MySpace arrest
So I wrote about a MySpace-related arrest for work (teen posts picture of girl on his MySpace page, her boyfriend's friends threaten and then try to beat him up) again. I had fun finding the suspects' sites and quoting from them, and I've since watched as the kids' friends read the article and react. A lot of the response is hidden on private MySpace pages, but some of it has spilled over onto my article, because we allow people to post comments at the bottom of stories online. So far, the funniest comment is from "Lodi teen," who writes: "All you old people and parents need to stay off myspace! It's for us teens to use! Not you!" I wonder if I, whose MySpace page keeps mysteriously growing, would be considered among the "old people."Articles about MySpace are nothing new, and I even wrote about it a while back when a teenager met up with a firefighter online and they were found in his truck at 3 in the morning. (And, boy, that ever make for talk in this town, because both the teen and the firefighter were male.) What infuriates me is when people blame MySpace for such things. I was talking to some cops today, about how once upon a time when the telephone was first invented, people probably said it was evil because it could be used to make threats. We had a good laugh when one officer said they probably once said smoke signals were bad, too.
In other words, it's not the mode nor means that should be blamed, but the users. Fortunately, a lot of the people commenting on my story seem to realize that. Not too long ago, the reaction was much different, so maybe that means more people are realizing that the Internet is not just full of evil.
In other news, tonight's episode of Rockstar Supernova is about to start.
Posted by Layla at 7:47 PM, July 06, 2006
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