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.
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
i think it is the students fault because nobody is telling them what to put on their pages. they put pictures and say things that incriminate them so if something happens to them it is nobodies fault but theirs. they need to learn a lesson. but dont penalize the people who dont put themselves out there.
Dont penalize the people who are safe with there myspace cuz not everbody is doing the same thing
I am a high school freshman – not from RI – who had once used myspace. Some kids in my grade thought it was funny to exploit one of our greatest teachers because he pushed his students above the required level, and they thought it was too hard. They wrote all types of stuff about him such as: he beats his wife, he has inappropriate relationships with students, etc, none of which are true. This caused a HUGE controversy in our school, and I decided that myspace is just trouble waiting to happen. I mean, whats the best that can come from it? listening to music, talking to friends (which you can do on AIM, a much safer alternative), meeting new/ “hot” guys (which could possibly not be what u expected), and posting videos of yourself, usually being an idiot. Trust me, I’m not completely against myspace, I loved it while I had one, but now that I have deleted mine, I’ve been getting my homework done early, instead of pulling all-nighters (literally) because I was too busy checking and editing my myspace, and I actually have a life. Parents really have no idea what goes on with these things. Plus, my teacher was telling us about his research on the website (he always does thorough research, so this isn’t BS) and he told us that if a hacker really wanted to, he/she could take the URL of a persons website and within a matter of seconds, he would be able to find where the person lives, and TONS of information about the person, that thye may not have made public to others. This stuff is scary, and although I think that myspace is a great way to get in touch with others, I dont want to risk anything permanant or harmful happening to me. Lastly, I’d like to leave you all with the fact that even if a myspace is deleted, if someone really wants to, they can find it and bring it back up. No lie. Think about this stuff before you let your kids do whatever they want, they could be putting themselves in lots of danger.
Okay..I am a junior in high school in Washinton State, I think that it is personally wrong that schools are banning myspace because I think it is the parents responsiblility not the schools and also high school students are old enough to make our own decisions. We as in high school students are living under SOOOOO many rules in school that it isn’t fair. I mean common just think to when you guys were high schoolers you didn’t have as much responsibility as my generation also you didn’t have to live under as many rules as us. I know that the news has been saying that myspace leaves us kids too vulernable, well we decided to register to myspace. We can choose who and who isn’t on our so called “friends” list. Also if you think about many other things. When we move out of our parents house, we half to make our own decisions and decide whether or not we should leave ourselves vulnerable to certian things. Well I think myspace isn’t really a responsibility. It is a site to where us teens can go onto and keep in touch with our friends that have moved away. My high school has alreaddy banned myspace and has blocked websites that help us get to them but I think it is personally wrong that they do this because we should be able to decide what sites we can and cannont go onto. I agree w/ all schools on the whole porno thing but I personally don’t agree w/ them banning ALL bad sites. My school has also banned a site called “Ebaumsworld.com” which is a hilarious site to go onto and I don’t see this site getting national attention. I love both of these sites because when I am feeling down and need cheering up but am not able to talk to my friends I LOVE to go onto Ebaumsworld.com and I love that I can keep up with my friends that live all throughout the United States such as the states of Oregon, California, Utah, and some other states. So schools should mind their own business about what sites us students go onto!!
