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MySpace To Be Made Safer For Users
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "'When News Corp. bought the social-networking Web site MySpace.com last July, the media company got two surprises, one good and one bad,' the Wall Street Journal reports. The good news: Traffic nearly doubled in the last half of last year. The bad news: MySpace is being criticized for exposing children to risqué content and sexual predators. In response, 'News Corp. plans to appoint a "safety czar" to oversee the site, launch an education campaign that may include letters to schools and public-service announcements to encourage children not to reveal their contact information."
Good to see that another company has found a way to pass off advertising as "public service announcements."
This guy's the limit!
I guess it's back to trenchcoats, candy, and schoolyards for me.
Trolling is a art,
You know what pisses me off? Sites like myspace and stumbleupon that let users hotlink every image on your pr0n site, most often without citing the source. Bandwidth is expensive and this type of crap can push me into the red. It should be illegal.
Parents need to keep an eye on their kids. Here is an analogy. One would not let them run free through a big city with out a watchful eye. Besides, all the teeny myspace bopers know exactly what they are doing. Generation gap is in effect.
This is my signature.
Websites that let children meet random people on the internet are being used by pedophiles.
Oh, wait...this was talked about almost ten years ago.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Step 1. Banning any and all use of the color Pink
Step 2. Deleting all profiles that use the word "like" more than twice
Step 3. DeLeTiNg AlL PrOfIlEs ThAt LoOk LiKe ThIs
Step 4. Making MySpace safe from internet predators
Step 6. Profit!
And yes, I want it done in that goddamn order.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
What's next? Overlords?
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
so... mysafespacewherenobadpeoplewillgetme.com then?
firestream.net
Dick Cheney
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I have mixed feelings about MySpace... As a father of a little girl, I don't want censorship but I also don't want her to be exposing herself and revealing personal information that could be used against her by predators. Of course, I could block myspace.com at my firewall but this doesn't stop her from accessing it at her friend's houses. Basically my thoughts on the subject have come down to this: there's really no redeeming qualities about myspace and so much to be abused.
ConsultingFair.com
Nevermind trying to be safe. Myspace should make some upgrades so their site is accessible. If you try to go there during the evening, it's very slow and sometimes their site malfunctions.
Have you seen Myspace? It's the 13 year old whorish girls who are talking about their sex lives and their 13 year old boyfriends who want to be pimps who are the dangerous ones on Myspace. That situation makes it a magnet for sex predators, but Myspace seems to be the catalyst for self-destruction as well as a forum for sex predators to find easy (and willing) targets
way to make the world seem uglier than it really is i dont believe this is as big of a problem as made seem millions of contacts and conversations going on via the internet/myspace everyday without problem. Most human males are true perverts. we just have boundries that we choose not to cross. A small majority lack control of themselves
that sexual predators are not in the offline world and only on webites... oh wait. they exist there. Is it that difficult to tell kids to not give out private info. (yes myspace can contain some info, but largely that is gonna be pretty useless, you have to actually talk to the person to get anything) Children are not exposed to predators through myspace, they are already exposed everyday. Is it that difficult for parents to practice a little bit of, oh i dont know, PARENTING. Maybe if your kid isnt smart enough to not give out info to everyone they meet online, they shouldnt be allowed online.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
...especially considering that I just deleted the account I never even signed up for in the first place. I hate those stupid sites. Besides, everyone knows that the only real site for all things Martin Ultima is http://ultima-inet.kicks-ass.org/~multima. So there!
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
While it may seem silly, the dangers explained in the article are reality. Myspace has 56 million users. With all of the personal information I have seen on profiles, it is only expectable that it is misused someday.
A few months ago, a friend of a student at my school experienced a horrible ordeal. Her best friend was murdered and raped by an assaulter who had obtained her personal information from her "Facebook" (another popular--mainly among college students--online community service).
