The Controversy

Posted: October 17th, 2013

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The world we live in

My Space nation: The Controversy

Social networking has developed over a short period to touch the lives of many individuals, organizations and entities. Young people are the most affected by the social networking craze. Networking through the Internet has helped in fast tracking the globalization process. However beneficial these platforms may seem in linking people with others and maintaining communication, their usage bears negative ramifications. My Space as one of these sites harbors some imminent dangers for their female subscribers and other users as well.

One of key differences between My Space and Facebook lies in the target audience. Facebook targeted the college age levels specifically for Harvard students and later developed into a global networking site. My Space, on the other hand, targets a wide variety of age brackets and backgrounds. The biggest contrast between Facebook and My Space lies in the levels of security that both offer. My Space leaves a lot of basic information on subscribers that can be seen by most of My Space users. Facebook has a more elaborate security system that gives little information on the user. The security oversight on the part of My Space allows many individuals to lose their privacy.

Social networking sites provide many benefits for the users especially among college going-students. College students prefer Facebook and My Space as it gives them an online presence where other people can discover them. Facebook is also relatively easy to operate, cheap and has no technical issues behind it. Job hunters and fresh graduates from college find Facebook very helpful in job seeking. Candidates post their job requirements and opportunities on Facebook groups that allow graduates to get jobs across the world. Lastly, Facebook has the largest number of users that currently stands at about 700 million individuals which helps in meeting new people and makes new connections.

My Space is notorious for the controversial contact between cyber bullies, online pedophiles and innocent female users. Young females have made reports of older immoral users making contact with underage girls with highly sexual content. The Police department made a report that stated “….some kids perform sexual acts on webcams…” My Space can be considered a revolutionary social site as it allows for greater socialization and networking through sharing of photos, videos and music. However, these same features have been misused by criminals with…”crimes as serious as murder and rape have been linked to teens using the site…”(Hewitt 45). Parents have also equally shared this concern about the amount of information that their children post on Facebook such as one parent, Shellee Davis who discovered My Space had “….pages that mentioned the schools they attended and their birthdays…”(85)

When socializing through the Internet, there are certain safety practices that can be adopted to ensure that users are more secure and protected. In-built features on operating systems such as parental control. The users should also comprehend the different policies offered by the social sites before signing up. Users who subscribe should also investigate the control over the information that they post on social sites. Users on Facebook can determine how much information they post, who can see the posts that members can edit or comment on the posts. Detailed information should also not be exposed to social sites during subscription as cyber criminals make use of this information to steal from or terrorize users.

Work cited

Hewitt, Bill. My Space Nation: The Controversy. People. 5 June 2006.65 (22).Web. Accessed on 30 July 2012. Retrieved from http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20061091,00.html