Profiles
The Good. The Bad.
The Ugly.
I am filled with anger and agony!
A plug for Nicole Nelson: She's GOOD!
I just really like my site.--Jay
Appearing August 7 at the Thomas Crane Library!
According to a 2006 study by an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 40 percent of the teen sites they reviewed were "set to private," meaning researchers could not view them. That left about 1,500 teen MySpace profiles in the random sample that were available for public viewing.
MySpace.com
80 million members and counting:
How worried should you be?
Government
- In response to recent news stories detailing the use of MySpace as a "hunting ground" for predators looking for underage sex partners, and as a place where children misrepresent themselves as adults--Congress is considering legislation that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render MySpace and other sites like it inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes the most ardent users of social networks.
Law Enforcement
- From Newsweek April 24, 2006: A growing number of ordinary officers are working a new beat, turning to MySpace—an online network of individuals linked through personalized home pages—to collect clues and crack offline cases.
- Communication between cops and the two-year-old company has surged this year, with MySpace now contributing to about 150 investigations a month, according to Jason Feffer, its vice president for operations.
- A searchable, public scrapbook of images, affiliations and written exchanges, [MySpace.com] offers detectives raw data on 70 million potential suspects, witnesses or victims.
Public
- Defense of MySpace as a forum for free speech and self expression.
- Condemnation of the site as an example of all that is wrong with American Youth Culture—and the Internet.
Educators and Librarians
- Schools, and public libraries reflect the public divide.>
- Some institutions have restricted or blocked access to the site.
- Others have taken a "Can’t beat’em? Join’em!" approach—and created and posted their own MySpace profiles.
- Some institutional profiles, like that of the Westmont Library, are prim.
- Others, like the Denver Library, feature music, manga, and an "esprit de (MySpace) corps" that has netted them 247 friends— and counting.