MySpace the largest Social Network in North America maintains a dominant position in this space.  Currently MySpace has 110 million active monthly users around the world.  In the United States, 1 in 4 people are active on MySpace and on average 300,000 new people sign up to MySpace every day!

Although MySpace can be a wonderful place for connecting with friends and meeting new people, there are many potential dangers that should preclude parents from allowing their children to freely roam the site with out proper parental controls.

In our ongoing efforts to bring better awareness to parents about what their children are doing online and specifically what they are doing on social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Xanga we have a developed a sophisticated Screenshot functionality.

Why Parents Should be Concerned about MySpace:

MySpace profiles are public!

Anything posted on a public profile can be read by other members, and anybody in the outside world can get to a MySpace profile. Children often disclose too much personal information on profiles, which attract child predators lurking on the site.

We had a situation with one of our customers in which their 15 year old daughter was a successful local athelete who received much press because of her accomplishments.  These were then posted on MySpace and within days she was getting correspondence from a man congratulating her, and it turns out he was 43!

These predators seize upon details left in blogs, comments, and personal profiles to take advantage of these kids and parents are left unaware.

MySpace pages are NOT reviewed for inappropriate content:

The language and content of MySpace pages aren't reviewed or monitored by anyone. The language on most of the pages is colorful to say the least. Do you really want your children to see all those four-letter words? But it's not just the swearing that's problematic, it's the subject, too. Many MySpace pages talk about drinking and drugs, and references to "adult" subject matters abound. Worse still, some pages have very dark undertones and talk about suicide and self-harming. Rest assured, you do not want your children to read this.

MySpace members are not always who they say they are:

A valid e-mail is the only requirement for membership on MySpace and any other identifying information can be faked. There are no controls in place within the MySpace system to actively check the validity of current members. The only time somebody is caught is when MySpace explicitly catches someone violating its policies. Thus, child predators can masquerade as teens, gain their trust, and use it to their advantage. Likewise, teens lie about their ages and get access to materials otherwise denied to them.

Because many children and teens post a lot of information about themselves, MySpace is a haven for sexual predators. Anyone can do a search for their local high school and see the details of dozens of girls. Hobbies, interests, date of birth, hair color, friends and much more is often listed for anyone to see. If your child were to post that she's going to be somewhere at a particular time and date, it would be frighteningly easy for someone else to wait for her there.

There are thousands of inappropriate images on MySpace:

Many of the images posted on MySpace are sexually suggestive. Even if your child hasn't posted a lightly clad photo of herself, you can safely assume that she has seen countless such pictures of other people. Videos are posted, too, and sometimes these are graphic enough to frighten young children.

The many potentially unsuitable relationships formed on MySpace:

Aside from the very great potential that your child can come into contact with online predator or cyber-bully, they are going to meet many individuals that potentially just as unsuitable.  In the offline world parents have the ability to meet any of their children’s new friends.  In the social networking world, you as a parent will never have the opportunity to even see who your children are speaking with, let alone meet.  We do not know of any parents who allow their kids to interact with individuals who say they are 13 when they are really 30!

The potential to seriously harm one’s reputation:

We all know that in high school or middle school potentially harmful rumors spread very quickly.  Imagine this being amplified by millions of people.  Gossip, malicious rumors, bullying and racial slurs are posted on a public forum to an audience of millions. If a future employer or college admissions board simply does a search on a social networking site, any of this harmful information will come to light in seconds a potentially hurt your child’s chances of pursuing that opportunity.