Myspace and another Attack child

[pfishgirl]

Staten Island:

A 13 year old boy found half dressed and Handcuffed to a Tree
met his attacker online on Myspace

The man grabbed him on his way to school yesterday

to the young man

 

[ducklite]

So sad.

Parents and schools really need to be more proactive in keeping an eye on their kids computer use.

Anne

 

[mommasita]

So sad.

Parents and schools really need to be more proactive in keeping an eye on their kids computer use.

Anne

Completely agree...The world is such a scary place, and our children have an open invitation to it.

 

[minnieandme]

With these stories coming out about these men watching little boys, I wonder why my space doesn't keep some of their info private. Parents really need to moniter what they're kids are doing online. My kids don't even have the password to get on the internet and every time I hear stories like this, I doubt they'll ever get the password. I have to log them on and so far (knock on wood) my oldest mostly goes online to check sports stats.

 

[pfishgirl]

I agree. My son is older, he is almost 17 but I still know what he does on the computer. He never hides any type of Internet usage from me. Heck, sometimes, I'm in his room speaking with him while he does his thing online.

Him and I both have Myspace and he keeps his on private so he needs to know who you are before he just approves you. But, I see some of his friends Myspace pages and I wonder if Their parents even Look at theirs

at 13 the boy shouldn't of had a Myspace because you are suppose to be 16 I believe to have one, unless you Lie about your age.

But it is VERY sad that there are just so many Wackos out there in Internet land

 

[pfishgirl]

With these stories coming out about these men watching little boys, I wonder why my space doesn't keep some of their info private. Parents really need to moniter what they're kids are doing online. My kids don't even have the password to get on the internet and every time I hear stories like this, I doubt they'll ever get the password. I have to log them on and so far (knock on wood) my oldest mostly goes online to check sports stats.

Myspace DOES have percautions.

you can set your page to private so that the person needs to know your last name or email to be added to your page

set it for private. no one can view it without first being approved by the page holder.

it is set up so that you need to be 16, however it is too easy to fake your age.


Parents need to TALK to thier children about internet safety Over and Over again until it sinks in

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

I agree. My son is older, he is almost 17 but I still know what he does on the computer. He never hides any type of Internet usage from me. Heck, sometimes, I'm in his room speaking with him while he does his thing online.

Him and I both have Myspace and he keeps his on private so he needs to know who you are before he just approves you. But, I see some of his friends Myspace pages and I wonder if Their parents even Look at theirs

at 13 the boy shouldn't of had a Myspace because you are suppose to be 16 I believe to have one, unless you Lie about your age.
But it is VERY sad that there are just so many Wackos out there in Internet land

I think the age is 14 to have one (unless they changed it), but still....it's just crazy. I'll be sure my dd doesn't end up like me when I was a young and stupid teenager and meet random guys on the internet.

 

[bicker]

This really does come down to people protecting themselves. All folks like MySpace can do is give people the tools to do so, as they have. The problem is that children don't want to be safe. They feel they're invulnerable. They want to run into the middle of the street, ski down the black diamond trail, and ride motorbikes without helmets.

 

[Cool-Beans]

This really does come down to people protecting themselves. All folks like MySpace can do is give people the tools to do so, as they have. The problem is that children don't want to be safe. They feel they're invulnerable. They want to run into the middle of the street, ski down the black diamond trail, and ride motorbikes without helmets.

Of course children want to be safe! Everyone wants to be safe!

Children - especially sheltered, suburban children - don't know who to trust or when to run. They often have no idea how awful people can be.

It almost sounds like you're blaming the child for being harmed. It isn't the kid's fault. I'm thinking you didn't mean it to come off that way.

 

[tekmom]

Staten Island:

A 13 year old boy found half dressed and Handcuffed to a Tree
met his attacker online on Myspace

The man grabbed him on his way to school yesterday

to the young man

Where did you hear that he met his attacker on MySpace? All that has been on the tri state news is that, because of inconsistant statements that he made, they are looking into whether he MAY have met his attacker online.


Edited: Sorry OP, just saw where it was an "web tryst" gone bad. He did set up a meeting with some from MySpace. WOW. They are saying he wasn't sexually assaulted...thank God. I don't believe MySpace is necessarily a bad thing, but people of all ages should have a little more common sense when it comes to the internet.

 

[T1130]

This happened near my house. As of this morning, they have a suspect in custody.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Sad...

I wonder how you combat predators meeting kids online?

Oh I know a good start.
How about actually put away scum instead of giving them probation and letting them out to harm more kids.

It is time to "thin the herd".

 

[SillyMe]

Myspace DOES have percautions.

you can set your page to private so that the person needs to know your last name or email to be added to your page

set it for private. no one can view it without first being approved by the page holder.
it is set up so that you need to be 16, however it is too easy to fake your age.


