Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Mind Your P's and Q's on MySpace--They're Watching You

It seems that increasingly MySpace is the focus of unwanted publicity. Either young people are doing things on MySpace that get them into trouble, or others are using MySpace for illicit purposes. Don't put anything on MySpace you don't want the whole world to see. Okay, there are probably a few people out there who don't know what MySpace is. MySpace is one of a number of internet sights that offer an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. Started in 2003, the popularity of the sight exploded among high school and college students as a way to post pictures and meet people of similar interests. In 2005 MySpace, with 45 million users, was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580 million. In August 2006 the MySpace accounts passed the 100 million mark.

But MySpace is not all just good clean fun anymore. Just this week a prosecutor announced he would not be filing charges against a Missouri woman who used a fake MySpace account to pose as a young boy named "Josh" in order to contact, Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl living down the street. Turns out this woman actually wanted to do a little spying on Megan, who was also a friend of the woman's daughter. The woman believed that Megan was spreading rumors about her own daughter and created the fake profile to find what was being said.

In September 2006 Megan and the fake Josh began exchanging messages and struck up a friendship. Then, after a month of on-line corresponding, "Josh" suddenly broke off the relationship and told Megan she was a bad person and cruel. Megan suffered from attention deficit disorder and depression. Distraught over the way her relationship with Josh ended, the next day Megan committed suicide by hanging herself in her bedroom.

Megan's family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan's. The girl's mother, Tina Meier, said she doesn't think anyone involved intended for her daughter to kill herself. "But when adults are involved and continue to screw with a 13-year- old, with or without mental problems, it is absolutely vile," she told the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. The prosecutor cannot find any law on the books with which to charge the woman.

More recently, in Belleville, Michigan, four Belleville High School students were were expelled after photos of them with guns, drugs and piles of cash appeared on a MySpace website.
Van Buren Public Schools Superintendent Pete Lazaroff has said that the photos shown on the social networking Web site were taken after a limo picked the students up from a school dance. After the posted photos were discovered, the school district commenced expulsion procedures. The students were expelled following a closed hearing.

The students appealed the hearing, alleging that the way in which it was conducted violated their constitutional rights to due process. A Wayne County Circuit Court Judge agreed. Judge Cynthia Stephens criticized the district for failing to keep a record of the closed Nov. 3 disciplinary hearing that led to the expulsions. She reversed the expulsion and ordered the teens be readmitted to school, but also ruled the expulsion hearings could be reconvened if done according to constitutional standards. The school district did so and one of the expulsions was upheld. Oh, and the parents are suing for a million dollars per kid. Just a little parental responsibility sometimes would be nice.

In a similar episode, three students were expelled from a Kamiakin, Washington high school for posting photos of themselves on MySpace flashing gang signs. The district has a zero-tolerance policy for gangs. Read more: Kamiakin.

I suppose the lesson here is two fold. First, if your children are creating profiles on MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube or any of the other social networking websites, carefully monitor their activity. You never know who they could run into. These sites are prowled by undesirables of every stripe looking for victims. The nature of cyberspace makes it nearly impossible for the sight administrators to monitor their millions users. Cyber bullies can attack their victims almost at will with little fear of any consequences. Cyberspace has become an extension of the playground. Report unusual activity.

And second, if you or your children are posting to these sights, remember that you never know who could be seeing the post. School administrators and police do monitor these sites. Incriminating photos, statements or other information can be used in court and other proceedings. While a photos of a drunken college binge may seem funny now, a prospective employer probably won't think so. And many do check.

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