UFDfireman
02-12-2006, 10:32 PM
This was an article printed in a Middletown, NY newspaper.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/02/12/myspace.html
Strangers in MySpace
As kids flock to social Web site, parents, educators watch for wolves
By Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record
sisrael@th-record.com
MySpace.com is a parent’s nightmare and a sexual predator’s dream.
Chances are your kids – or their friends – are on it, along with people who call themselves “Slut Face,” “Joy Ryder” and “I’m blonde and I’m good at it.”
MySpace is one of the hottest Web sites around. It’s got 54 million members. It’s gaining 150,000 new ones each day. Punch in the zip code for Middletown and you find 3,000 MySpace members within 10 miles.
MySpace lets kids and adults put their lives and fantasies online – and, say educators and sex abuse experts, on the line. They post their pictures. They state their sexual orientation. Then they write to their MySpace “friends” – “friends” like the Orange County guy who posted a picture of a man holding a butcher’s knife over his head, ready to strike. But many of those MySpacers are younger than 12 – even though the Web site says the minimum age is 14.
Millions and millions of kids, teens and young adults say MySpace is great. In this hyper-busy, computerized world, it’s the new schoolyard, the new neighborhood, the new mall – a place where they can talk to old friends and make new ones.
“I’m, like, obsessed with it,” says 13-year-old Kayla Johnston of Kingston. “You feel, like, so special when you get messages.”
But for adults, it’s danger in the making.
“THIS IS THE KIND of place that clearly attracts sexual predators,” says FBI Child Sexual Victims Agent Jim Clemente of Warwick. “It’s such a huge risk.”
In the past few weeks, police have arrested or investigated more than a dozen local and national MySpace members who have sexually abused kids. An Orange County man convicted of sexual abuse was looking for a mate on MySpace, according to investigators. A Sullivan sexual offender posed as a child on a MySpace-type site, one of several sexual abuse cases in Sullivan involving MySpace or similar sites like friendster.com and thefacebook.com.
This is what child psychologist Bill Haas was worried about when he clicked on his daughter’s laptop. He saw a picture of a nearly naked girl, her back to the camera.
“That better not be her,” said Haas, who presents programs for the Pine Bush school system about children and the Internet.
It wasn’t.
But Clemente knows a picture like that – and a site like MySpace – is a seduction for a pedophile.
MySpace allows predators an anonymity that playgrounds and other traditional meeting places for kids never did, says Clemente. He knows that one of every five kids online is propositioned. This is why Clemente asked his sister to remove his niece and nephew from the site. This is why Haas calls the site “scary stuff.”
“They (kids) don’t realize they’re playing with fire,” says Darryl Imperati, principal of Valley Central High School, one of several local schools that have urged adults and kids to be careful about MySpace.
He warned parents about the dangers of the site in the school newsletter after a bunch of kids ganged up on a boy online. Before sites like MySpace, bullying was mostly about one or a few kids picking on another. Now, with almost everyone in a school on the free Web site, a few hundred kids can pick on one child.
CHILDREN LIKE HAAS’ 13-year-old daughter Alyson have been warned about MySpace, which gets more visits than Google. They say they’re careful. They say they use it just to talk to their friends – or publicize their bands. In fact, she won’t put any personal information, like where she lives, on her space. She won’t open a message from a stranger – even though strangers have messaged her.
But Alyson, whose older sister had that laptop, also knows that everything isn’t what it seems on MySpace. She knows kids have created a phony page for a teacher at school. A Pine Bush High School student knows kids who’ve created phony pages for other kids. And even though MySpace has that 14-year-old age minimum and says it monitors the site for obscenity, it doesn’t take too long to find younger kids – and raunchy stuff.
Just ask 11-year-old Megan Battle of Pine Bush, who has her own page.
“Everyone in my school has MySpace,” she says.
A random browse of the first 15 members in the 10940 zip code reveals a near topless woman and this message: “I’m 5’11, a strawberry blond, and pretty much into anything that doesn’t include animal sacrifice and blood letting. Not that I’m against them but the blond puking in the distance can spoil the mood.”
That’s Joy Ryder, who says she’s a traveling “professional dancer” who uses MySpace to let her “regulars” know where she performs. Her provocative photo attracts kids to her site. She says she ignores them.
