Myspace (& other social network sites) predator problems--how can they Essay

Myspace (& other social network sites) predator problems--how can they be solved - Essay Example imed at networking and being in touch with relatives and friends, the bottom line is that social networking is highly famous and it is a big business today. Unluckily, scam artists, child molesters, and sexual predators have noticed that these sites can also be exploited to find victims. MySpace is one of the sites where predator is a big problem. MySpace is a social networking site just like facebook. However, there have been numerous cases of sexual predators and child molesters posing as children to network with young victims on MySpace (Zilney & Zilney, 2009). Recently, MySpace was also discovered to be compromised by attackers spreading malware on exploited profile sites. These have led to MySpace taking steps and implementing security measures to minimize this problem though users are still supposed to be cautious and aware. Predators were therefore a big problem to MySpace not only because it led to increased cases of sexual assaults but also death cases were on high rate. Nevertheless when putting into consideration increased cases of predators; social networking sites have employed numerous efforts to cut down on the numbers of predators online. For instance, they have developed an e-mail registry that would permit parents to prohibit their children creating online profile for such networks. Social networking sites would also create the default profile setting for 16 and 17-year-olds on their site â€Å"confidential â€Å" so that they can only be contacted by individuals they know hence making it difficult for predators to find them (Krinsky, 2008). According to Hansen (2008), they employ a third party to gather a registry of email addresses offered by parents who want to restrict access of their children to the websites, and will block anyone using email address listed in the registry from signing up or creating a user profile. Laws have also been implemented to govern and address this issue and all networking sites have agreed to comply with them and