Possible Dangers of Myspace?

Myspace has become a very popular social networking site, where friends can easily communicate with other friends and even meet new ones in the process. It has become very popular around the world, and is considered the most popular networking site in 2006 with well over 100 million users. With such an amount of users, however, is the risk that there are also a great amount of predators and scammers using Myspace as well. These malicious persons have transformed Myspace into a place of danger, causing security to be an issue when using the website.

Not long after Myspace took hold of its niche in the internet, news channels soon began reporting stories of children being murdered or raped by strangers that they met on Myspace. Often times, these children would believe that they were talking to a person of their own age, when it was really a 45-year-old pedophile on the other side of the chatroom. These innocent children would often give away valuable private information to their predators, not knowing the dangers of letting strangers know where you live. In addition, parents often have little or no knowledge on who their children chat with, making it difficult to protect them against such predators on the internet.

Another popular issue with such networking sites is cyber bullying, when bullies on the internet send threatening or hateful messages to their victims. School bullies could now torment their others through the internet as well as in person, multiplying their effect on people’s lives. Many young teenagers committed suicide due to these acts, raising fear and questions in concerned parents around the world. Those who have not taken such drastic actions are easily scarred by such experiences, affecting them for the rest of their lives. While Myspace has taken action to protect children by restricting their profiles, these children often lie about their age and enter the internet world completely vulnerable.

Another issue of Myspace has been the numerous attacks to retrieve personal information about other people. It is important to remember that Myspace is simply a website; it can be subjected to hacks by attackers, and any stored information can be accessed one way or another. Many innocent users believe that simply setting a profile to private can prevent others from seeing their information, but it is not 100% safe. Bugs in the system can also be used to spam users with advertisements of unrelated products or post fake offers in order to phish users into providing their login information. The usual rules of the internet apply, and it is important to double check the webpage before providing any personal or login information.

Credit should be given to Myspace for taking steps to resolve these problems. Profiles for children are automatically set to private, and external links have a warning from Myspace that they are leaving the website. However, it is still a place that has more danger than many teenagers will believe, and caution must be used when setting up a profile for yourself or your child.