Congress Now Blaming MySpace For Troubled Children
from the gotta-stop-it dept
On the same day that MySpace becomes the top site online and a bunch of political types try to launch a MySpace for politicians it appears that our elected Congress Critters want to figure out what to do about the MySpace issue. This, right after solving the gambling problem apparently. Earlier this year, we noted some talk in Congress about banning social networks and blogs from schools and libraries that take federal money -- but today even more proposals were discussed. In the discussions today, the same Congress folks who were just blaming video games for everything wrong with kids, are now saying that "MySpace.com has been a center of drug activity, of gang activity, and of Internet predators." After again suggesting that these sites be banned from schools and libraries, they discussed solutions such as forcing some sort of third-party age verification on these sites. That, of course, sounds good to Congress people who don't seem to realize that won't actually do anything other than perhaps push kids to move to some other site adults have even less control over. Oh well. As long as they can head home for election season claiming they're working hard to protect the children, even when their actions tend to make things worse.
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No computers in schools will save a bundle.
First Post!!!
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Re:
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God, the proposed legislations of late are going to screw us all in the end...
Glad to see we've elected the brightest to office...
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Re: Re:
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Re: no compys in schools...
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Re: Re: no compys in schools...
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Re: Re: no compys in schools...
It's obvious (to me at least) that they are wandering around in the dark trying to plug in the lamp that will give them some illumination. Spouting enough garbage to make it look like they "care" and are trying to identify the problems etc.
The main problem I have is that with our govt there is no real choice for "democracy". 2 parties who are so far right or left that its absurd.
Then you have the obscene thought of "electing" someone based on their "popularity". Not sure about you folkes, but I thought that shit was gay when I was in High Shcool. I cant imagine someone's motivation for even going through the motions.
Power you say?
Eff that, you still have to bend over to let some guy plow you, because in politics, there is always someone standing behind you to ram it in. (and I DONT mean a knife).
When it comes to with kids, what it all boils down to is 2 things:
P. A. R. E. N. T. I. N. G. (Raise your kid, dont let the internet and TV do it).
&
There will always be someone who takes a meaningless statistic and blow it up to scare everyone into conformity.
Most kids are good, some are bad, just like any group of people.
The difference is the media blitz that takes things out of proportion. Cant blame them though, we as a society eat that shit up.
Sad for us.
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Re: Re: no compys in schools...
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Re: Re: no compys in schools...
Are you kidding? Most of 'em are too old to use 'em anyway. I wish I were kidding....
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Re:
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Re: no computer til 18
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Re:
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best solution
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Re: best solution
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Re: best solution
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Re: best solution
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Re: best solution
we all walk our own path
freedom of writing its a joy ain't it smile=)
morons
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Why stop there?
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MySpace.com
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Re: MySpace.com
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Re: MySpace.com
You hit the nail on the head.
Responsibility. You have it, take it.
I like my freedom, I dont want "mother government" telling me to clean my room, or how long i can talk on the phone, or what sites I (or my kids when I eventually have them) can/can't visit.
NO thank you very much.
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Re: MySpace.com
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Re: MySpace.com
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Re: MySpace.com
Thanks so much,
Emmy. 7th grade
hey i love you, you are so right u r so in our report and the rest of the people can kiss our butts sorry for the language
xo
thanks somuch
Krissy
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Re: MySpace.com
I actually think if we made school intersting, (not just teacher, desk, boring book, blackboard) and i mean intersting that children at least a larger percentage of children would stay clear of the pitfalls of growing up. Educate our children we must stop boring our children to death.
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Re: MySpace.com
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Re: MySpace.com
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lol
That's my two cents.
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MySpace Causing Faulty Children?
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Re: MySpace Causing Faulty Children?
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Re: MySpace Causing Faulty Children?
Thanks for taking the trouble to say exactly what i wanted to say and saving me the trouble.
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Parents are to blame
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Lazy, nieve, ignorant parents!!!
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Re: Lazy, nieve, ignorant parents!!!
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Re: Lazy, nieve, ignorant parents!!!
With that kind of system, look at all the benefits!
1. No more or very little poverty. With less people, not as much money or food would be required to feed everyone.
2. No more child abuse. Why would someone want to abuse what they worked so hard to get?
3. More intelligent children. To pass the tests, the parents would have to be intelligent, thus passing it on to their children.
