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.
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
myspace isnt a problem unless the user in myspace is making it a big deal. students having their own page is thier own buisness. i have a myspace and its straight.
I think myspace should be banned for good even though those kids who get on there and are stupid enough to tell ppl info about them, i had a myspace and i was acting like a celeb but i deleted it, i thought it was stupid.. i argued with some guy i mean big time argued but he didnt know any info about me or anything because i was acting like a celeb so thats different~
I THINK MYSPACE SHOULD B IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!!!!!!!!WE LUV MYSPACE AT EMMA SANSOM MIDDLE BUT BECAUSE OF U WE CANT GET ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PLEASE LET US ON MYSPACE!!!
-THANX-
i think we should be able to have myspace at school without it being blocked that sh*t is wack!!! who ever came up with that idea must not have had a good childhood and they want to take it out on us. well guess what GET IT OVER IT !!!
i think we should be able to have myspace at school without it being blocked that sh*t is wack!!! who ever came up with that idea must not have had a good childhood and they want to take it out on us. well guess what GET OVER IT !!!
After conducting some surveys it is proven that around 50 present of the teenagers going to school is California drive to school.
We have to start giving kids some credit i mean when you where a kid if you had myspace would you really go around talking to strangers, giving your phone number or address to anyone who asks. Most teens on myspace have much more common sssense than that especially after all the annoying tv programs and news reports on it they`ve seen by now
I work in a Public High School, and we were recently told that they have made an adendum to our hand book saying that no county employee is allowed to use any social networking website such as myspace and facebook, regardless of student contact or not. Many of us are outraged. Wouldn’t this be an infridgement of our freedom of speech or our right to privacy?
#6 “Its not the schools place to do this, its the parents. I’m sick and tired of rule after rule that”
What are you babbling about? Schools make the rules on how school computers are used. Parents don’t write the usage policies.
#48 “Wouldn’t this be an infridgement[sic] of our freedom of speech or our right to privacy?”
No. At work, using employer facilities they can monitor and block you from sites. Get used to it. I’ve consulted with IT mgmt at K12 & Colleges. Filtering is a very good strategy to both secure and manage computer resources.