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Summer Camps Join Fray Against MySpace
The New York Times reports that now even summer camps are raising concerns about social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook. Camps are worried about the ramifications of certain activities being associated with their summer programs after revealing pictures or postings are made online. Some camps are banning digital cameras, while others are instructing campers and parents to remove references to the camps from blog postings. Of course, the camps take the stance that they are merely trying to protect the children:
"The information that kids share today often is personal and private information that allows predators to track them down. We're also concerned about cyber-bullying."
It's perfectly understandable that summer camp administrators are concerned. There's cause for concern. I think, however, that trying to ban kids from socializing online and discussing their camp experiences is definitly not the way to go. Social networking sites like Myspace are a reality, and trying to ban reality never works. Teaching kids about safe behaviour on the 'net would be a much more viable option, IMHO.
Why not provide better supervision of the kids at summer camp so that there is less dirt to post about? Oh wait that would require someone to actually take some responsibility...
The new world order IS a mess of misorganization and incompetence.
Just look at the USSR, it could have been described as exactly that. Nepotism, bribes, kickbacks, major corruption, social programs that are just jobs for the incompetent, spying on your political foes... It wasn't a sleek, well oiled government, it was a government bursting at the seams under the weight of corruption.
I mean just the other day, there was a prison shootout, not between the guards and prisioners, but between federal agents trying to shut down the huge number of corrupt guards.
The real criminals aren't the ones behind the bars, it's the ones in power.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Let's not blame MySpace for any behavioral/discipline/legal problems. The real problem is that, much like the Last Chance kids from "Camp," you spent all your time allowing the older kids to treat them like dirt, and only Ernest (despite the whole posion ivy incident) really cared about them -- enough so that he was able to stop Kramer Construction singlehandedly.
God, I love that movie.
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We all have digital cameras, camera phones etc... It's just a part of technology becoming more and more a part of our lives. It needn't be a bad thing, summer camp is probably one of the best places a teen can capture memories to show the family. Just because bad stuff can be done with these things doesn't mean an outright ban should follow.
You're not allowed to take a camera into most swimming pools now, however much you want to capture your child first swimming. A few bad apples...
All kinds of shit goes on at summer camps that would cause parents to freak.
The administrators running these camps don't want those kinds of details to come out, since we know that people (regardless of age) are stupid when it comes to pictures on MySpace, FaceBook, Etc. It'd be a huge liability issue on their part. parents would be asking "how could you let [bad behavior caught on camera] happen?"
"For the children" is just the easiest way to get everyone onboard.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
...and if the summer camps claim they want to help you out, that's their right to do so, and you can decide whether or not they are being overly bureaucratic/paranoid or not. What neither the summer camps nor the parents should be allowed to do, is sue MySpace, etc. because of their failings as parents. In the end, it's almost always inadequate parenting that causes their children to engage in risky behavior.
Camp directors are attempting to do two things, according to the article: treat the symptoms of a problem and censor negative opinions about their organizations.
If photographs of a camp and its attendees have managed to wind their way onto an adult website, I have no qualms with the camp in questions taking action to have the material removed, however, it seems the camp might want to devote more resources to educating attendees about safety. I also don't see any issue with confiscating digital cameras, even though many children who've gone to camp in the past were able to take photographs.
I certainly take issue with camps' attempts to censor negative opinion and activities which take place outside of the camp and are unrelated to the camp. The article makes it seem like these camps are asking both attendees and counselors to censor their outside activities so as not to make the camp "look bad."
I'm getting sick and tired of hearing parents, school counselors, child psychologists, etc blaming MySpace for virtually everything bad that could occur in a teens life.
Me too. The ironic thing is that those are the parents that simply should not have kids either.
I mean, since when will the old standby of waiting at a school bus or going to a shopping mall and pulling the "I'm sorry Johnny, your parents were just in an accident, and I was asked to take you to the hospital to see them" or similar trick stop working?