4. Less crime. Kids being in good homes mean that they won't have a need or want to get away from it, which is usually the cause for drug/alcohol abuse and crime.
5. No emo music. Kids wouldn't have anything to complain about, and so they wouldn't create whiny music.
Basically, everyone would be *gasp* happy for once! Maybe we could even throw a program in there about respecting other's beliefs and not forcing your beliefs on your children, and we could even get world peace out of this deal.
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Re: Lazy, nieve, ignorant parents!!!
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Re: Re: Lazy, nieve, ignorant parents!!!
fucktard
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Re: Lazy, nieve, ignorant parents!!!
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Myspace
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Woot! Just another blame the parents party here.
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Re: Woot! Just another blame the parents party her
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Re: Woot! Just another blame the parents party her
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Of course!
Z
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Bunch of B.S - If you have not taken the time to choose your canidates for real reasons. If you wait for them to tell you who to vote for with these bogus PR campaigns on any hot point the media provides at the last minute . . . do the rest of us a favor and stay home.
As for myspace - sheesh I remember when rock and roll - and dancing and then Midnight movies and Shopping Malls were going to bankrupt the morality of our youth.
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The GD presidents said...
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Once upon a time
In that fantasy period one parent could stay home and do some 'parenting'.
Just to be picky....
>>even when they're actions
'they're' (they are) should be 'their'
See, my parents taught me good.....
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Re: Once upon a time
>>even when they're actions
'they're' (they are) should be 'their'
See, my parents taught me good....."
Just to be picky
Your parents didn't teach you good
They taught you well.
If there's one thing I hate, it's somebody trying to insult somebody for spelling, and screwing up themselves.
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Re: Once upon a time
Are you defending "myspace.com", which is just a hunting ground (create an account and see for yourself), or defending a lifestyle which requires one to limit his/her parenting abilities? Well, it's the American way, I suppose.
Herein lies the problem: people talk to friggn' much about what they should/would/could do versus doing it... that said, i'd better quit typi....
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us govt is broken
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Bad Parenting
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Agreed
I want to be your partner for selling the vasectomy kits on myspace and ebay. =)
Also the Bill of Rights comment is absolutely true. Isn’t myspace a place of free, peaceful assembly? Soon anything without nationalistic overtone will be prohibited and we will start coming out at night to form big, marching swastikas and raid homes of immigrants - they are to blame for our children! Those Mexicans and their degrading morale, bean burritos!
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Stupid Humans
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Re: Stupid Humans
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There goes the neighborhood...
More to the point, all these whining parents and moral wang-wavers need to cork it. It's the kids that shoulder the mental burden during transitional times in media and communications development. When telephones became popular, do you have any IDEA how many pedophiles came out of the woodwork? Same for terrorists, salesmen, collection agencies... get the drift? It's like the gates of hell opening up every time a new communication tool takes off.
Bottom line: With great amounts of information comes great responsibility. Parents: no matter how hard you try, children using a computer without your direct supervision will be able to view pornography, learn how to build a bomb, look at pictures of an autopsy, view video of a beheading, flirt in a chat room with a stranger, post provocative pictures of themselves and God knows what else. Unless you know more about computers than your kid (I'm guessing you don't) then any filtering or blocking you attempt will only make the kid better at evading your control. Or you could move to China.
So, parents, stop whining and start watching -- your kids. It's all about timing. When your child starts to get curious in sex... be there first with 'the birds and the bees' before your kid learns all he needs to know about sex from GoldenShowers.org. Do you want your kid to be a virgin all his life and then pee on his bride on their wedding night?
And by the way, I've watched ass implant surgery on cable TV for the past four nights straight and I saw Chloe Sevigny's breasts, so it's not just the Internet you've got to deal with here. But for us adults, it makes the Time Warner bill a little easier to take.
Good luck and read some Lawrence Lessig if you can't C.O.P.E.!
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Uhhh...
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Congress blames MySpace as the seed of juvenile de
20 years ago, it was music. 10 years ago, video games, now, its the internet!