But even though many kids say they won’t talk to strangers on MySpace, Haas knows that’s not always true. Sixty-nine percent of 13- and 14-year-olds talk to people they don’t know online. Plus, in the new world of the Internet, the definition of a stranger has changed. Kids often meet other “kids” online. They become friends, not strangers, sharing the same passions over a hot but somewhat obscure band, like Donna the Buffalo, the favorite of Pine Bush High School’s Chris Bodnarczuk – and other fans he’s met online.
PREDATORS WORK TO KNOW and “groom” their prey, sometimes taking as much as up to a year to meet kids, says Clemente. They compliment kids and say they share their likes and dislikes. At some point, they’re no longer strangers.
“The kids think they know them,” says Clemente, who adds that 99 percent of all child sexual abuse victims know their predators.
Then there’s this:
Today’s kids are the first generation to grow up online – where there are more than 52,000 sites containing child pornography. Kids, especially adolescents, are naturally curious, particularly about sex, says Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the journalism think tank, the Poynter Institute. They always have been. The difference now is this: “Kids are basically using the Internet to grow up,” she says.
So when a child sees a picture of two little kids beneath the words “Crack Whore Training” on MySpace, he or she might be tempted to open the page. When they do, they’ll see that evil-looking guy holding the butcher’s knife. They’ll read a tribute to a man who, the site says, murdered women and ate their hearts. They’ll also see pictures of two midgets having sex.
“This is not your dad’s Playboy,” says McBride.
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION? According to its warning statement, MySpace.com, which didn’t respond to an interview request, may prohibit “nudity, violence or offensive subject matter.” Rupert Murdoch, who just bought the site for $580 million, might have told Newsweek that a third of MySpace workers monitor the site, but if you spend less than five minutes on the site and you can find plenty of nudity, violence and offensive subject matter.
So parents must be vigilant, say experts like Haas and Clemente. You must monitor where your child goes on the Web. If you don’t recognize a name, ask about the stranger. Keep the computer in the open.
But the truth is that parents, especially in a commuting area like ours, can’t always be with their kids. So they will be exposed to some nasty stuff, like that “slut girl,” or that guy with the butcher’s knife.
“And,” says ethics expert McBride, “we, as adults, have to figure out how to deal with that.”
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/02/12/myspace.html
Strangers in MySpace
As kids flock to social Web site, parents, educators watch for wolves
By Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record
sisrael@th-record.com
MySpace.com is a parent’s nightmare and a sexual predator’s dream.
Chances are your kids – or their friends – are on it, along with people who call themselves “Slut Face,” “Joy Ryder” and “I’m blonde and I’m good at it.”
MySpace is one of the hottest Web sites around. It’s got 54 million members. It’s gaining 150,000 new ones each day. Punch in the zip code for Middletown and you find 3,000 MySpace members within 10 miles.
MySpace lets kids and adults put their lives and fantasies online – and, say educators and sex abuse experts, on the line. They post their pictures. They state their sexual orientation. Then they write to their MySpace “friends” – “friends” like the Orange County guy who posted a picture of a man holding a butcher’s knife over his head, ready to strike. But many of those MySpacers are younger than 12 – even though the Web site says the minimum age is 14.
Millions and millions of kids, teens and young adults say MySpace is great. In this hyper-busy, computerized world, it’s the new schoolyard, the new neighborhood, the new mall – a place where they can talk to old friends and make new ones.
“I’m, like, obsessed with it,” says 13-year-old Kayla Johnston of Kingston. “You feel, like, so special when you get messages.”
But for adults, it’s danger in the making.
“THIS IS THE KIND of place that clearly attracts sexual predators,” says FBI Child Sexual Victims Agent Jim Clemente of Warwick. “It’s such a huge risk.”
In the past few weeks, police have arrested or investigated more than a dozen local and national MySpace members who have sexually abused kids. An Orange County man convicted of sexual abuse was looking for a mate on MySpace, according to investigators. A Sullivan sexual offender posed as a child on a MySpace-type site, one of several sexual abuse cases in Sullivan involving MySpace or similar sites like friendster.com and thefacebook.com.
This is what child psychologist Bill Haas was worried about when he clicked on his daughter’s laptop. He saw a picture of a nearly naked girl, her back to the camera.
“That better not be her,” said Haas, who presents programs for the Pine Bush school system about children and the Internet.
