My_____

From what I’ve gathered and learned from our Myspace unit is that the site can have a tremendous effect on an individual, even to the point where it can seriously interfere, as well as change and alter an individuals life. Granted, Myspace is very beneficial to actors, comedians, and bands, but to regular everyday people, it can be very detrimental. All of the famous people that have Myspace pages most likely aren’t even them, but instead, a team with a good understanding of proper public relations. Regular individuals on the other hand do not have someone either creating their page for them or at least monitoring what gets put up, and sometimes even a little mistake can be very costly. An article published on associated content.com illustrated how harmful Myspace can really be and how it can even tarnish careers, “Here is a hypothetical situation. You have been working at your job for about a year now and, for recreation, you drink or use drugs on the weekend. You posted pictures of this on one of the above websites. You go into work one Monday and you are fired on the spot” (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/496891/fired_because_of_myspace.html). It sounds silly, but getting fired due to posts on social networking sites happen countless times, just ask the New England Patriots, “A Cheerleader for the New England Patriots was sacked from the cheer squad following inappropriate photos on her Facebook account. It seems that the 18-year-old Davis attended a college Halloween party. When one of the attendees passed out he received the age old tradition of being drawn on with Sharpies. Some of those drawings included swastikas and crude depictions of male genitalia. Davis made the no so smart move of posing with the victim with a Sharpie in her hand and posted the pictures on her Facebook. The Patriots organization didn’t particularly care for her behavior and released her” (http://www.reputation.com/blog/2008/11/07/new-england-patriots-cheerleader-fired-over-facebook-photos/).
There’s no doubt that Myspace can be very beneficiary, but I believe that cons outweigh the pros when looking at the big picture. Myspace made it very easy for sexual predators to pose as teens and establish relationships with innocent young kids. Unfortunately, a lot of these predators have been successful in their attempts to lure in kids and victimize them, “A judge sentenced a man, who used MySpace to find his victims, to more than 33 years in prison Monday morning on 22 counts of rape, sexual abuse and other crimes” (http://www.kptv.com/news/16624921/detail.html). Sexual predators aren’t the only criminals on Myspace: the deranged people that pose as kids and spark love interests with children have led their victims to suicide, “A Missouri mom was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in the death of a teen who killed herself over a failed Internet romance that turned out to be a hoax. A federal indictment accuses Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Missouri, of using the social networking Web site MySpace.com to pose as a 16-year-old boy and feign romantic interest in the girl” (http://articles.cnn.com/2008-05-15/justice/internet.suicide_1_megan-meier-tina-meier-lori-drew?_s=PM:CRIME). Cyber bullying is just as bad and detrimental, for it has led to a superfluous amount of suicides every year, including the sad story of Megan Meir, who took her life because she could not stand the cyber bullying the kids at her school were giving her any longer, “Six weeks after her death, Megan Meier's parents were informed that the mother of one of their daughter's friends—with whom Meier had a falling out—had created the "Josh Evans" account. The parent, Lori Drew, who created the fake account, admitted that she and her daughter had the password to the account, and characterized the hoax to a reporter as a "joke” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meier).
It is evident through this research that Myspace is a very dangerous site that should be used wisely. Although there is plenty good that Myspace can bring, its flaws are far too detrimental. What should happen is more censoring and less revealing content, especially from women, who have been shown to produce more risqué content on their pages then men, “Content analysis of MySpace site profiles has documented several sex and age differences in user profiles. For example, findings indicate that women and girls tend to post more: (a) personal information, (b) sexual pictures, and (c) links to sexual communities than men and boys” (https://elearning.ua.edu/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct). Less controversial material could lead to a major decrease in unwanted attention and a rapid decline in online predators. The site needs to become more secure, and although I don’t know how that could happen, I’m still optimistic that in the future, these sites will be cyber-bullying and predator free.