Social Websites

The internet has hosted for some time the continually growing sites of myspace.com, facebook.com, and other social sites like it. These sites are enormously popular among teenagers, which has led to large advertising and profits for the sites. Employers as well are cashing in by performing additional background checks on individuals through these sites. Many individuals who use these sites have the delusion that their information is safe and private on these websites.
During my early high school years, I maintained my own MySpace. Like many of my other friends, I assumed that MySpace was a world where only kids communicated and interacted with one another privately. I of course was wrong. I didn’t realize this until one day my mother asked me if I had a MySpace. I told her I did, and she then wished to see it. I was shocked and felt she had no place to see it. Of course she was my mother, and what I felt was no defense against her decision. Thankfully, she had and still has a very limited knowledge of computers, and I was able to remove anything that would be particularly hazardous to my well-being. This experience led me to realize that anyone with a slightly more extensive knowledge of computers than my mother could easily and readily access a wealth of information about me, like who my friends are, where I attend school, and my interests. I was smart enough to not post anything incriminating (not that I ever did anything that I could be incriminated for) or personal (such as phone number, or where I live).
As senior year came along, MySpace became immature with the newly found Facebook. And because it was senior year, students were partying. Under the same delusion of MySpace, students felt that they were safe on Facebook. They were wrong. Pictures from a party appeared with captions suggesting under-aged drinking. The administration stumbled upon these pictures, and immediately suspended students in the pictures. However, my school has a large number of wealthy families, many of which were the families in the photographs. Their lawyers arrived that day in response to this outrageous assumption of illegal activity, in which my school quickly surrendered and recanted.
So is the issue of safety and privacy a serious problem? I don’t believe there is any problem with safety or privacy on these social sites. People who use these websites should have enough common knowledge about them to enjoy them safely. Someone should know that when they access these sites and give information, that information becomes obtainable by the public. Kids should be monitored on their internet activity, and teenagers should be given rules to follow to keep them safe from internet predators. As for employers using these sites for additional background checks, I congratulate their resourcefulness. Even so, Facebook is eliminating some of the problems associated with unwanted viewers by letting the user allow only their friends to view their information. MySpace and others like it are also increasing the privacy settings on their sites. And as more problems materialize, believe the sites themselves will rise to fix these small problems.