Either way, I find it absurd how much people disclose on their profiles. I won't post any links, but people have their addresses, home phone numbers, and--the perfect appetizer for an attacker--half-dressed pictures. I don't know about you, but that smells like trouble to me.
At your house? You let her watch porn at her friends?
Children should be supervised. Period. and if they're not then you should take whatever steps are necessary, including preventing access to friends who are a poor influence, you're the responsible adult after all.
Deleted
Seriously, what is a "safety czar" going to accomplish, other than blanketing parents with FUD? The only benefit I can see to this is that it will bring the issue of 'net safety to the forefront again, though the merits of that are questionable, considering the amount of hype these "internet stalkers" get on the local news anyway.
Parents, listen up! Do not let the safety czar be in charge deciding what's right for your kids. The only people who should be making those type of decisions are you, the parents. Think about it: the czar has hundreds of thousands of sites to monitor; you have one (per kid). It's a much easier job for you.
My guitar chord generator.
Where are these teen amateurs porn star ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H students you speak of?
There's a hysterical clip from the Daily Show about this very topic. Wait for the punch line at the end.
Users can prevent people seeing their profiles. Users can prevent people from being 'their friend'. If a parent is that concerned about their child's wellbeing from 'sexual predators', then why not just ask that they make their profile only viewable to their friends? Anyone who is stupid enough to disclose their address and phone number to a complete stranger is a dork.
I was 12 in 1995 when the Internet started becoming semi-mainstream. My family has had real access since about that time. We knew back then that you don't go revealing information online unless you're in a position to defend yourself. Now that I'm a man, I can handle some of my information being availible online where others can see it. I just took it as a given that there were bad people out there looking for victims. These kids don't.
Maybe they can't learn the danger. I've had girls argue that they realistically should be able to dress like strippers, go anywhere and not even get cat calls. Sorry, but as much as I'd like to live in such a peaceful world, you cannot do that and be safe. You have to live with the realization that there are evil people out there who are quite willing to hurt you and yours. You have to live like you live in a world with both great good and beauty and great evil and ugliness.
I think that the idealized vision of childhood that many parents have has contributed to these kids not understanding what is going on. The girls in particular are almost totally incapable of understanding that that 25 year old who wants to have a "heart-to-heart" conversation with a 15 year old is probably just trying to get some. They're special, the other girls aren't. I for one will disabuse any daughter of mine of this princess complex.
Until parents raise their kids to become adults capable of living in a world where evil people exist and desire to screw over everyone else, no one will learn, and at this point I don't care. It's like the people who still get sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement. You knew the danger, you did it anyway. MySpace isn't the problem, the teens and their parents are the problems. Maybe if parents would stop thinking about the kids and **DO** something about the kids, they'd be safe and more mature. As always, it's easier to do nothing, complain and foist the problem onto others. It's your computer, your teen, your problem.
The site is so slow and half the fucking features broken so often that it's practically impossible for regular users to find people, let alone predators. Seriously, I'm embarrassed for the folks that run that thing... It seems to me that the same 13 year-olds that make up the majority of the user base are also the ones responsible for maintaining the site. You'd think with as much cash as they probably have on hand now they'd be able to get their act together.
.... How about partents take some responsiblity for what their kids surf?
Nah. Won't work. Too much effort on their part.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
On a less dangerous, but still serious note-
Myspace needs a discalimer that says "this site may be hazardous to your career"
There is a rash of mid twenties people on there, and they post risque pics and comments. And guess what, someone in your office, has checked out myspace looking for people from work. And although you may act professional and dress conservatively at work, those pics from myspace with you in your short skirt and hitting a bong will get passed around the office. And right or wrong, it will change people's perceptions of you....
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
When I read the article title, I thought it was going to be made safer from a technical viewpoint. A little too much freedom is given in page design, resulting in the ultimate stress test for loading images in a single page in FireFox, over-decoration of a web page to the point of unreadability(how do you get a 50% pixel covering OVER an entire web page?), and the possibilities of trojans,etc.
