I joined MySpace and all I got was dead.

MySpace.com has officially become the sign of the impending doom of intelligent life. Now, I’m not completely innocent, I too had an account. But that was back when it was cool and actually used to meet new people, and not a place to show how much of a whore you could be on camera or what beer/liquor you drank on the weekend. This story was mentioned on the vidcast of Diggnation last week and I had to touch on it too. It was a tragic incident and she certainly didn’t deserve to die. The person responsible was obviously insane. Unfortunately, this is causing huge waves in other places. Stories about kids being arrested and expelled from school for activities on the social networking site.

Having a younger sister who spends a lot of her time on there posting pictures of herself and posting surveys about what soda she is, I have to admit I’m a little worried sometimes. There is no real way of telling if some of the guys (or girls) are really who they say they are or some sexual predator. I’d like to see something that blocks people of a significantly older age from even having contact with younger people. Realistically, however, there is not too many ways to limit who they meet without severely destroying the purpose of the site.

Along the same lines is Facebook.com, of which I am still using presently. I find it much more restrictive and therefore safer than MySpace, only allowing me to view profiles of people from my own school or others on my friends list and requiring a school e-mail address to register. While not 100% effective, it still makes it a bit safer. That is why I’ve begun to worry a little over the news that greeted me on my login page. Facebook is extending its services to High Schools. I fear Facebook is slowly progressing towards the same state that MySpace finds itself in now.

Ultimately, the safety of the children falls on the parents. While I wouldn’t have liked to have my parents snooping around on my computer and checking what I was doing; in today’s world it is more important than ever.

EDIT: Just found this article on Wired.com about a Cheat Sheet for parents. Good for any of you with kids that use computers.