Myspace Removed Sex Offenders Profiles

Posted by Dexie

In an effort to protect the thousands of young members who signed up at Myspace.com , the popular social networking online has reportedly removed "a few thousands" of sex offenders profiles. First, I will say, Good, it's about time. Now my questions are: When will the website track and prevent minors from uploading half-naked pictures of themselves? When will they make sure the age limit requirement when signing up is actually being followed?

"We've made it clear we have a zero tolerance policy against convicted sex offenders," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a phone interview on Tuesday. "We've said numerous times that the goal was to delete them."

Having asked those questions, I also have a few directed to the parents and the young members. Are the parents going to take responsibility on monitoring what their kids are doing online? Are they going to lay down the law in their house and tell their precocious teenagers NOT to post risque pictures of themselves, not to share important informations like their home address, etc? To the teenagers doing this: When are you going to take responsibility for your own actions? Are you going to keep adding whomever sends you an e-mail requesting to be added in your Friend's List? Are you going to stop trying to initiate or response to e-mails you know damn well is questionable? Are you going to stop posting pictures showing your cleavage or any part of your body for that matter?

See, we can all point the blame at Myspace but at the end of the day, the site is not in your bedroom telling you to do the aforementioned. I understand Parents can not monitor their kids 24/7 of the day but WE are the authority in our kids's life. If a 14 year old girl insists of signing up for an account, then make sure YOU approve her friends. She can whine all day but you know what, we are the parents. WE can take that computer out of their bedroom and throw it out of the window if we want to.

Ironically, my husband was looking at my profile this weekend and he was surprised at how many friends I have on my list. He thought 45 was a lot. I had to explain to him that 45 is nothing compared to ther other members of Myspace. I've seen profiles who have 1300 or more. The 45 people on my list are actually people I interact with. I've known them for years. These are people I've come to know through the years and friends I've lost in touch with. I get a lot of requests from strangers and from people that just by checking their profiles, respectively, anyone can conclude that it's probably not a good idea to add.

My point in this whole thing is, WE are all responsible for our actions. We can not put all the blame on one network when the members who sign up abuse what's in front of their face.Parents must be aware of what our kids are into. Monitor, educate, nag if you have to, implement your house rules, and cut their priviliges off if you have to. We have to make them understand that it's for their safety.

Myspace has started doing their part, let's do ours.

The whole news story here.

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[ READER COMMENTS ]

1

auee said:

You're right, as parents we should take responsibility of monitoring our children's safety. My boy is still too young, but I know once he's old enough I will be watching his Net usage like a hawk.

The UK government & Interpol are doing their best, but we have to teach our kids how to use the Net responsibly & how to stay safe. When we tell them not to talk to strangers or get in their car, we also have to teach them how to stay clear of unwanted attention online.

Posted at 05:00 AM, on May 23 2007

Myspace Removed Sex Offenders Profiles

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