What myspace needs(besides bandwidth) is a "safe mode" where it uses the default CSS layout.
Myspace for a while,but between the millions of teenagers whineing about how their life sucks and no one understand them, and the 40 year old men pretending to be teenagers who's life sucks and nobody understands them, I couldn't ever seem to logon with out some sort of error.
so i take it you've seen my profile
So if the Drug Czar works to prevent drug use, and the Terrorism Czar works to prevent terrorism, what does the Safety Czar work to prevent?
For some odd reason, the neocons like to impose morals and values on the common people, while exempting themselves of course. With all of the pr()n, filth, hookups and what not at MySpace, that will likely get stopped and membership will drop like a rock. Looks like a new vacuum has started to form and someone will need to fill it with a MySpace-replacement.
somehow i doubt it
Last I checked, MySpace isn't supposed to be open to those under the age of 18... which is why all of the 13 year olds on there have a profile that says that they're 23. Those under 18 are ineligible to sign up. Perhaps these letters to parents should mention that their children are lying about their age in the first place to sign in, instead of implying the MySpace isn't protecting their children.
Every american should take a picture of themselves jerking off or fucking someone, something, anything... and post it to myspace as a public protest on one weekend.
I am afraid that if these pics were posted, it would lead to a lot more jerking off, which would lead to lost productivity as well as a possible shortage of KY Jelly and Jerkins, and unfortunately also petroleum based products such as Vaseline.
That's exactly the point of creating a safety czar and starting an advertising campaign. The "13 year old whorish girls" don't realize what they are getting in to and they need to be made aware of it.
While it's true that some will continue, others will see that what they're doing may be dangerous and at least clean up the personal information from their page.
This can also be very helpful to parents who don't realize the consequences of what their children are doing.
I don't think you can fault myspace for this. They're just trying to improve their site and Profit!
10 minutes working on a sig. What a waste.
The term "czar" has a special place in the lexicon of politics, both corporate and government. Whenever there's a situation that has no fix (or no fix that can be reasonably attained), the powers-that-be appoint a czar to oversee the situation.
For example, in the US govt there are appointed Drug Czars, Immigration Czars, Energy Czars, Education Czars, and a whole bunch of Czar's who oversee areas of policy that are not really meant to be improved, but still need to be shown as something that is being addressed and taken care of. Appointed Czar's usually have no power, very little budget, and are all show, appointed for the purpose of silencing and placating critics. The Czars don't actually have to "fix" anything, since the areas of policy that they're "put in charge of" are literally beyond fixing. They just have to show up to work and fight the good fight; in this way, the powers-that-be can say that they're doing something about the problem, while not actually having to allocate any significant resources to fix anything.
So, when MySpace (or any other company or organization) appoints a Czar to make everyone safer, take it with a grain of salt. Czar is code word for "fuck off, critics, you're in the way of higher profit and/or control over our subjects".
Just my $0.02
Governments are not necessary.
Nuff said.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Life is NOT, repeat, NOT safe. No matter how much you may try to child-proof it. People die. It's inevitable. Some die peacefully in their sleep, some die horrible bloody violent deaths. It's all a crapshoot. Throw incredible stupidity into the mix, and you have the human condition. It exists on the net, and anywhere and everywhere else you have people.
And BTW, your FOAF story reeks of bullshit to me.
They should stop the "MySpace problem" at it roots: delete MySpace.
Hey, dipshit! Yeah, you, Mr. Safety Czar.
How about you start telling parents to raise their own freaking kids properly instead of pushing this crap off on the rest of us?
Personally, I don't give half a pitcher of warm spit about Myspace or the people who frequent it. Seems to me, though, that the problem of 13 year old girls either turning into emo train wrecks because it's 'cool' or flying to zimbabwe to meet sexual predators could be much more easily uprooted at the source.
That is, the 13 year old teenage girls.
..."think of the children" is the tiredest mantra for controlling everything and anything.
