Is it a virtual hangout for millions of American teenagers, like a sprawling electronic shopping plaza, or a magnet for sexual predators and pornographers?
MySpace.com is a bit of both, say Rhode Island education officials who have banned the fast-growing teen social networking Web site from 80 percent of their schools out of concern is was putting children at risk.
“There’s a lot of personal information and things like that on MySpace.com — a bit more than I’m comfortable with,” said James Murphy, assistant director of technology for the public schools in Coventry, Rhode Island.
What could have been probably an innocent place for kids to meet has turned almost to be everybody’s nightmare,” said Monique Nelson, executive director of Web Wise Kids, a nonprofit Internet safety organization based in California.
They should ban it until the kids using it know how to create a web page without using huge empty fields of bright eye straining colors.
After our killing the state xmas tree with chemicals, I thought maybe Rhode Island would be safe from dvorak uncensored. But I guess we still have a few stories up our sleeves.
This story is just a part of the larger story that myspace is failing the PR game right now. That probably isn’t affecting their bottom line yet though.
This is them banning access to their school’s computers right? I mean, they can’t ban a student from using it in their home. If they tried to do that to my son (though he doesn’t even know what myspace.com is), I’d tell the school to go f*ck themselves.
But if they want to ban access from THEIR computers, no problem. But don’t you dare tell me what my kid can and can’t do when he’s not in school. Of course, I’m one of those parents that knows what his kid is doing and doesn’t sit him down in front of the TV or the computer as a surrogate nanny.
Yes, many schools use internet filters to manage student internet access when students use school computers. This should be no big !shocker! for any parent/student. The computers are in the school for educational use, not to be a gateway to the meandering whims of adolescents.
Myspace.com? I love it. If I want to know what an adolescent is up to, all I have to do is browse their myspace.com page, and those of their buddies. True to the know-it-all naivete of many grade 7-12 kids, they post any and all sordid details of their lives as though that were some sort of exhibitionist competition. When we wanted to figure out who was throwing the water bottles filled with piss into the girls locker room, or who was attempting to set bathroom trash can contents on fire – just check the myspace pages of the usual suspects and bingo, the lead needed to catch the kid in the act.
It amazos me what people, not just kids and teens put up there about themselves. do they not relize it is public.
Its not the schools place to do this, its the parents. I’m sick and tired of rule after rule that look to take the responsibility of parenting away from parents and make everyone else responsible.
Jason’s right. They should ban MySpace for everybody until people stop embedding music videos on their pages. 🙂
When I ask you will Parents start taking responsibity for their own Children?
I had no idea what drugs were in school, until the DARE Program showed us all about it.
gquaglia,
The school is well within it’s right to limit internet access of students who are AT SCHOOL, using school computers that are connected to the school’s LAN, etc….
No hard feelings there. While the kids are at home you as a parent are still free to indulge them, ignore them, or otherwise guide them – whatever your preference or pleasure.
Umm… I hate it when people blame the net for stuff like this. No ones seeing the benifets of this new technology. Sure alot of kids can get stalked by sexual preditors but guess what this can also be a good way to trap them. It use to be the perve would just drive up and grab the kid.
Well at least they have to learn a little HTML in order to modify their accounts…better than say this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrZLCCjIZc8
They should just ban everything because they can!
Idiots, Think outside the box!
Learning about building myspace homepages, sharing pictures and information is a positive social experience for people.
Its real, practicle, and useful learning experience.
When I was growing up, all we had was pen pals. Now thats lame.
Myspace sure beats kids teaching other kids how to smoke and roll joints.
The sexual predators and pornographers they fear on the internet are probably far and few between. Often preditors are in thier own family circle.
What is it with some of you people. Why on earth are you against turning our children into perfect little robots. Get with the program people.
If we don’t teach students so they learn to pass those “No Child Left In Front” testing then they might actually learn something. Now honestly, can anyone really say they want their kid to think for them self? Who on earth would want that for their child? What kind of parent are you?
If we don’t raise a whole generation of morons, who will fill the Army ranks with cannon fodder? How will McDonald’s or Wal-Mart get part time employees? WHO WILL BE THE NEXT DUBYA???
I apologize. I raised a question. I acknowledge my error. I should not have used that foul work “think”. Never again will I question our Supreme Leader Dubya the Great, the Imperial Potentate. The Government loves us. It is our duty to love and obey our Leader. All hail Dubya the Great in his greatness and glory.
“Is it a virtual hangout for millions of American teenagers, like a sprawling electronic shopping plaza, or a magnet for sexual predators and pornographers?”
isn’t that describing 90% of the whole internet?
BAN THE NET!
“Is it a virtual hangout for millions of American teenagers, like a sprawling electronic shopping plaza, or a magnet for sexual predators and pornographers?”
This describes 90% of the Internet, and also streets, shopping malls, diners, cafes, and parks. BAN ALL OF THEM!
“What is it with some of you people. Why on earth are you against turning our children into perfect little robots. Get with the program people.”
So limiting internet access while students are at school using the school’s systems is going to limit the child’s ability to develop as individuals? Hardly.
The kiddos will have plenty of time at home to indulge their sense of identity via myspace.com.
“If we don’t raise a whole generation of morons, who will fill the Army ranks with cannon fodder? How will McDonald’s or Wal-Mart get part time employees? WHO WILL BE THE NEXT DUBYA???”
So, unchecked us of myspace.com in public schools will result in free-thinking adolescents, and a decreased number of moronic 19 year olds? Have you looked at many teen myspace.com pages lately.
Personally I find Myspace to be as lame as AOL Chat rooms, but it doesn’t matter what I think or, apparently, what anyone thinks.