How come no one ever blames parenting or the state of family in our country today? The continual decline of the "Family Unit" in this country is expressed implicitly by the acts of our younglings. More children are being raised by adults abused as children, this nasty cycle continues and exponentialy grows. Focus on parenting as the source of many childs anguish, not the internet. Just another excuse for the government to make more rules.
Government is charged and ready to rule and mandate every aspect of our lives, terrorism is only accelarating this process.
As a citizen, you must ask yourself this; what country do you want to leave for your generations to come?
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Televise This
Link
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Re: Televise This
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I hate stupid parents who think that they are cool
And you are fat.
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Get involved with your children
Parents need to spend more time with their kids. Take them to a ballgame. Get them involved in things outside of the home that they are interested in. Do things with them. The more time you spend with your children and stay busy doing things with them the less time they will have to wind up in some type of trouble . I know you can't watch every move your child makes but you can at least put forth the effort to spend as much time with them as possible.
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proposition
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Not going to work
Look at youtube.com-- it's starting to get worst than myspace.
Young kids shakin' their ass on cam, in there room while their parents are probably watching tv in the living room.
Go away congress. Turn off the internet if you want to solve problems... Better yet, send out packets to parents in the mail lol.
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MySpace.com is blocked...
The main reason we did this was not because we did not trust them (altho they were spending some late nights chatting on odd occasions) but its mostly because of the number of predators that use such sites...
If the kids want to chat with friends there is a billion IM programs... I dont see the benifit of a social network site except to allow anyone on the internet to see your personel profile for their own reasons rather then yours...
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It isn't the politicians, its us.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.
Why don't we follow the advice, if the government is becoming destructive, then isn't it time that we do something about it?
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When will people learn
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MySpace Corrupting kids at school....
Why does it take an act of Congress to keep our kids safe?
Why can't teachers and parents keep control of our children while they are and home or school?Computers at school should be used for educational purposes only! There should not be access to chat programs, cell phones, pagers, or other wireless devices connected to the Internet. Children are in school to learn.
Willingness to learn in school should be a priority, after certain age if a child is unwilling to learn or is disruptive in class they should be removed from the school. On the other hand teachers unwilling to teach should also be removed from the schools, if teachers feel they're being underpaid for the work they do "WE" should setup a system for teachers to get discounts in the cities or towns that they teach in. (Not to say that we should GIVE things away to them, but discounted to help them out)
Schools should be a privilege. I feel there are much better ways to keep their children safe, keeping them active in school as well as church should keep them too busy to get into serious trouble.
The best way but not necessarily the easiest way is to have the parents state involved with their children from the beginning. By removing discipline and replacing it with timeouts is not working. Children these days have not learned the key aspects of respect, by calling their teachers by their first name for that fact other adult�s buy their first name has not taught them the level of respect that's needed.
If everything bad happens at school shouldn't schools be to blame should we pass legislation against the schools to shut them down?
In Michigan in order to help keep our children safer from pedophiles are required to live more than 1,000 feet from school property, why can't we do the same for convicted drug dealers, convicted drunk drivers, and other people convicted of heinous crimes?There is a side note in this article from the Detroit Free Press from June 30, 2006
It is not the fault of MySpace.com the problem starts at HOME.
I admit I'm not the best father, but I will not be asking a lawyer to file a lawsuit against Sponge Bob Square Pants...
My Children will not be watching that show or others like it�
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...
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Pros and Cons
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Re: Pros and Cons
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Take money away from politicians
Then Congress can become a harmless circus instead of the dangerous comedy of errors it is today.
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MySpace ruining our kids
http://www.myspace.com/duffmansez
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Kids will be kids....
I have an 11 year old daughter and her internet access at home is restricted and supervised, but she also understands why and I am scared to death that there are pedophiles on every corner, but I am not going to keep her out of activities because of it....but her dad chaperones school events and carnivals and camps with her...at this point she doens't mind, in fact she is proud of having an active parent. We try to give her the tools she needs to use her own judgement and no topic is too taboo to discuss at home so she knows she can always ask questions.
Parenting is not a job for everyone, but it is a job and I agree that there should be mandatory birth control until you can prove you are ready to be a parent!