They're looking for the thrill. Kids are reckless. The kids that get in trouble on the internet are the same ones that would get in trouble at the mall or wherever. If they end up as drug-addicted sex slaves because of some chatroom troll, they'd probably end up there anyway with some dude they met at the local foodcourt. People don't like admitting that because it implies they're bad parents, so they run off and try to sterilize the entire world--and won't do a damned bit of good because it's a moving target. Teenagers are in it for the thrill. Remove it and both they and the predators will move somewhere else. Education is the only answer and, sadly, no matter how much you try to protect the children and control the adults that prey on them, many will still get into trouble.
The mom and stepdad of a 14-year-old boy were, um, not amused to see a 30-year-old guy their son had met on MySpace. At 11:30 PM. In their son's bed. And he'd brought a gay porn DVD and 2 gay porn magazines with him, how thoughtful. Of course, since Hawaii raised its age of consent from 14 to 16 a few years back, said 30-year-old is now in deep shit, and will probably stay so for a "nui loa" time.
Linkage:
Police arrest man found in teen's bed, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Man Accused Of Luring Teen On MySpace.com, KITV-4
Man accused of using internet website to meet teen, KHON-2
Hawaii Too Soft On Online Predators?, KGMB-9
Man, 30, indicted in sex assault on teen, Honolulu Advertiser
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
13 year old girl acting like a whore...
and you call the guy whos attracted to them a predator?
Take the notion of age out of it.
She could be sucking cock after school more than you could imagine....
Whos wrong?
The guy shes flirting with?
Is it the guys fault for being tempted by a sexually active girl?
(again take age out of it)
Now put age into it.
I'm not sure we'll ever figure this out, but lets not act as if our teens are so innocent.
They are having sex, drinking, smoking, flirting, you name it.
Chances are they're enjoying themselves too.
I dont think they're as innocent as we make them out to be when we talk publically aobut them on tv.
We're too ashamed to recognize that we were once children and did similar things.
I think the issues are more complex than we tend to admit.
FOX corp sure as hell aint going to fix it. And i wouldnt want to live in a world where they fix it for us.
No thank you. We're a free nation, not a corporate run puritan nation.. (oh wait.. sorry we are)
and
tags that you're trying to get rid of?
I stand by the statement that children shouldn't use the internet unsupervised. At least then you can add some perspective the first time they're exposed to "fisting" videos.
And kids be sure to delete your history and temporary internet files!
-makoffee
In Pre-Soviet Myspace Czar watches YOU!
This is totally off topic, I know, but Warren Ellis rocks my world.
Edison Hate Future.
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
AOL chant rooms in 1994 were way more scary! Anyway Myspace is our fault, we are the kind of people who have enabled it, built the tech that makes it possible and yes even some of us visit. I think it all goes back to paying attention to what our kids do, teach them not to be sluts. Teach them that its not all about easy, immediate pleasure. That the best things are worked for. We have have to lead by example. Or get a fake account and spy on them. either way. myspace.com/803redman Its my real account.
and here I was thinking they were going to have a preferences panel to stop all the activex and flash shit that crashes camino.
I hate having umpteen videos and mp3s and a dozen flash movies start all at once!
Not to mention 1995 wanting their webdesigns back
*sigh*
Sorry but I fail to see how this is MySpace's problem. It's just the cybersapce equiv of any mall/playground/park. When a child get's approached by a perv in any of those locations do we plame the owners for any harm that comes to the child? Nope. Why? Because it's crazy to expect anyone to be aware of the activities of evryone on the property. It's even crazier when you think of the number of users on myspace comapred to the number of people in parks and/or malls at any given time. When will people stop pushing the respocibility of the parent off on to others? The owners of MySpace should place some kind of password validation to help protect themselves from the lawsuits of parents not willing to accept their parental resp. It's not very hard to make sure your kids aren't browsing to places you don't want them to in your own home. What they do outside of the home is beyond your control. This is nothing new. AOL has long been known as a pedophile haven for many many many years. I remember when damn near all the pedophiles busted were using AOL to chat with their intended target. MySPace is just today's scapegoat. I'm gonna be a father soon and am as worried as anyone else about how to protect my kids from unsavory people. But I do not expect others to do my job for me.
