My Space

My Space is a wonderful place for communication to take place. It allows you to get in touch with your friends who my now live out of town or even out of state. I have read of situations where families and friends have been reunited after years of seperation. I think this is a wonderful forum for communication however, it has its flaws.

I have many issues with My Space. I don't think that young children should have access to a site that allows them to communicate with older people. I beleive that there should be safegaurds in place to ensure that underage individuals are not using the site. I think that this is one of the leading causes of sexual harassment. These young children are allowed to post pictures of themselves and pose as an older adults. It can also work the other way around, an older man or woman could pose as a younger teen and have very explict conversations with the child. This could also lead up to the participants meeting in person where anything could happen.

Their is a very popular case in the news now where a child was having some issues with another child. The mother got involved and created a My Space to act as a individual that was attracted to her and then began harassing her. This mother was able to attack her personally on the web, without anyone knowing it was ever her and not a child. This is a very sad case where the young teen ended up killing herself, the discussion the mother posted was viewed by many of her peers and was to much for a young child to handle.

I believe that they need to improve My Space by setting limitations and strict age limits. They should create some sort of program you have to join and they connect your account with your bank account or through your internet service provider. This will insure that the person on the other side of the computer is of age and is not making up a story.