Back in my day, a good schoolyard fight could have as many as 25-30 viewers. There was hooting and hollering and those who didn’t get to see it were told about it the next day at break time.
Today, that same fight is being posted on YouTube, and most are getting thousands of viewers. When your schoolyard brawl video is viewed by an audience the size of your average NBA game (bad example? 
), there’s a greater incentive to go for that extra face punch when you know the cameras are rolling.
How many of these schoolyard fights are taking place SOLELY for the online fame and glory that comes with it?
A quick YouTube search for school yard fight shows just a small sample of what’s available for viewing online.
Here’s the source article - A schoolyard fight involving 20 kids at Cumberland High School in Syndey, Australia. Here’s news coverage of the video.
Found this on digg - A chilling compilation of potential privacy exploitations. Definitely makes you think twice before filling in all of your facebook profile information. Some of the connections they make are a little far fetched, but it gives you an idea of what could potentially happen to your personal information.
Check out the disturbing flash movie and then digg the story.
Kevin Millsaps, a 23-year-old man of Staatsburg New York was arrained yesterday for committing sexual acts on two young girls he met on MySpace. One girl was 12 and the other girl was only 11 years old.
A quick MySpace search turns up a MySpace profile that fits the bill (Kevin Millsaps - 23 - Staatsburg). You can view the alleged scumbag’s profile here: http://www.myspace.com/xcaliba
Update: Found Kevin’s mugshot in the following article that appeared shortly after his arrest in January. View the article and mugshot here. It also has more details on his case.
… By a 25-year-old man by the name of Patrick Lee Kenney. Fortunately, the young girl’s mother was monitoring her MySpace activity and discovered graphic pictures of Patrick on her daughter’s computer. She then got police to pose as her daughter and arranged a meeting. Patrick Kenney showed up and was arrested on encouraging child sex abuse and attempted rape charges.
This story fortunately has a happy ending because mom was keeping an eye on what her daughter was doing on MySpace. All the legislation in the world can’t replace good old fashioned parenting.
I found out about this article on MyCrimeSpace but the original article is from the local newspaper in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where the crime took place.
First child predators, now this. MySpace is now being used by drug dealers to sell their stash to children. Marijuana and crack cocaine - now available on your local drug dealer’s MySpace profile.
From the article:
Officers with the Punta Gorda Police Department say the popular website MySpace is quickly becoming the new street corner for drug dealers.
In Charlotte County alone, there have been seven drug busts in the last three days and nine in the last two months - all of which the people were found trying to sell drugs through their MySpace page.
Charlotte resident Rosemary Serafino, 54, was busted for trying to trade hundreds of dollars worth of pills for crack.
During a simple search for the word “marijuana” on the MySpace site, there were 212,000 hits. For “crack cocaine,” there were more than 10,000 references.
Police also recommended that parents remain vigilant and keep an eye on their children’s MySpace usage.
Police say want to make sure parents know what their kids are doing on MySpace.
“If you’re not monitoring them and they’re getting with the wrong crowd, they’re going to be doing things and possibly come into contact with us,” said Lewis.
Check out the full disturbing article here.
A recent InSafe survey shows that a whopping 57% of all teens post private, sensitive information on their MySpace and Bebo profiles. Of those teens, 33% of them didn’t even know if their profiles were public or private.
Kids under 10 years old were the most oblivious to privacy issues. Privacy awareness increased for kids 10 to 13 years old, and steadily decreased for teens 14-18.
Parents: The best thing you can do is to have a talk with your kids, and it’s never too early to have that conversation … unless your child is really, really young. Once they start using the computer, it’s best to set some ground rules and use monitoring software to keep an eye on them.
A quick Google search brings up some helpful tips from Microsoft: A Parent’s Guide to Online Safety. All ages from 2 to 17 are covered.
MySpace isn’t the only site with sexual predators anymore. Last Wednesday in north suburban Fox Lake, Illinois, authorities arrested a 23-year-old man who used Facebook to pose as a teenage girl in order to lure a 15-year-old boy from Evanston to his home for sex. The predator’s name is Michael Macalindong.
The reason Facebook has not had the predator problem MySpace has had is because until recently, Facebook only allowed college students to create a profile. They enforced this by requiring new users to sign up using their school .edu email account.
Facebook has now opened up their site to all users, allowing anyone with an email address to sign up.
I think there is something to be said about having a “kids only” network. Facebook WAS unique in creating a student-only ecosystem, and until they opened their doors to everyone, the site effectively stayed predator-free.
The arrest of mortgage processor Michael Macalindong came one day after Congress introduced legislation that would require sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses and make them available to social networking sites. It also would make it a crime for adults to lie about their age in pursuit of sex with a minor.
View the full article here.
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