A "safety czar?" Another empty promise aimed to enable bad parents to keep not doing their job and sleep better at night. How can they possibly attempt to police Myspace? Either they won't and nothing will change or it will become too restrictive and kids will just start going elsewhere; and then the predators will follow.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A: I'm scared.
B: Don't be scared.
A: How can I trust anyone.
B: You can trust me.
A: Say, isn't that Lewis Carrol?
B: Yes.
A: I thought he was dead.
B: Normally, yes, but this is cyber space. 'Lots going on here.
A: Still, creepy.
B: No argument here. Don't go to the online photo studio when he's working there.
'News Corp. plans to appoint a "safety czar" to oversee the site, launch an education campaign that may include letters to schools and public-service announcements
... Ahhh ... Where can I sign up?
so free advertising for MySpace targeted at their #1 demographic? See kids, MySpace is dangerous. Oooh
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Wow that's so funny because, like, he shot someone, right? W0oot wow you rulzed teh Int@rwebs!
Listen, I'll let you use that joke for another week, but then that's it. No more.
I just wish they would stop all the silly little emo-kiddies from hotlinking.
"Johnson, I've seen some riske pictures of you on myspace." :D"
"Mr President?"
"Come to our party this weekend
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
It might surprise you, but MOST pedofiles are female, not male. I said most pedophiles, not most convicted pedophiles. The stereotype of some middle aged balding man stalking children on the internet and setting up clandestine rendeveous is just that, a bigotted stereotype. Women by far and large have far more acess to children, whether their own, or others peoples children, and by far make up the bulk of all child care workers. Women just don't get caught, because they do it always on the sly and always under the guise of responsibility.
Lets see? Who is most likely to get in your little kids pants? The lonely shy old guy down the street raking the leaves in his yard? Or that woman at the child care day center that changes your kids diapers every afternoon and wipes them clean? How about the babysitter you leave them with? How about your wife, because you don't like cahnge diapers? Your family doctor, when you take your kid in for a check up? I thought so.
The friendly old guy down the street you think is weird and who you are spreading whispered slander and suspicions about around the neighborhood is just being friendly because he's lonely and has no access to your kids pants.
Most people "assume" women just have more integrity and care and would never do such to children because of their natural assumed inclinations to "motherhood" (rather ignoring that there is a counterpart natural guy inclidnation to something called fatherhood). At any rate, I decided to put this to the test.
I made a profile of someone who looks like a little girl on mate1, which allows female to female communication for free. Its been up for over a year now, and let me tell you, I can be logged in for only minutes and I get flooded by sleezy chat requests and emails from an ocean of lesbians. You think guys are perverts? They can't hold a candle to depraved imaginations and fantasies of lesbian and bisexual women.
As a control, I made a profile of a friendly average looking guy at the same time, just to see how much interest he would get from females. I would subtract that amount from the amount the girl profile got. Let me tell you, they don't even compare. I get maybe a few winks a month and emails to his account. To the girls account, I must get 30 emails a day from perverted females wanting to write nasty to her or meet in person.
Makes you think, don't it?
You know, this whole pedophile scare thing though, has all been done before in history. Except back then it wasn't pedophiles, they were called "witches". All you had to be was accused of being a witch, and all kinds of injustices and slander was levied against you, and in the end you ended up dead whether you confessed or not. This pedophile witchhunt is just that, a witchhunt. Have you ever met a pedophile? I don't imagine so? And of those that are out there, are they really bad people, or just lonely misguided people. Everytime I go to the mall I can walk through an ocena of people without ever being spoken to... which makes me wonder... our society of fear of the unknown grossly isolates us from each other.
