must be done in the open for everyone to see, including ADMIN and the moderators. We do enforce our forum rules and try very hard to make Christians Unite a safe and pleasant place for Christian family use, certainly including children. We obviously can't make any guarantees, but we try very hard and probably get close. Inappropriate material is deleted from the forum quickly, and the person who posted it is dealt with.

I hope this will give you a few ideas. We also have some threads in the "Computers and Software" area that deal with this issue. It really is a serious issue that all parents should be concerned with.

Love In Christ,
Tom

John 15:15 NASB  "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

[MusicMedic5150]

We had a police officer and a firefighter here arrested within the last six months for having sex with a minor. They met the girl via myspace and it was the same child.  How does your daughter have sex and meet men online without your knowledge? It was wrong for what the men did but when do we start placing blame on the parents? I know what my son does 24/7. And will continue to do so until the day I die. You never stop being a parent. The internet is not safe for a child under the age of 18. Period.  Well just my two cents thrown in. If your childs friends have access to the internet then maybe its best to find new friends or have none.

[MusicMedic5150]

Academi this post was not aimed at you. myspace is a sensitive subject to me and I get mad at the trash. We need to be placing the Holy Bible in our chidrens hands instead of a computer mouse. Put one group of children in a room with the Holy Bible and put another group of children in a room with a computer and internet access. Which room would you trust alone? That describes our schools and homes in todays world to a tee. We have taken God's word and replaced it with evil things and sinful things.  I have no patience for parents that allow this to happen to their children. If the modern world won't hold them accountable then God surely will with His judgement.

[nChrist]

We had a police officer and a firefighter here arrested within the last six months for having sex with a minor. They met the girl via myspace and it was the same child.  How does your daughter have sex and meet men online without your knowledge? It was wrong for what the men did but when do we start placing blame on the parents? I know what my son does 24/7. And will continue to do so until the day I die. You never stop being a parent. The internet is not safe for a child under the age of 18. Period.  Well just my two cents thrown in. If your childs friends have access to the internet then maybe its best to find new friends or have none.

Hello MusicMedic,

Hearing things like this about public servants makes me sick. I hope they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The general prison population still deals with these offenses harshly, and their occupations will make things even worse, especially the police officer. There are many methods in place to keep folks like this out of police work, but it obviously doesn't work 100%. Every police department will have a small percentage of bad apples regardless of how hard they try. Crimes against children break the heart of nearly all police officers. One of the things that really makes me sick about this is children really need to trust police officers, as children are many times abused by their own parents and relatives. If a child is lost, hurt, or needing help, who are they going to trust?

I will repeat that we try very hard to keep Christians Unite safe for children to use, but no effort on our part will ever be 100% effective.

[Soldier4Christ]

Amen MusicMedic,

academia is faced with a situation that confronts all parents. As I've said, I have been there myself. It is a difficult situation and one that cannot be avoided. Parents cannot take computers from them for they need to learn how computers work in order to get along in the work force of today. Computers and the internet does have a lot of evil available for them yet there is also a whole lot of edifying things available for them on the internet also. (This web site is one of them.    )

Can we keep them from friends just because those friends have a computer with access to the internet? That would be keeping them from having any friends at all. Not a good thing. We must however do all that we can within reason to monitor what they are doing. To restrict access to the garbage while allowing access to that which is good about it.

Training the child in the ways of the Lord, praying with them, involving them in any way we can in Godly things. Even though we do all that we can in this manner there may be that child that will not respond right away and be very rebellious. All we can do is the best we can to train them in the right ways and to put them in the hands of the Lord from there.

[Pizza_Mahal]

I used to had myspace, but I don't like it because is too much "emo" theme (Which made me feel shame everytime I think about followers who lived India and other area)
Also I sick of "bad words" and I forced to use bad words to make them understand
and I had to listen background music (mostly of them is just suck)
Now I own three site.