Yet again, more evidence that logic and reason go out the window when "computers" or "online" is involved. Every week I see kids missing on milkboxes or on those token mailers with the "Have you seen me?" on them. And you know what? I'm pulling this number out of the air, but its probably pretty close, over 90% of those missing kids were taken by most likely a parent or someone else they know. The others simply had such shitty parents that they just decided to fend for themselves.
Lets just put all kids and their parents in prisons and call it even.
There is a mantra that exists on /. and perhaps society as a whole that the simple solution to problems akin to MySpace is proper parenting. I think it is a gross oversimplification to think being a "good parent" is going to solve all children related problems. In the same way it is an oversimplification to solely blame MySpace.
I think the solution sits somewhere in the middle. That MySpace should make a concerted effort to work with parents to ensure their children's safety. Also parents need to educate themselves and take more of a role in their child's internet activity. Also there is a third step where all of us need to understand the disconnect between the Internet and RL is illusionary. What you do on the Internet has RL consequences and vice versa.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Yes, why is she wearing bikini in a shower? Probably followed by whats wrong with a picture of a girl wearing bikini in a shower.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
"Protecting civil rights" is a cliche that DOES apply. That's why this should be called for the bullshit that it is.
Sony ha
Just let them post their photos. Being paranoid doesn't work most of the time. And with exponential growth of these sites; can you stop it ? NO Should you stop it ? Questionable; Let these youngsters have fun to the bottom; and share it. How dangerous can it be after all ?
There's plenty of room at the bottom! Richard P. Feynmann
Excellent! Operation "Suck All Fun out of Being a Kid" is coming along nicely. First we open sites that let kids sign up to potential lawsuits if they speak to anyone else- they might be talking to an online predator! Next, we make sure they can't talk about anything that might affect a commercial interest. Good to see phase two is proceeding according to schedule. Given time, if our operation is successful, all that these kids will be able to post is "Current Mood: Depressed". Which strangely enough, given the crap we're dumping on them, will probably be quite accurate.
Isn't it time to reign in the lawyers and the mollycoddlers?
I thought this whole 'summer camp' thing was a myth, but they actually exist over there
Why the hell do these places exist? I mean, good lord, when I was a teenager, during the holidays, I worked, went to the movies and kept my self occupied, without the need of my parents spending money hand over fist to some over hyped establishment.
Geeze, I really wonder sometimes why parents have kids if all they do is boot their kids off to a camp each year, simply to avoid them.
Nowadays children have negative civil rights. They have the right to demand to be oppressed. Other people's civil rights get taken away to keep children "protected". It's fricken' ridiculous. The world they live in is so much worse than a police state it's crazy. They're herded, imprisoned, propertyless, practically property themselves. Every man's hand is against them. If I were a kid I'd look on digital technology as the last small bastion of genuine personal liberty, and I'd be thinking seriously about organizing an armed revolt.
Go to webshots.com and search for "cheer camp shower". Need I say more?
Oh noezz!! A scary intraweb predator is going to see a picture of girls in bikinis and track them all down and rape and kill them! Everyone panic!!! We need more laws and restrictions, quick!
Need I say more?
Yes, please do, because I don't know what the hell your point is.
Okay. I did.
What we have here is a bunch of girls who took pictures of themselves and friends in the shower. All were wearing bikinis. In other words, I could get the same "thrill" by going to any public beach.
I suppose you have to say more. I'm a bit lost as to what is "bad" about this. It looks like all the people involved were willing participants.
MySpace is a communication tool, no more, no less. It doesn't create these incidents, they have been there all along. Perhaps they have changed with time, perhaps not. That however is fairly irrelevant, I'm sure we've all done things in our time which we'd prefer not to be published on the internet. For me, perhaps fortunatly, the internet had not caught on to social networking during my teens in quite the same way as it has now. All MySpace does, in the same way that other similar sites do is create a little more transparancy in the system and is could be likened to having a delayed CCTV system from the camps piped into the parents home. MySpace is not to blame, should not be held responsible etc for any actions that happen at the camps, it simply puts practices and actions which have happened in the camps more into the public domain. 'What happens at camp stays at camp' is no longer such an easy oath to keep, is this the fault of MySpace, no, this is part of growing up, everyone makes mistakes, most I would like to believe learn from these. We all have experiences that have shaped our current position in life for better or for worse, MySpace does not alter this it simply treads the path where mainstream news cannot easily reach.