As I studied and read on it further, I began to think in caveman terms, that what is called pedophila actually had some purpose in our evolution. Most instincts did, its just our modern interpretation that labels them as evil. For example, murder was a way to defend yourself and survive, but today it is socially unacceptable. The same for theft. Rape, possibly considered one of the most heinous of crimes today, is deeply ingrained into our biological strata as the fundamental way to perpetuate the species. If you watch animal species, you see, probably about half the sex is consensual, and half is not at all.
So where does pedophilia, this interest in childrens genitalia, fit into our evolutionary instinct tree, even though today it is socially unacceptable? Well, if children aren't cleaned up after they defecate, I imagine all kinds of nasty infections and so on can result. T
maybe Some people want to be found by sexual predators
Time to take your meds, John.
So it all boils down to this: act like a whore and you'll get treated like a whore. So simple; so perfect.
Everytime a teenager tries to view an inappriopriate profile they get a white screen that says,"Sorry! An unexpected error has occurred!"
I would like it better if Myspace appointed a "pages-that-don't-cause-my-browser-to-buffer-overr un-and-implode-cazr" Seriously, those assholes who have 10 inline videos running at the same time should be lined up and shot.
AOL chant rooms in 1994 were way more scary!
I'd be scared of AOL chant rooms too!
But not because of paedophiles and whatnot. If you aren't supervising your kids when they're not old enough to know better, it's your fault. </caps>
:P
By the way: yes, I do have a Myspace page. Apparently, I'm not the first person to create a Myspace profile just to tell Myspace lusers how much I hate them.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
As a kid signing up for a big, important web site, how are you supposed to say no when they ask you for (at a minimum) your age, zip code and birthday? Surely the creators of that web site know what they're doing, right? And how as a kid are you suppposed to know that people can find you using that information?
You get a sequentially-allocated identity immediately (straightforward to fish for) that is public for whatever window of time it takes you to figure out how to make it private. Of course, getting popular on myspace is a lot easier with a public profile anyway. With a private one, all your friends need to give their personal information to myspace too.
In my school there are 13 people that are suspended due to pictures from Facebook.com. There were at least 30 more people that the administration could have suspended if they had bothered. Some of them were perfect students (strait As).
I know its funny, but it also is serious. For example, someone in my department has a myspace that says they are looking for a career change... Who would be dumb enough to let that hang out in public?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
(> (like-instances your-sentence) 2) ==> #f
How can Myspace survive when they're pushing off their most productive members?
My sister has an account, and I created one named "Tom Therapist" (Tom The rapist) to see if she would accept his friend invite. She is 14 and my "character", Tom, was 29. He had no information listed, other than his name and age. She accepted, and she has waaaay too much personal info on her myspace.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
I know I know it's not their fault...As a tech. admin for a highschool, I see the monumental waste of time and possible dangers as students spend time on myspace. I've blocked myspace.com (via squidgaurd) but the proxys make it impossible to restrict access.
I use my myspace site to try to improve my co-worker's perception of me.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Require age & digital signature. Separate the under 18 results from the over 18. Allow under 18 users to opt in to the over 18 but no optin to under 18 for over 18 users. Or in other words dis allow viewing of under 18 users buy over 18 users unless the under 18 user mannually opts in.
When the under 18 user signs up, they get the warning text about sexual predators. For those who are already signed up, send an email.
I cant believe, even though there is no proof MySPace had anything to do with a crime, that this happeniong and people are making such a big deal.
As an over 18 person, I would PREFER to have under 18 online users blocked from my blogs and networking accounts. And myself, blocked from theirs.
call Rupert Murdoch
tell him to look on America's Most Wanted for child molesters
I'm so sorry
3
Dude, you must be trolling. You're spouting what sounds suspiciously like nonsense and offering absolutely no statistical or scientific evidence. I don't deny there are female molesters, but until you show me even a smidgen of real evidence, you're just full of opinions and bull.
