A Myspace Revelation

This just in! Myspace is being used by children who are too young and naive to understand that giving out personal information to strangers is dangerous! File this MSNBC article under D for "duh". Seriously, folks. Anyone with half a brain can understand that. Let's discuss the subject a bit. If you don't want to read all of this, feel free to scroll down to the rest of my post. I have a tendency to rant.

Maybe you don't know what myspace is. Hey, it can happen. Let me explain. Myspace is a very vast online community. It's like friendster or lipstick party but on a much grander scale. I've been a member of myspace now for over a year and a half (view my profile here). When I first signed up, I thought there were a ton of people on the site. Since then, the number of people who are on the site has probably quadrupled. I'm like old news to myspace in comparison. The way it works is pretty simple. Like most online services these days, you first have to sign up for an account. Once you've signed up, you're given a profile which you fill out with as much or as little information about yourself as you want. You can divulge your favorite books, bands, movies, and tv shows, or you can put all of your personal contact information. It's pretty much left to your discretion. Then you post up to ten pictures of whatever you want as long as it's not porn. That leaves a lot of room for tastelessness. You could be like a lot of the people on myspace and put up what people refer to these days as "a myspace picture", in which you hold the camera above you looking down on you and look away from the camera with a very tragic expression. That or you can look up at the camera over the rim of your glasses. That's pretty myspace too. On the other hand, you could do what a lot of other people do and post seductive, scantily clad images of yourself. It's disgusting the amount of sexually suggestive pictures there are on myspace, but since the terms only say that you can't have porn, you have a lot of say in what you want to put up. Once you've finished your profile, you can go search for people to be your "friends". You can search based on interests, location, or randomly. Though I've had very good luck with the people I've met on the site, there's always the chance that someone is lying, and that could open a pandora's box of problems.

And this leads me to the story featured in the article. The woman in the story is named Marcy, and her 13-year-old 8th-grade daughter had a myspace profile that disclosed a lot more information than it should have. Unfortunately, Marcy didn't find out about this or about the existence of this profile until she came across a message that had been left on the computer referring to the website. Her daughter is just one of the countless children who have myspace profiles and don't know how to use them properly.

There are a heck of a lot of different problems in this situation. One of the biggest is the fact that the girl is only 13. The fact that she has a myspace profile is a direct violation of the terms you agree to when you sign up for an account:

By using the Website and the Service, you represent and warrant that all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate and that you agree to maintain the accuracy of such information. You further represent and warrant that you are 16 years of age or older and that your use of the MySpace.com shall not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted without warning, if it is found that you are misrepresenting your age, and you are younger than 18.

Marcy's daughter must have lied about her age in order to get an account on myspace. What's more, Marcy found that many of her daughter's 8th-grade friends also had accounts. This proves that children are attempting to get accounts, are getting them, and myspace isn't doing a thing about it even though it says in its own terms that it will delete anyone who lies about his or her age. By not taking the time to enforce the terms, myspace is putting in jeopardy the safety of a lot of young people who are too naive and immature to realize that not everyone can be trusted with their personal information.

This combined with the fact that Marcy had no idea what her daughter was doing on the internet leads me to wonder how much parents these days are doing to protect their children. It's not surprising that children would claim a right to privacy since we live in a society that values it so much. It is surprising to me, however, that parents are giving this right to children who are too young to be capable of protecting themselves. By doing so, the parents aren't protecting their children, the children aren't protecting themselves, and, as I elaborated on before, myspace isn't protecting them either. In essence, there's no one keeping these children safe. It isn't necessarily the job of myspace to protect everyone. The website can't act as guardian. The only people who can fully act as guardian are the guardians themselves: the parents. Why, then, did Marcy let her daughter have so much liberty? It seems to me that it's a situation gone far out of control. Marcy probably let her daughter surf the internet at her own discretion when she was younger, trusting that she wouldn't get into anything dangerous. It's the "not my child" mentality. When Marcy noticed her daughter hiding her internet activities, she realized that her idealistic view was skewed and that she needed to take more control over her daughter's surfing habits. By that time her daughter had become so adjusted to the idea of being able to do and hide whatever she wanted from her mother that control was next to impossible for her to attain. She did the next best thing. When she got the opportunity, she snooped, and I commend her for doing so.

But judging from the fact that her daughter's friends were also on the site, it looks like this lack of parental control is an epidemic. Parents are spending too much time trying to please their children and be their friend and not enough time being the parent. A parent is supposed to guard and protect his or her children. A parent needs to exercise control and discipline. Otherwise, situations like these occur and will continue to occur as long as parents keep it up.

