MySpace...Is it Really Worth It?
Myspace is a popular Social Networking site that has more than 200 million profiles total. It is the sixth most popular English language website and the sixth most popular website in any language. It is the third most popular website in the United States and only second in traffic to the new popular social networking site, Facebook. Myspace has nearly 80% of all social networking traffic. Myspace has been in a tradeoff for the top spot according to alexa.com, a site where you can compare internet traffic for up to 5 websites. I compared the traffic of Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, and Orkut and saw that Myspace and Facebook were always fighting for the top spot every day. Myspace has a US user base of 46%.
So why are we writing about Myspace? Well here is the deal. There have been many security Flaws in the Myspace system for people like Sexual Predators to exploit. Myspace comes off in the news as the “bad site” and “don’t go there.” It has been said enough to be the newest phrase in a dictionary. I like most people have just put this off and said that they don’t know what they are talking about. Then we got a news report of a Missouri girl that committed suicide in her own home as the result of nasty and degrading comments posted on her Myspace page. This has had a huge impact on the members of both the St. Charles, MO community where this happened and the members of Mysapce.
Megan Meier, a teenage girl who was just starting to fit into her lifestyle as a teenager and feeling comfortable with herself decided to join the bandwagon that almost everyone else has, Myspace.
Now there were some very strict rules in her house and when her parents finally let her get on the Myspace site.Her parents had to be present in the room when she was logging on to the site, also her parents had the password to the site, and they must approve who she added as a friend.
After about a month of having the Myspace site, Megan received a friend approval request. Even though she did not know him, she convinced her mother to let her add him because he was, “very cute.” Unfortunately, after asking to meet this “cute boy” which went under the name of Josh Evans, he started to say that she was a mean person and was mean to her friends. After consistently saying that what he was saying wasn’t true, Josh broke all contact with her, his last message being, 'I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I hear you're not nice to your friends.”
With that Megan finally left the computer and went up into her room. During dinner Megan’s parents noticed that she wasn’t there. Going up to see what was wrong, they came to find that Megan had hung herself.
After six weeks of the incidents and occurrences, it was made public that one of Megan’s former friend’s, her mother and one of her mothers co-workers, made up the “Josh” character on Myspace as a means of finding out if Megan was saying anything about her former friend.
Now the question here is Myspace really worth it? The site has been embroiled in many lawsuits concerning fake identities with most of the plaintiffs being paid off to drop their complaints and settle. Myspace has continued to show its lack in security upgrades and is instead improving the way members receive our mail and getting messages about Myspace events.
So before you create an account or log in ask yourself. Is it really worth all of the trouble?