Parents need to TALK to thier children about internet safety Over and Over again until it sinks in

True, and if your child doesn't have it set on private, just tell them that you found their page and have been watching it. They'll set it on private just to keep you out. That just happened with my daughter's site.

 

[slruud]

It's just a matter of time before the ACLU, NMBLA's legal team that is, sues in court that regardless of age, anyone of any age should have the right to post /view on any website, any material, no matter how objectionable, without any interference from any authority figure, i.e. parent, teacher, librarian. That protection will extend itself to those that prey on children because one cannot assume that an internet relationship will turn out bad, "UNTIL" a crime has been commited. There are too many people protecting the rights of the predators, and not enough protecting the children.

 

[Lorix2]

Myspace is not allowed in my house.

I feel that teens feel too confident in front of a computer screen, to say too much about themselves and give details about where they live, the schools they go to, even the town they live in and a description and picture of themselves. I realize if someone really wants to find you, they can do it by tracing you're home computer, but the kids make it much too easy for predators to find them.

I truly think that parents need to monitor their kids internet practices and visit the sites in their history to see what's going on and what info their kids are putting out there in cyberspace - I have, I do and I wont apologize for it.

 

[Mono~rail]

My Space makes my skin crawl! My DD14 was not allowed to have a My Space page, but her dad let her have one. I thought "Well, she's a good kid" and I made her give me the password. I checked up on it for a couple of months, and there was nothing going on that shouldn't have been so I started checking it less and less often. My bad.

One night we had let her get on the internet while we were in the room (computers are in the great room). Dh was reaching up to get something off a shelf above her head, and suddenly she exploded! She started screaming and saying he was reading her what she was writing and "invading her privacy." I was just like WTH? She logged out really quickly, and I sent her into her room because she was yelling like a crazy person about her "privacy."

I tried to log in to her page with the pw I had, and it wouldn't work. I told her to give me the pw and she refused - more talk about her privacy being invaded. We installed a key stroke logger onto our computer and got the new pw.

There wasn't anything inappropriate on her page, but I think it was her friends' pages that she didn't want us to see. Two of her friends had pics of themselves in bikinis! Lots of inappropriate stuff to see on those young girls' pages.

ETA: She also didn't want me to see the message she had been writing to her friend which was complaining about me. I had made her buy something with her own money that day so she was mad at me.

 

[bicker]

It almost sounds like you're blaming the child for being harmed. It isn't the kid's fault. I'm thinking you didn't mean it to come off that way.

Rather, it is a parent's responsibility to protect their children and to teach their children to protect themselves. Beyond that, I think there is all-too-often a rush to assign fault when there may not be any fault, and/or a rush to misassign fault, because the honest assignment of fault isn't as satisfying.

In this case there is fault, but the fault is on the part of the attacker, not MySpace.

The problem is that some people, especially folks in the media, seem to be very quick to try to tag big companies with fault because they have deeper pockets, because they're popular targets for sensationalistic mud-slinging, because they feel frustrated that the true at-fault entity cannot be punished enough to make up for the transgression (so they try to find a Whipping Boy to catch the overflow aggression), etc. It's a form of journalistic dishonesty to try to redirect fault onto a faultless party, just to serve some emotional, vindictive or opportunistic motive.

 

[ducklite]

With these stories coming out about these men watching little boys, I wonder why my space doesn't keep some of their info private. Parents really need to moniter what they're kids are doing online. My kids don't even have the password to get on the internet and every time I hear stories like this, I doubt they'll ever get the password. I have to log them on and so far (knock on wood) my oldest mostly goes online to check sports stats.

If you use Myspace you can make it as private as you'd like or not like. Children under 13 aren't even allowed to have an account, and those under 16 (?) can't receive friend requests from anyone over 18 and the account is automatically set to private.

It's not myspace's fault, it's entirely the fault of those who are supposed to monitor the activities of thier children and the attackers.

Anne

 

[dsnymomof4]

This past Tuesday, our PTA had a guest speaker from the State Police's Internet Crime unit. She talked about this very thing. She suggested if the kids do have a myspace account that they not post any "personal" information. But, isn't that the whole point of myspace? She was saying how chat rooms are the most dangerous because predators lurk there for months and months building relationships with kids, of course pretending to be someone they're not, having the same interests as the kids. Once they establish a trust with the victim, they try to get them to meet somewhere. She said her department is flooded with cases all of the time - it's really scary. The best thing to do is to talk to your kids - tell them not to give out personal information to people they do not know. Let them know that just because they've been "chatting" with someone online for a long time and they think they "know" that person, they may not be the person they think they are.

 

[tekmom]

Well. now they're saying, not MySpace or internet related at all. They caught the guy...26 year old sex offender.