When you have children, protect them. Know what they do. Have an open and honest relationship with your children from a young age so that when they grow up they still feel comfortable telling you what they've been doing. I'm living proof that that works. My mom knows everything about me. She always has. It's time for parents to grow up and be parents so that children can be children. They deserve that.

In other news...

Some time ago I told you about a new internet music service called Indy, which was said to be "the Google of indie music". I've been using it for a little while now, and I can honestly say that it is not all it's cracked up to be. This is how it works. Of course, first you download it. The application works somewhat like an interactive radio broadcast on winamp. The player downloads music for you and plays it. You rank each song on a scale from one to five, and the player remembers your musical tastes and refines its choices of music for you. It learns what you like and tries to give you more of that. That is, at least, what it is supposed to do, but that's not my experience. I've been sitting here now for a couple hours listening to it, and the range of music it has picked out for me has been ridiculous. Everything from mariachi to hardcore to instrumental jazz to easy listening. So far, I've heard only a very small few songs that I actually even came close to liking. The service is also incredibly slow. In order for it to go from one song to the next smoothly, you have to listen to about 30 seconds of every song so it can download music while you listen, which is hard to do when you absolutely hate the song. So instead you hit the one star and it spends the next minute and a half downloading music and not playing anything. I guess all I'm saying is that it's really a waste of time, I've not really found any good new music, and I'm tired of listening to it. My rating of it on a scale from one to five: a big zero.

That's enough negativity for one post. Let's talk about happy things now, like Sufjan Stevens. His new album, Illinois, is the talk of the town these days. I'm actually listening to it right now, and I have to say it's worth every word. Perhaps some of the most pleasant words I've read came from a post on Music (For Robots). What I admire about this post is that it gives Stevens the credit he deserves as an artist who is a Christian. Stevens has gotten a lot of grief in the past because of his faith in Jesus Christ, something which I think is probably one of his greatest assets. People in the secular world often like to cut themselves off from anything and anyone associated with Christianity, which is terribly unfortunate considering the level of talent Stevens has. Seriously, this album is so good. It doesn't matter whether he believes in God or not. He's an artist. I applaud Dave at Music (For Robots) for being a mature music listener.

Hahaha... "Come On! Feel the Illinoise" just came on. This song is awesome.

Speaking of awesome bands, how about them Doves? They rock my face off. Read yet another interview with Andy Williams, drummer extraordinaire, about what it's like to be adored and admired by the UK and yet receive little notoriety in the US. His response is so beautiful, I just have to tell you: "We don't want to be famous; we want our music to be famous. We won't compromise just to fit into the mainstream." Be still my heart. That's so awesome I italicized it for emphasis, and I have all the faith in the world that they will be true to their promise. They are one band who has yet to disappoint, and I doubt they ever will.

Yay for You Ain't No Picasso! Freshly posted: Of Montreal rarety "Celebration of H. Hare". Download below.

So all these music festivals are really putting me in the mood to do some serious travelling. And if I were really serious, I would so go on a cruise of the Pacific with The Flaming Lips and others, including G. Love and Special Sauce. The four day cruise begins on October 17th and costs about $600. Not bad for a cruise. So if you've got the money, the time, and the means, do something totally crazy and set sail.

Check out the shades on Ben Folds! He's one hot guy! While you're there, read the super long interview he did with The Onion A.V. Club and tell me how it is. I have no attention span and so trying to read it didn't exactly prove successful. Oops.

While we're in the mood for audio visuals, check out the "photo speeding ticket" The Decemberists got in Switzerland.

Upcoming Columbus Shows

5.07 - The Decemberists w/ Willy Mason - Little Brothers
5.08 - The Books - Wexner Center
5.13 - Mae w/ The Academy Is... and Jamison Parker - Little Brothers
5.15 - Andrew Bird w/ Antenna - Little Brothers
5.17 - Stereo Total w/ Les Georges Leningrad - Little Brothers
5.27 - The Killers w/ Hot Hot Heat and Robbers on the Street - Promowest Pavilion
6.03 - Tokyo Rose - High Five
6.08 - Modest Mouse - Promowest Pavilion
6.13 - Iron and Wine - The Newport
6.29 - Black Eyed Peas w/ Talib Kweli - Promowest Pavilion
8.31 - Coldplay - Germain Ampitheater

Daily Downloads
Sorry about yesterday, I was really hungry.

Of Montreal - A Celebration of H. Hare (mp3)

From Regnyouth:
(rar password = rya)

Mogwai - Live @ The Fillmore in San Francisco 9.22.03 (link, zip)
Mum - Summer Make Good (link, mp3)
M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us (link, mp3)
Bjork - Vespertine 2 (link, rar)

If you actually read this whole thing, I commend you. I really do.