It wasn’t.
But Clemente knows a picture like that – and a site like MySpace – is a seduction for a pedophile.
MySpace allows predators an anonymity that playgrounds and other traditional meeting places for kids never did, says Clemente. He knows that one of every five kids online is propositioned. This is why Clemente asked his sister to remove his niece and nephew from the site. This is why Haas calls the site “scary stuff.”
“They (kids) don’t realize they’re playing with fire,” says Darryl Imperati, principal of Valley Central High School, one of several local schools that have urged adults and kids to be careful about MySpace.
He warned parents about the dangers of the site in the school newsletter after a bunch of kids ganged up on a boy online. Before sites like MySpace, bullying was mostly about one or a few kids picking on another. Now, with almost everyone in a school on the free Web site, a few hundred kids can pick on one child.
CHILDREN LIKE HAAS’ 13-year-old daughter Alyson have been warned about MySpace, which gets more visits than Google. They say they’re careful. They say they use it just to talk to their friends – or publicize their bands. In fact, she won’t put any personal information, like where she lives, on her space. She won’t open a message from a stranger – even though strangers have messaged her.
But Alyson, whose older sister had that laptop, also knows that everything isn’t what it seems on MySpace. She knows kids have created a phony page for a teacher at school. A Pine Bush High School student knows kids who’ve created phony pages for other kids. And even though MySpace has that 14-year-old age minimum and says it monitors the site for obscenity, it doesn’t take too long to find younger kids – and raunchy stuff.
Just ask 11-year-old Megan Battle of Pine Bush, who has her own page.
“Everyone in my school has MySpace,” she says.
A random browse of the first 15 members in the 10940 zip code reveals a near topless woman and this message: “I’m 5’11, a strawberry blond, and pretty much into anything that doesn’t include animal sacrifice and blood letting. Not that I’m against them but the blond puking in the distance can spoil the mood.”
That’s Joy Ryder, who says she’s a traveling “professional dancer” who uses MySpace to let her “regulars” know where she performs. Her provocative photo attracts kids to her site. She says she ignores them.
But even though many kids say they won’t talk to strangers on MySpace, Haas knows that’s not always true. Sixty-nine percent of 13- and 14-year-olds talk to people they don’t know online. Plus, in the new world of the Internet, the definition of a stranger has changed. Kids often meet other “kids” online. They become friends, not strangers, sharing the same passions over a hot but somewhat obscure band, like Donna the Buffalo, the favorite of Pine Bush High School’s Chris Bodnarczuk – and other fans he’s met online.
PREDATORS WORK TO KNOW and “groom” their prey, sometimes taking as much as up to a year to meet kids, says Clemente. They compliment kids and say they share their likes and dislikes. At some point, they’re no longer strangers.
“The kids think they know them,” says Clemente, who adds that 99 percent of all child sexual abuse victims know their predators.
Then there’s this:
Today’s kids are the first generation to grow up online – where there are more than 52,000 sites containing child pornography. Kids, especially adolescents, are naturally curious, particularly about sex, says Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the journalism think tank, the Poynter Institute. They always have been. The difference now is this: “Kids are basically using the Internet to grow up,” she says.
So when a child sees a picture of two little kids beneath the words “Crack Whore Training” on MySpace, he or she might be tempted to open the page. When they do, they’ll see that evil-looking guy holding the butcher’s knife. They’ll read a tribute to a man who, the site says, murdered women and ate their hearts. They’ll also see pictures of two midgets having sex.
“This is not your dad’s Playboy,” says McBride.
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION? According to its warning statement, MySpace.com, which didn’t respond to an interview request, may prohibit “nudity, violence or offensive subject matter.” Rupert Murdoch, who just bought the site for $580 million, might have told Newsweek that a third of MySpace workers monitor the site, but if you spend less than five minutes on the site and you can find plenty of nudity, violence and offensive subject matter.
So parents must be vigilant, say experts like Haas and Clemente. You must monitor where your child goes on the Web. If you don’t recognize a name, ask about the stranger. Keep the computer in the open.
But the truth is that parents, especially in a commuting area like ours, can’t always be with their kids. So they will be exposed to some nasty stuff, like that “slut girl,” or that guy with the butcher’s knife.
“And,” says ethics expert McBride, “we, as adults, have to figure out how to deal with that.”