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Mandantory birth control and Myspace
Myspace may be a bad place and is obviously a breeding ground for much that the majority finds foul in the world, but to allow censorship of it is giving away a huge chunk of our freedom and opens the door for a whole lot of black markers. We censor or eliminate myspace because it is offensive, soon, you start censoring religious material, no matter the denomination, then you hit a place like say...techdirt because it promotes the sharing of free ideas.
Hmmm, sounds ridiculous? Then ponder on this, when the Nazi's began exterminating Jews...who did they get rid of first? Political leaders, teachers and other free thinkers.
On the mandantory birth control issue: Honestly it sounds neat to talk about it but think of the ramifications of such an action! No consequence sex among the youth will mean such an incredible boom in venereal disease that it would make your stomach turn. Let's not forget the possibility that sterilization doesn't always work and is not 100% reversible.
It doesn't take a village to raise a child, and stay at home mom's still exist. I am one of them. It IS the parent's responsibility and one does have to make sacrifices to provide a good life for your children, but the options are there. Wake up and smell the dirty diapers folks, when you had that baby you were committed to spending the remainder of your life devoting your time to that child. "But I still have a life" lines are crap, and they're just a cop out so you don't have to deal with it. Grow up cuz it comes with the territory!
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Idiot
Your parents didn't teach you good
They taught you well.
If there's one thing I hate, it's somebody trying to insult somebody for spelling, and screwing up themselves."
You're a moron. How did you not see the inherent sarcasm in replacing the word well, with the word good so that the original author could make light of the fact that you do not have proper grammatical skills? You are the poster child for someone who needs to get out more. 'Tard.
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No Myspace in schools
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MAKES NO SENSE
READ THIS RIGHT NOW. THE ONLY REASON THERE ARE CHILD PREDATOR PROBLEMS ON MYSPACE IS BECAUSE YOUNG MIDDLE SCHOOL BOYS/GIRLS(and even some high schoolers...) GET MYSPACES AND WHEN A CHILD PREDATOR TALKS TO THEM THEY HAVE NOT BEEN TAUGHT TO IGNORE THEM. IF PARENTS WOULD JUST TAKE THE TIME TO TEACH THESE KIDS HOW TO HANDLE MYSPACE, THEN THERE WOULD BE NO PROBLEM AT ALL.
Tell me, is it easier to stop EVERY SINGLE predator on myspace by shutting it down completely, OR is it easier to simply teach the possible victims how to handle them? YOU DECIDE
Which way is more fair to the adult users of myspace?
Which way is more fair to the band users of myspace?
Why completely shut down myspace for the mistakes of unknowing young children???
I say,
TEACH THEM
ANY kid who doesn't know that letting a person hes/shes never seen before come INTO HIS/HER HOUSE is a BAD IDEA doesn't even deserve a myspace profile in the first place!
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Re: MAKES NO SENSE
My two sense. (intentional word swap)
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My.space
Some people even believe that the Government should be more involved in homes, I believe those people are the sheeple of our society.
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open question to parents that think the gov't shou
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A teacher's perspective
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Re: A teacher's perspective
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Don't they have any REAL work to do?
Any legislation related to this is just an exercise to see how much they can censor and control the internet. The internet scares them for a number of reasons, and they would do anything to kill it or scare people away from it. The govt is only interested in squashing our civil liberties with all of these "security" actions. If they're not using terrorism as the excuse, then they change the tune to "save the children".
Here's a project I could endorse, how about "saving the children" from all the aggressive advertising which comes with any children's television, movies, even clothes? How about making certain that ALL public school curriculums include Life Skills (banking, credit, health, nutrition, etc) lessons to prepare them for adult life (unfortunately, many parents won't teach these to their children, and more often than not, the parents themselves don't know anything about these areas and can't teach their children)?
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...and before MySpace and video games it was...
before we blamed video games & movies for all manner of ills afflicting teens, before we blamed Marilyn Manson for Columbine, etc. ... we blamed it on "violent" cartoons (like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck & The Roadrunner? can you see a good cartoon on TV these days? NO) and stuff like the 3 Stooges.
before that we blamed Black Sabbath and various other metal bands (like Twisted Sister?? get real.).
before that we blamed comic books and pulp novels.