Disagree completely. You simply cannot push the burden of chaperoning kids onto Myspace the same way you can't expect phone companies to monitor calls to make sure the conversation is safe. That's silly. All Myspace is is a communications medium and there's absolutely no way they, as a company, can ensure that all the communication that takes place within the medium happens to be safe.
Also note that in my post above I did not single out parenting as a solution to the problem. In fact, I've never even mentioned parenting, even though it's certainly a part of the solution. The most important factor involved is education, for parents and for the kids. People need to be taught about the risks and ramifications involved in sharing personal information online.
This is not to say that sharing personal information online is always a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with being a public figure, and each public figure decides for themselves just how much they want to reveal. Some chose to remain anonymous while others post naked pictures of themselves along with phone numbers. What seems to happen quite a bit with Myspace and the like is people don't realize just how much they're revealing and how this information can be used against them. This is where education comes in.
Baning a communication medium is not the way to go. Not only is it the wrong thing to do, but it's also futile. Kids will post their camp expariences regardless of whether or not it's against the rules. Pushing them underground, so to say, achieves nothing.
Just as paedophiles are profiled on the web, so are their victims. rather than using paedophilia as an excuse for governments to pound us back into the stone age, governments should stop worrying about dropping paedophiles' docs and start worrying about doing its job locking up or killing child rapists. Governments have always used dangerous people as an excuse to take our freedoms away rather than doing something about the dangerous people. MySpace should remain open and children should continue to post online while at the same time, authorities should do away with those who are guilty of raping kids (or anyone else for that matter).
We try to blame everyone- bad parents, bad teachers, bad coaches, bad dirty ole men on the internet, bad ole technology, etc, ad nauseum.
BUT WE FAIL TO >>BLAME THE BRATS
Our society has the idea that anyone under 18 is pure and innocent until something corrupts them and that is pure and simple HORSE CRAP.
Teens have been and always will be 1) sexual beings AND 2) immature. The combination of both is a recipe for trouble.
Modern society thinks that teen pregnancy, teen sex and teen crime is all some shocking, new phenemenon unique to our times. Nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps the technologies have changed but the people using them have not.
People are essentially the same dumb animals that have made the same dumb mistakes for the past 5 millinia of recorded history. All signs show that they will continue to do so.
The model for Michangelo's [i]David[/i] was a teen prostitute that was one of Michangelo's personal favorites. What does this have to do with this subject?
It proves rather elegently that this teen drama crap has been going on a long time before MySpace ever reared its ugly head.
Blame the people, not the black box.
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governments should [...] start [...] killing
Barbarian.
== Jez ==
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I don't think you'll eliminate pedophilia without eliminating all humans. It's a simple equation, and evidence can be seen in the animal kingdom:
1. Females cannot be impregnated for some time after birth (there are (at least) two reproductive stages in the female's lifecycle).
2. Males prefer to raise children of their own creation (otherwise they're spending their own resources to support someone else's genes--sure, adoption works, even in the animal kingdom, but it's not the rule).
3. If a male impregnates a female the instant she is able to, then his genes will be carried on by the offspring.
4. If a male attempts to impregnate a day later, then the chances that another male has impregnated are higher, and not only is the sex act wasted energy, any additional energy the male spends in child-rearing is wasted energy as well (from the perspective of the male's genes).
5. If a male attempts to impregnate a day earlier, then only the sex act is wasted energy.
Therefore, males tend to "prefer" to err on the side of "too early" because it results in the least wasted energy/resources. One day early will not matter much, on a human time-scale; a few years likely will matter, in terms of potential scarring (physically and emotionally).
I've been modded down when presenting the above equation before. I don't mind another down-mod, but I would like an explanation: what in the above is inaccurate?
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