Myspace - Innocent Fun?
A look at the more worrying side of kids' internet networking
How our kids make themselves vulnerable on networking sites - and what we can do about it.
Shot from above, Holly’s portrait is all eyeliner, cleavage and pout. As she gazes up into your eyes, the song ‘**** You Like An Animal’ by Nine Inch Nails kicks in. Scroll down a little further and her MySpace profile reveals that she is single, straight, drinks, smokes and lives in London. She’s written that she’s online for friends, dating, fun and long-term relationships.
It’s not until yet further down the page that you see Holly has listed her school – Coulsdon High School. Her year of graduation is 2010. This means that despite all appearances, Holly is only 15 years old.
The Internet has long been criticised for the ease with which potential predators can gain access to young children by lurking in chatrooms, presenting themselves as something that they are not, and grooming youngsters with the aim of eventually meeting and defiling them.
Of course it’s the twisted pervert who is to blame for the corruption of youngsters, isn’t it? But how many parents really know exactly how their innocent children are presenting themselves online?
Evidence of the dangers of global social networking for children is already becoming apparent. In June 2006, 16 year old Katherine Lester flew from her home in America to the Palestinian West Bank, to be with a 20 year old man whom she had met on MySpace.
In January this year, four American families sued the social networking site and its owner, NewsCorp, after their teenage daughters were solicited online and sexually abused by adults they met on the site. “Social networking sites can lead to heinous abuse by Internet predators,” says Adam Loewy, solicitor for one affected family.
The minimum age to register an account on MySpace is 14. Users under the age of 16 have their profiles automatically set to private, unless the viewer knows the child’s real name or email address. There is a catch though – at the point of registering, MySpace relies on users to specify their own age. Increasingly, young teenagers are finding their way around the few restrictions that exist.
MySpace is gearing itself up for a response, quietly developing security software designed to give parents the bare bones of what their children are doing on the site. The tool, which will alert parents to the username, age and location a child posts on their personal profile site, will be available later this year, and is certain to spark debate about Internet safety.
The software also would be able to detect whether a teenager has multiple profiles - one to show parents, another for friends - and once the child accesses a profile from a home computer, parents would be notified if they try to change it from a friend's house.
The problem faced by MySpace, however, is how to give kids enough room to manoeuvre, in order to stop them from defecting to less-regulated sites such as Bebo and Facebook.
Parry Aftab, executive director of Wired Safety, praises MySpace for its plans to let kids know when such software is installed, saying it could help trigger dialogue with parents.
But she says the tools might drive kids elsewhere, even though the software will not reveal any more than what is available on their public profiles.
“A lot of kids think that somehow MySpace is their private space,” she says, “and when they find out their teacher, police or parents are reading their profiles, they leave in droves.”
Schools are increasingly wising up to the fact that a powerful global tool like MySpace could be problematic in the hands of youngsters whose social skills are just developing.
Vicky Tuck, principal of the Cheltenham Ladies College says: “We would prefer these sites not to exist because they are a constant worry for anyone who is responsible for the care of young.
“We all know how easy it is to use these sites to prey on impressionable young people but unfortunately networking on the internet is a part of youth culture today and is very difficult to prevent in practice.”
Moreover, although the Internet appears a transitory medium, care must be taken to recognise the long-term consequences of posting any kind of personal material, explains Tuck.
“We teach girls the dangers and risks associated with community based sites. We also talk to them about identity theft and that computers do not remove information unless you remove it yourself.
“Pictures and opinions you may wish to post when you are 14 may not be such a good idea when you are applying for your first job.”
MySpace's crush of young people eager to make friends, posting racy photos and sharing a slice of their daily lives is too strong a temptation to child predators, but how many teenagers looking for a space to hang out with their friends will choose one inhabited by their parents and teachers? Ultimately, it is MySpace which must claim responsibility for the safety of its underage users.
David, a 27-year-old musician, could not agree more. When 17-year-old Lucy, a fan of his band, contacted him via his personal MySpace site to ask for tickets to his gig in London, he readily agreed.
“It was only when she arrived down from Edinburgh that I realised she was a lot younger-looking in real life than she looked in the photos,” he says.
“I still thought that she was 17 though, as I’d taken her profile page at face value. One phone call from her panicked mother later, it was revealed that she was only 15 and her parents had absolutely no idea where she was.
“You can see why the finger might get pointed at me for leading her astray and I’ll never trust anyone online again, at least not entirely. On the other side of the coin, just imagine if I had really had dishonourable intentions towards her. I doubt she would have been in any position to deal with the consequences.”
