My Space Phenomenon

•         There are 97 million registered users

•         It is the third most viewed website

•         It contains blogs

–        These are merely online journals or diaries

–        Students post messages to each other and for all their friends to see

To Find My Space Users 

•         Go to http://www.myspace.com

•         Click on browse

•         Enter your zip code

•         Search within 20 miles of that zip code

 From searches of the following towns, the total of myspace.com users for these towns are:

Quincy                                                           2,989

Camp Point                                                  2,702

Carthage                                                       1,752

Golden                                                             942

Mt. Sterling                                                      871

Pittsfield                                                           718

Rushville                                                         702

 It’s a new language that socializing online has created.

 

Refer to the page in the Chat section that describes their new language

http://www.awarenessistheanswer.com/modules/content/index.php?id=28

 

 For example in the following blog the “meaning” of the following is:

be4 is before                        pro is profile

cuz is because                     lol is laugh out loud

The following message was posted 7/27/2006 4:13 PM.  Just from reading through this we could find the name and business from this blog.  I don’t think it be very hard to find the home of this myspace user with that information.

 

“I was asking my mom about your dad or whatever cuz I heard her mention the last name XXXXX (the name has been deleted for privacy) be4 & she said we go thru your dads insurance company & I said he owns a gym not a insurance company & she said it's on state so I was just asking since your pro said your daddy owns a gym.” 

The author of this presentation signed up as pamingo

The author is 56 but signed in as 26!

Immediately she had a friend Tom.

Tom has 97,764,497 friends

Tom is the myspace webmaster

Vicki Courntey site step-by-step on how to for your kids on MySpace:  http://www.vickicourtney.com/virtue_elerts.htm

 There are proxy servers that allow kids to get to myspace and there are many of these sites. www.roboproxy.com and www.ninjaproxy.com  to name a couple. As a parent checking the history of where a student visits be aware of any site with the word “proxy” in it.

So what do you, as a parent, do?

First you need to find out if your child has a page on one of these sites. The best way to find out if your child has a profile on this or another similar site is to ask them. If you’re not sure that your child is being honest with you, you can search MySpace.com (or the other sites) using their e-mail address, or by searching for their school . (You click on “search” and enter their email address or full name in the appropriate search box.)

If you find that your child has a profile on the Web site, you should review it. It’s amazing how much you can learn about your child by reading their profiles. Does it contain personal information, such as their full name, address or phone numbers? Has your child posted photos? Are they photos of themselves or someone else? Are they sharing poems they write or provocative comments about themselves or others?

If you want the profile removed (you must remove your child’s profile if they are under age), first ask your child to remove it themselves. If that doesn’t work, MySpace.com has a section explaining how to remove a page. If you find someone who is underage, you can report it there as well. It’s not as easy a procedure as the other Web sites.

While MySpace.com is working hard to keep kids off their Web site, ultimately, protecting your child is your job. But you have lots of help. At WiredKids.org and WiredSafety.org thousands of volunteers donate their time to helping parents and children surf responsibly and safely. And we will be building a few tutorials help parents and their children understand how to be careful when communicating publicly online.

A good things to do is to ask your kids why they created the profile. You might learn that they wanted to share their thoughts with others, make new friends or even allow others in their school to get to know them better. But not all of their motives are as noble or safe. Some may be interested in meeting new romantic interests or role-playing inappropriately online. And when a young preteen lies about their age posing as a seventeen year old at the site, that can be a serious problem. Others in their late teens might approach your child thinking they were older. That’s bad for everyone.

If you discover that your child is posting provocative comments or inappropriate images online, it’s time for the tough talk. The one about stranger dangers and how that cute fourteen year old boy they meet online may not be cute, may not be fourteen and may not be a boy. (Parents of young boys need to understand that their children are equally at risk. About one-third of the cases of Internet sexual exploitation are men exploiting boys.) Our children need to realize that there are real risks relating to meeting strangers offline, including murder.

 REAL LIFE STORiES                        

 From a smaller area high school technology coordinator:  

 

Parents need a course, yesterday on Internet Safety!!!  They have no idea!  In fact, until I started checking logs, I didn’t realize how many students were going to myspace here at school!!!  It is blocked now.