...and the list goes on...
i point this out to help those that would yawp things like "back in my time it was different" and "oh the good old days". BULL. there were no "good old days" -- they are a myth.
the root cause of all of this CRAP is that people really do not want to accept the responsibility of having screwed things up. the parents of the Columbine kids didn't fail to do their job, it was Marilyn Manson and video games and a "culture that glorifies violence". that kid in NY who ballooned to 300+ pounds eating fast food 3 meals a day was the victim of the fast food industry, of course it couldn't be the weak-willed parent who fed him the crap instead of feeding him something more wholesome (and maybe less of it), oh no can't be that...
frankly, part of the reason MySpace is popular (and for the record, I have a MySpace & I'm almost 50) is that society in general has become way more mobile, kids have friends at school on Tuesday and those friends are moved to another city on Thursday, kids no longer are able to just hang out after school as they run from soccer to Sylvan to dance to home... at least on sites like MySpace they can stay in touch, swap gossip, share silly photos of their toes, stuff that kids will do with friends.
the fact that a few kids have had bad experiences where the bad thing was somehow related to an online social networking site (either being accosted by predators or in a Michigan case, running off to the Gaza Strip to be with some guy) is no different than being accosted by a flasher in the parking lot at the mall or the movies. there are kids who because of their behavior and reactions to what goes on around them will become prey or predators. that is just the way it is. it has happened that way since well before video games, computers and mobile phones were even dreamt of. it will happen long after the Internet fades into the dustbin of history.
MySpace is like a gun. if you point a gun at your foot and pull the trigger, you may blow your foot clean off. same with social networking tools and the Internet, you can do good things like keep up on your favorite band, share your goofy pictures, send silly bulletins to your friend list or you can put up alluring cheesecake photos and make plans to see that guy who "really understands me" in meatspace. when you point the tool at your foot and pull the trigger, there are consequences and all the sanctimonious pontification and bad laws written by all of the legislatures in this land can't change it.
(this got double-posted - followed the link about video games from this entry and ended up posting it there too...)
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Who cares
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Re: Who cares
You're dumb.
Also you are a hypocrit.
The geek is posting on TechDirt yet his life is so much more meaningful than people with MySpace profiles.
Oh no, I have Incubus on my MySpace profile. That is because I have been a fan since 1995.
Go get a high paying job and a girlfriend like the rest of us and then you can accuse others of not having lives and I won't tell you how much of a hypocrit geek you are when here you are posting on an Internet forum telling people they need to get a life.
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Whats with all the finger pointings.
Parents should teach kids what is wrong and right since theyre little so that when theyre 12 or 13 they can tell which is wrong and which is right. Just talk to your kids about it oh say 10 mins a day.
Its not myspace's fault that kids below the age's limit still signup to their website.
Congress had to do something, or else everyone gonna blame things on them. Not that they made the right choice but still they did something.
Its not parent's fault their kids ignore the parents (Assuming the parents actually taught their kids).
Everyone tries to do something their own way so not much progress is being made, why dont the kids, parents, websites, and the governement work together so that if it doesnt work we can try something new, its better than everyone blaming everyone else.
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Forget MySpace
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Old People...
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History Repeating
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Though experiment
Imagine you don't know what MySpace is, and you never heard of the internet or Google etc.
Then re-read the article paying attention only to the concepts and words, the universally human elements, that you understand..
Did you do it? Are you scared yet? You should be.
Banning social networking? Of children?
By what cascade of twisted pathologies did we ever get to this state where it is possible to openly discuss this with a straight face and not be labled as someone who is fundamentally sick?
I think al these "politicians" have very serious unaddressed issues.
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myspace
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Re: myspace
And like the above stated, Why waste time on something like this, when BIGGER MORE IMPORTANT issues are at hand.
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Lets just stop everything!
Who is to say what is the exact reason kids do what kids do these days? Each generation is different. Fact of life. And as with our generation, we too had kids that were "bad" if you will, or deviate from the norm. I guess it is with the internet, they now have more exposure. That is all. But stopping it all for everyone, is just not the solution.
However, as an adult, they regulate everything WE do, like banning smoking in public places and other ridiculous governmental interference. So, maybe by banning My Sight it is getting the teenagers ready for the REAL ADULT world of governmental regulation and ridiculous policies as an adult! That is the only educational message I think the government is sending! How about trying to be a good parent? Now THERE is a good suggestion, as I live in a not-so-good town with allot of teen pressure, yet I have managed to raise two good, college educated daughters! It can be done folks.