So here’s hoping these schools start getting sued.
“So here’s hoping these schools start getting sued.”
On what grounds would the school be sued for limiting the use of school computers by students? The school may filter web content as they see fit. There is no issue here.
I wonder how many of the people who posted actually READ the article?
The school is not forbidding student access to myspace.com WHILE AWAY from school, rather the student is not allowed to access myspace.com (xanga, etc.) WHILE THEY ARE AT SCHOOL, using school computers that are connected to the school’s LAN, etc….
Jeff
Well they have it blocked at my work, so I guess it should be banned for schools. There’s plenty of time in the day after school for them to blog, etc.
Teens arent going to listen to this B.S. because i know im not!! If students have a myspace that is none of the schools concern. They are not our parents and can NOT control what we do outside of school OR online. The school board is STUPID for allowing principles to expell and suspend students for a website. Now not having it AT school is diffrent students shouldnt be on myspace or xanga while IN school during the day.
I am a teenage student and i don’t g people for a website! Because i have XANGA and MYSPACE …..
Stephanie
I think they should ban it from schools, the kids are there to get an education, not to converse on line with their friends. and if you really want to know what your kids are doing ,get their password (like I have) for myspace.com I control everything they do on there, if I don’t like it, I get rid of it,
Umm… I have a MySpace and i dont talk or request somebody that i dont know so unless someone else from my high school is a sexual predetor than i think i’ll be o.k. Not every kid is going to talk to people 15 years older than them it’s goignt to be the people no matter what that are talking to these whether it’s on my space or not.
Some people are just bad parents and dont teach their children goods morals. And then these kids go out and talk to guys that are creepy and gross and then they get in trouble, like they didn’t know what was going to happen. And that they blame it on the chat room or the web page, but really they just want to put the blame on someone else.
omg okay banning it from SCHOOLS is so not going to solve the problem. I have a myspace and if your dumb enough to put all your personal information on ur site that’s your problem. Not everyone should be banned from something just because some people are idiots. And here’s an idea if your so worried about what predators are looking at on your childs site why don’t you look at if first and take all the “sexual” pictures off, You’re the parent you have that right so just stop complaining and arguing and actually do something about it!
“It seems that in todays society, the internet is one of the worst evils in a childs life. With all good intent, I’m sure, at the onset of the ‘World Wide Web’, the the negatives definitely out way the positives when it comes to its modern day usage by an unguided child.”
Most kids claim that they must have an internet connection to do their homework, or for research, or whatever else to better their education. To make doing their homework an easier task. To gather useful information to help them grow and learn. This is true. I agree that the the Web is a modern wonder when used properly. A whole wealth of knowledge can be obtained by using it. Not to say that it can’t be fun at appropiate times and reasonable time intervals.
I speak as a man who has 4 kids of my own ranging from teens to twentys. So I know, and I’ve lived, and I’ve seen. The truth of the matter is that kids have a general tendency to use the internet for these so called educational purposes about five percent of the time.
The other 95 percent of the time is either spent e-mailing, in various chat rooms, instant messaging, of surfing in and out of other peoples blog sites including this Myspace.com. Its a useless waste of brain cells and even a greater and addictive waste of time. PERIOD.
Parents should spend more time monitoring what their kids are doing on line, and not just assume that their kids are perfect angels that do no wrong. If you think that, you are sadly living in the dark and need to wake up and smell the coffee. And by all means keep them off of Myspace.com.
There is no more free reign to the internet at my home for my kids. And for that matter, all schools should block access to any web site that could not be used for educational reasons. By no means do they need to be in chat rooms, blog sites or IM when they are at school. Come on, give me a break. Its a no brainer.
I agree with many here, the schools do have the right to ban non-educational content. As a taxpayer, school computer time should used soley for school related material. This should really wake up parents to what teens are doing online.
Besides the sometimes racey and raunchy content, the pages are horrific in layout styles, images and music. MySpace also allows hotlinking (linking to another site: images and music) which really eats up bandwidth that is paid for by someone else – if you don’t know about it and if you can’t pinpoint which image/sound is being stolen, you can’t remove/change it. Bandwidth stealing is NOT a good thing.
Please, if someone knows a way to get rid of a myspace account once it has been established with a fictitious email account, please pass along the information because myspace has made it virtually impossible to delete an existing account.
I see this website draining the brain cells from my daughter’s usually intelligent little head. I am going to ban it from my house and make her spend that time working on her soccer skills and reading a good book.
It is the parents responsibilty to tekk their children not to use the site, not the schools. Sure the schools can tell the students about the dangers of the site, but it is not within their limits to ban a student from using the site, unless at school. And by the way, “jim” is not my real name, I didn”t want to put any personal information on the internet.
I personally think that kids are taking advantage of the opportunities they have with technology. If kids are getting raped and sexually abused i think that the parents should be tlaking to there kids regularly about what is going on in there life. If kids have the power to do whatever they want then how is this nation going to be protected in the future.
Somebody always has to screw up a good thing and myspace is no different. It’s sole intention is for friends to get on there and set up harmless web pages. For most of us that is what we use it for but there are those group of idiots that use it to promote sex and perverted behavior. Myspace is a great tool for aspiring musicians to share their music and for people that just like to play on the net. As far as banning it in schools, whatever, who cares. If you ban it at schools, it is not going to stop kids from getting on there when they get home so whats the point. Most parents dont take the time anyway to pay any attention to what their children are looking at on the internet, and if it isnt myspace then it will be some other site. I wish everyone would just stop crying about myspace because it has been made pretty obvious that it isnt going anywhere so either love it, hate or just shut the hell up