Online Predators Online Predators and how they can be solved With the development of modern technology and increased use of internet, the world has become a global village. Use of internet and computers has eased the rate at which people communicate and interact than ever before. Different social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter among many others are developed with the sole purpose of ensuring that friends and relatives stay connected (Hansen, 2008). However, these sites have been faced with one problem- predators- which have raised concerns all over the world.

While social network sites are aimed at networking and being in touch with relatives and friends, the bottom line is that social networking is highly famous and it is a big business today. Unluckily, scam artists, child molesters, and sexual predators have noticed that these sites can also be exploited to find victims. MySpace is one of the sites where predator is a big problem. MySpace is a social networking site just like facebook. However, there have been numerous cases of sexual predators and child molesters posing as children to network with young victims on MySpace (Zilney & Zilney, 2009). Recently, MySpace was also discovered to be compromised by attackers spreading malware on exploited profile sites. These have led to MySpace taking steps and implementing security measures to minimize this problem though users are still supposed to be cautious and aware. Predators were therefore a big problem to MySpace not only because it led to increased cases of sexual assaults but also death cases were on high rate.

Nevertheless when putting into consideration increased cases of predators. social networking sites have employed numerous efforts to cut down on the numbers of predators online. For instance, they have developed an e-mail registry that would permit parents to prohibit their children creating online profile for such networks. Social networking sites would also create the default profile setting for 16 and 17-year-olds on their site “confidential “ so that they can only be contacted by individuals they know hence making it difficult for predators to find them (Krinsky, 2008).

According to Hansen (2008), they employ a third party to gather a registry of email addresses offered by parents who want to restrict access of their children to the websites, and will block anyone using email address listed in the registry from signing up or creating a user profile. Laws have also been implemented to govern and address this issue and all networking sites have agreed to comply with them and cooperate with the government to sue people who are revealed to have broken these laws. These sites have also created a tab where users can report any incidence of abuse. Hansen (2008) asserts that this has made it easy to report and locate predators since it is only one click away to report incidence of abuse. Lastly, all networking sites are encouraging parents to make sure that they scrutinize whatever their kids are doing or who they are interacting with on these sites. They should also educate them on the existence of predators and let them know that predators exist hence need of being careful when using these sites.

In general, it is apparent that predators are a very big problem not only to MySpace but all other networking sites. Therefore, as far as these sites have been doing their best to end this, everybody across the globe is supposed to be aware and offer the best they can to ensure that this comes to an end. This is because everybody is affected by this issue when considering that social networking sites are used across the globe. Governments should also be alert and implement additional laws in addition to ones in existence so as to ensure that users of these sites are completely safeguarded from predators.

References

Hansen, C. (2008). To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home. New York: Penguin Group USA.

Krinsky, C. (2008). Moral panics over contemporary children and youth. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Zilney, L. and Zilney, L. (2009). Perverts and predators: The making of sexual offending laws. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.