"Safety Off" Czar, more like ;)
I also think Myspace is like a Lazy Man's Blog.. creeps rather check out how their lady friends are "looking" instead of reading about how they're "doing".. just another source of anonymity for stalkers.. screw SpySpace..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Guns don't kill people, Dick Cheney kills people.
Two spruced up cliches for the price of one!
Oh, please! I get sick and tired of hearing it. On the Internet you can go anywhere and do anything. That means that predators are going to go the places the kids go ... just like in real life ... whether or it be MySpace, Yahoo Chat, AOL, etc. IMHO it's the parents and the pedaphiles who are at fault here. You need to monitor your children. You need to watch them when you go out and if you have a computer with an Internet connection at home then you need to watch them there too. We're all busy but if you don't have time to actually be a parent then you shouldn't have had children. Stop blaming everyone and everything else because you can't or won't do your job.
Rational readers can stop now cause I'm pissed and I'm going to vent. Not to go off on a rant here but man oh man do some Baby Boomers and some of the older Gen X'ers ever piss me off. Everything is all about them and nothing is ever their fault. With that "me, me, me, now, now, now" attitude (which is reflected wonderfully by the national debt and the fiscal insoundness of Socail Security and Medicare) you guys are really doing a bang up job of keeping everyting in order for the next generation. You know for a group of people who claims to care so much for your children you are really leaving us all up shit creek....
I'm not excusing my own generation either because lord knows most of us have that attidue as well but with parents like ours, can you really blame us? What I'm trying to figure out is how the hell you came from the Greatest Generation. They damn near sacrificed everything in order to make this world a better place for those of us who came after only to raise a group of children who, on the face of it, couldn't care less about anyone other than themselves. Flame on ....
Myspace isn't the only site that needs that warning. Facebook needs it as well.
My Sysadmin Blog
Someone needs to rent a couple botnets and dDos the shit out of myspace for months until its users go back to their dark rooms/mall.
CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!
If I had a nickel for every time some MySpace profile with several embedded videos nearly crashed Mozilla, News Corp. wouldn't own it. Seriously, get rid of , the illegible text and eye-damaging backgrounds are barely tolerable without lousy music blaring in your ears.
Well I thought so at first. But women can be disasters as childrearing too. Just look at the portrayal of the mother on Family Guy...she raised a fat, dumb son, an ugly daughter, a baby who hates her, and is married to a fag. Or the Simpsons, where Marge is emotionally void and confused/overwhelmed by basic tasks. Seems like these broken-family stereotypes exist for a reason.
As for guys, we are made to feel uncomfortable around younger women, even when the girls like it. Chalk it up to jealousy from married males, but the deck is stacked against young girls getting with the young men they admire. Lesbo peodophile theories aside, I think this is mostly what the poster was railing against, and it represents the worst aspects of our guilt-ridden Catholic society - that which you most want, is regarded by law as the least natural.
Someone got killed at a party this week, which went got out of hand after being advertised at myspace: http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issu e=02-14-06&storyID=23417
The real question is why anyone would knowingly support Rupert Murdoch? From the quick look I took, I see people trying their best to show how "individual" and "creative" they are [fuck the system] yet don't seem to have a problem supporting something which undermines the very principles that they hold dear. I see it as nothing more than an example of vanity over intelligence.
Hard for me to take any of it (or them) seriously. Perhaps this is why you won't find those with an ounce of integrity on myspace. They're too busy living and supporting those things which matter.
Ever go to Google Images? It's pretty straight-forward to turn off their SafeSearch feature and view free p0rn. I do not hear anyone complaining about that.
Alas, it still boils down to monitoring your children's Internet time. Pay attention, parents! How about using that time more effectively? Like going to the art museaum, or to a baseball game, or have family time game night?
Coderz 4 Life
Really? Are Slashdotters, as a rule, as outspoken in real life as they are here? I doubt it. Do email flamewars erupt more easily than real life arguments? Yes.