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The problem isn't with technology; it's with the lack of discipline from the parents. If parents were more mindful of what their children are doing, on and offline, we'd have far less problems. I don't believe for a second that the parents of Columbine had "no idea" anything was wrong with their children and the shooting occurred because of a movie. I watch horror/action movies and play Grand Theft Auto all the time, and you don't see me driving my car through parks and burning people alive.
It's absurd and irresponsible to post blame on entertainment and technology for the bad, and often criminal, behavior of kids. When did we stop holding parents responsible for what their children do?
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Just another diversion
The real problem here isn't in what the kids are doing but why they aren't doing something "positive" in the parent's eyes. I don't blame MySpace for the thoughtless 12year old stupid spoiled whore, I instead blame her; more probably than not, inaffectual parents. They have sat by and watched their children become vapid consumer zombies who want to spend more time posting surveys on which American Idol you are, than preparing for their future. But capricious youth aside, the parents need to become better role models and get involved with something other than the new episode of Lost.
Government, wake up and deal with the issues you should be looking at. Unemployment, high fuel prices, educational costs, the multiple "wars" in the middle east, and real issues.
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myspace, computers, kids
i'm not much of a wordsmythe today, but i'd like to add that i do not let my 12yr old son use the internet whatsoever, i see no reason for it.
if he needs something looked up for his homework, i will do that, but really, libraries are best used for that.
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the myspace problem
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Wrong!
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stop blaming myspace
On Nightline, there was a story of a 12 year old girl who was a drug-addict and attributed it all to MySpace. She claims that MySPace allowed her to easily fing drug dealers in her area, as well as older men to have sex with her. Now, at the age of 14, she has been checked into a drug-rehabilitation clinic and has been away from her family for 5 months. Her parents would rather place the blame squarely on the shoulders of MySpace instead of their daughter, who even admitted that at the age of 12, had already tried weed, crack, X, and had slept with numerous guys older than herself...but of course, it wasn't her fault, it was all because of MySpace.
Once again, COME ON! When are parents and children going to stop passing the blame and grow up enough to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their children.. Parent;s, monitor your children online, take some responsibility for YOUR children. Children, if a profile name sounds like something that comes out of a cheap horror movie, like "DARK ANGEL OF DEATH WHO EATS THE BRAINS OF GIRLS"...chances are you DO NOT WANT TO ADD THEM AS A FRIEND. Apparently there is new legislation in Congress now to block MySpace in all public schools and public libraries across the United States. All because little girls want to act grown and don't want to accept the consequences and parents don't want to accept the fact that their "innocent little girls" are posing as 18 year old crack whores trying to buy drugs.
Eventually, if this continues, MySpace could be totally outlawed from the Internet. Restrictions will be put in place in order to make MySpace "safer". I don't know about you, but I use MySpace to keep in touch with my family and friends, use it for messages, and just to have a space that is my own. Just because some children want to act grown, does that mean I may have to eventually give up my MySpace?
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Re: stop blaming myspace
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RE:stop blaming myspace| My own rant
Anyways , MySpace will never be taken away from schools. When I was in school I was on it every day. I guess I should pay a fine or something. Oh no, wait, I shouldn't, the school should for not enforcing the law!
(I know, off topic but...)
Who decided that porn and swearing was restricted to 18+ year olds?(21+ in other places) I mean it's going on all the time in schools and the web. The warnings mean nothing to the pre-18 year olds. because they know they can just click a button and they're passed it.
(more ranting)
I guess while we're at banning myspace from schools I guess we should put a law that all schools are required to have uniforms and have short hair for guys and no facial hair or sideburns.(Goes for staff too, muhahaha. 0 tolerance!)
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LEAVE IT
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you are all retards
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Re:
just want more friends
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Re: This
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soooo
its not lik we are fucking through the internet!!!!!!!!
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MySpace
Peace
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WAT YOU SAY ABOUT MY MAMA
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re: Myspace.com
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ha
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trouble children for myspace
cart456
Alaska Drug Rehab Centers and Programs
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Can't they do something useful?
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New Myspace is Facebook
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Educate your children
Alcohol Rehab
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