Monday, March 13, 2006

MySpace is the Devil or It’s Full of Sexual Pray Too

So by the time you read this half of the country will be on MySpace. MySpace, a division of NewsCorp., offers a free way for users to meet any of more than 60 million members. Searching by hometown, alma mater or interest, old friends can reconnect, musicians and filmmakers can find audiences and donors can find causes. Its also giving the perverts of the world a place to hunt down innocent girls, and bullies of the School yard a new place to terrorize people. There have been (to date) three major MySpace crimes (that we know of).

Most recently March 12th Police in East Hampton Connecticut arrested a teen for threatening fellow classmates on the website. The 18 year old is charged with second-degree harassment and second-degree breach of peace.

While not releasing the full content of the threat – Authorities did say the threat included the phrase "Start saying goodbye to family and friends".

The student has no history of violence or behavioral problems. His father tried to defend him saying "It was a dumb, stupid move on his son's part and maybe a cry for attention" WTNH.com. Police didn’t find any weapons either but this isn’t the first time Connecticut and MySpace made headlines, the Middletown police – that’s one town with a population of only 43,000 is already investigating seven cases of underage girls assaulted by someone they met on MySpace.

This threat was the most recent and probably the tamest of the major incidents.

A week earlier in the same state a 21-year-old man was arrested after trying to rob a 19 year old he set up a date with over MySpace. The two met on a Friday night set up plans to meet the next day and when the woman picked him up – he became enraged when she took a call from another man. He then threatened her stole her cell phone and trashed her car.

At least both people were of age- but it’s not always the case. Lets move out west were earlier this month a 26 year old man was charged with allegedly making a date with a 12 year old he met over MySpace. Detectives say he carried on a sexually explicit cyber conversation with a 12-year-old on the popular Web site MySpace and tried to meet with her. He faces charges of attempted kidnapping and attempted rape of a minor. The 12 year old was smart – as soon as the situation escalated she told her parents and when the suspect arrived for the meeting police were waiting. That’s one smart 12 year old. But she’s lucky. There are two little girls who weren’t.

In the most high profile assault cases two men set up sexual encounters with underage Connecticut girls over MySpace. I have the details but ill keep them brief. In one case a 39-year-old man, molested a 14-year-old girl in his car while visiting from Elrama, Pa., in October, according to a FBI report. The report also says the man made several visits to see the girl between the summer months and January when he was caught.

In what is to me the most disturbing case a 22 year old traveled from Jersey City N.J. to Connecticut and molested an 11 year old girl in her playroom while her parents slept upstairs according to an FBI affidavit.

What would we do without technology? How would our sexual predators get access to our sons and daughters? No more driving around school yards around recess. The internet and MySpace has single handedly delivered our children into the hands of pedophiles and rapists. Many point fingers at the website – which holds its defense that it doesn’t allow children to register. But Kids lie, they lie pretend to be older same as these monsters lie to pretend to be older.

In a recent interview, MySpace Chief Executive Officer Chris DeWolfe said the Web site remains safe and encouraged parents to teach children the same commonsense rules on the Internet that they follow in the real world.

So it goes back to something I learned from a Bearenstien Bears book when I was a kid: never talk to strangers. It was something my parents taught me – and I managed to make it through puberty without being kidnapped. But all strangers could offer me was candy to try to get me into their car. Now kids have to deal with people pretending to be something their not. How paranoid do we make our kids? When your online in a seemingly safe environment talking to your friends how are you supposed to know who’s good and who’s bad? Is your new top ten friend really a criminal or just a friend you haven’t met?

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Trevor, just join myspace. You put up a great facade, but we can all see through it. Come to the dark side....

March 14, 2006 7:50 AM  

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