From the safety of their computers, even shy people will do riskier things. What the parent poster was saying is that kids don't take to heart the fact that real-life predators may be watching them online. How we solve this problem is debatable, but I agree that it exists.
FWIW, I've gotten quite a bit out of that piece of junk. It helps me keep up with my favorite local bands, and I met my girlfriend there (and we're both in our mid 30s!). View it as a tool and you'll find some way to use it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I want to be the Rasputin.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
They could restrict the information people are willing ot give out simply by making changes to the web site. To me "launch an education campaign that may include letters to schools and public-service announcements" sounds like "lunch a huge advertisement campaign targeted at the people we are claiming to be protecting"
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I used to work at a Public School as a computer technician, and out of nowhere came a huge uproar about this. Nosy teacher aides got pointing out specific things in kids profiles, like "I love to smoke pot" or nonsense like that... making it even a bigger problem. I immediately shut down access to the site, but it still didn't stop the kids from accessing it at home, and they ended up having a state trooper come in the next day and talk to kids about making their profiles less specific. Kids are stupid. Real stupid. I saw profiles with kids full names and phone numbers.
I wonder what that poor fucknuts is going to say when he logs in tomorrow and sees 25,000 new profile views? Alas.... that is not even close to some of the worst profiles.
... due to its uptime rating in the %50 range.
At least it seems that way to me or you get in and you have to hit reload 10x in a row or the back button because of random error messages.
Funny how real administrators conser %99.97 low and fireable yet Tom remains employeed??
http://saveie6.com/
For some reason, the phrase 'There's no such thing as bad publicity' suddenly came to mind. Especially in the case of my local Fox affiliate station. I literally watch this because it can occasionally rival the Daily Show for humor value, if you can stop your heart from breaking about the fact that it's being passed off as actual journalism. Just in the words the anchors were using, as they were describing this potential evil known as Myspace.com - it sounded like an advertisement. KTXL Fox 40 has always been extremely ham-handed about the things you know are being whispered on the set before tape starts rolling, which is where I derive the humor value, and also a scrap of insight about what the more subtle news organizations are doing. That being said, Fox 40 has reported on this 'scandal' constantly since the acquisition, and I've heard it mentioned no small number of times on Fox News, either. Now I ask you - what purpose could News Corp and it's affiliates possibly have for attacking a sister company? Driving up hits, perhaps? Shocked, outraged parents signing on to see what the fuss is all about - and more insiduously - children and teenagers who might be prone to looking for explicit sexual material anyway due to things like... oh, I don't know. Being in the range of 14-18 years old. They might as well have said 'Hey, teens! Surf to Myspace.com, and get laid tonight!'.
There may very well be data that contradicts me here, but from personal observation, I haven't seen a whole lot of 6 year olds with myspace profiles. Not that influencing a 15 year old into the sack makes you an upstanding citizen. It just seems that Myspace's target market is the exact group of people that are going to be the most easily coerced into sexual relations. Imagine you're 17 years old, watching Fox News with the parents, with hormones spilling out your ears. Your local anchor tells you about all this explicit material, and potential to 'get a piece', and even throws in that your parents will disapprove! Sounds like a commercial to me. And a rather twisted one at that.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine...
My, the moderators have no sense of humor today....
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I happen to do tech support for a major notebook manufacturer. I had a call from some girl who gets internet through her college residence asking me why she is not able to access the web site (while other web sites work fine). I wish I could recall if this happened before or after this story was posted.
In my school there are 13 people that are suspended due to pictures from Facebook.com. There were at least 30 more people that the administration could have suspended if they had bothered. Some of them were perfect students (strait As).
God, let's hope they never show at a Frat Party. Half the damn school will be on leave.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
http://www.myspace.com/brandymalone
She works in Nashville radio
"Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool."
I disagree:
Pee is not carcinogenic.
It takes a lot more people peeing to make the swimming pool stink.
People may be able to choose where they pee, but they can't choose whether they pee.