It’s the school’s right to censor what students have access to on the computers. My school does it, and hey, it keeps me focused on what I’m supposed to do. In reality, it’s not going to be the end of the world if the school blocks a noneducational site. I don’t see what the controversy is, use your myspace at home, parents, your jurisdiction is at home, use it, let the school keep the focus on education. ~High School Junior
I believe banning myspace is not schools place now not letting it be used in school fine. Sexual predators can find young kids anywhere Myspace dosnt make it any more easy. Censorship is the worst thing and it seems all School officials and Politicians want right now is total control. First it was i.d’s for school to keep kids who didnt attend that school from getting in well guess what that dosnt stop anything, If i have a gun do you think a little old lady sitting at a desk will stop me if i don’t have an i.d what a money making scam the i.d is. Why don’t schools focus on important things like kids who come to school HIGH OR DRUNK at Penn High School in Indiana i would be 50% of students have came to school high,drunk or hungover, do those kids get “Random drug test” “NOO” why not thier football players, Basketball players you name it. Random drug test should be for everyone not just the smart kid who wins acedemic superbowl, because we know he dosn’t take drugs he is actually smart. Schools have bigger things to worry about and i for one am sick of them dodging real problems like Security, Drug problems and Finacial problems charging 300 dollars for 6 books “HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE MONEY, THATS MORE THEN MY COLLEGE BOOKS”. IF i had to give a “JUST SHUT UP AWARD” like on MIKE AND MIKE {espn radio} I’d give it to School systems in general for their lack of realizing the real problems {Security, Drugs, and Finacial problems} Schools don’t pay more for kids going online to myspace its already thier, myspace is helpful kids can share information about classes and other stuff, I have a question why don’t schools just turn thier back on it like they DO DRUGS!!! if somethings to be done spend the cash to random drug test every student throught the year i bet 50% of kids get caught. If its sports with Steroids or regular people with Pot, i think its time schools start Expelling kids for these problems all kids get now is a 5 day suspension wow 5 days to smoke pot, teach them a lesson expel them maybe they’ll learn something.
I am 19 years old and I believe that schools have every rights to ban myspace for a few reasons.
I am 19 years old and I believe that schools have every right to ban using myspace. Firstly a school is a place to learn, why should kids be on myspace there anyway? They should be studying. Are you allowed to drink or throw parties or run around in your underwear at school? No. These are things that you either do in a social environment or at home. School is not for that. I have never been alowed to use myspace or msn at schools and the school computers are for course related work only and I have never seen the problem with that. It´s fair, the school supplies computers and allows us to use internet, so respect it and use it for your benifit, don’t take us school resources so you can say hi to your friends! Secondly, regardless of whether or not myspace is dangerous, schools make their decisions on how to educate the children. Do you complain about the courses or books they issue? Would you complain if they reprimanded one of the children for reading a magazine in class, listening to music or bringing in a book or magazine with violence or sex in it? I don´t think so. Therefor they should have every right to ban myspace or anything else that they do not find benificial to the students. On myspace there are many pages that contain swearing, references to violence and drugs and even some soft refernces to porn. These arent everywhere, but are easy to find if you look for them. The schools have your children´s best interests at heart and if you take a few minutes to actually understand this instead of simply arguing you may see this too. Why should you be arguing over your children not being allowed to mess around on a website at school? Start thinking about their education, not their cyber social life!!!!
blockin my space from schools is a great idea… but they have ways to get through it… they have certain web sites that can get through the blocker… i don’t know why people bitch so much about my space… its not actually that bad…. ther is just alot of stupid people that do stupid things with a site intended for talking to your friends and family…
as for parents deleteing stuff off of their childrens mymyspace… i think thats just a little to invasive of their privacy… i mean… sure you can talk to your child about it..but making them delete stuff off their myspace is just a bunch of shit! i’m a senior in high school, and i agree that sum people shouldn’t have a my space… but maybe the people in charge of the myspace organization should make it kinda like a rated site… like you have to be a certain age to have one… like if you are younger than thirteen than you shouldn’t have one…
even though i agree that it should be blocked from schools… they’re not gonna be able to block every thing… people will make new web sites and blogs that can bring you to the myspace web site… or they will make a new site like myspace…
kids these days aren’t exactly lacking the knowladge about computers,,, some teens can teach a computer class… they might not know jack about other stuff but they know how to get around a computer! and blocking isn’t always a way to stop it! not completely anyway!
if your myspace profile is set to private no one can see it but the people you choose to add to be your friend…mine is and noone can see mine without me adding them to be able to see it