To some, MySpace is Net's Dark Side

Web site's easy access to personal info draws millions of teens, worries their parents

By Andy Gammill

MySpace.com caught Kevin Koers' attention months ago.

The principal at Indianapolis' Franklin Central High School became alarmed when he saw some of his students' entries on the increasingly popular Internet site.

Then he learned that a substitute teacher accused of having sex with students had a page on MySpace.

Koers sent a letter to parents warning them.

"There's a lot of innocence on there," he said, "and my main reaction was this innocence is being taken advantage of."

For many of its 72 million users, MySpace serves as a new kind of lifeline to the world. But it also has a darker side, including postings last week that warned of an impending Columbine-style plot to attack a Kansas school.

An adult on MySpace saw the postings and alerted authorities in that community and the plot was foiled.

Though just two years old, MySpace and other social-networking Web sites have taken American youth culture by storm.

"They're far more than Web sites," said Stanley Wasserman, an Indiana University sociologist who also serves as scientific consultant on social-networking software. "These are interaction groups. It's changing the way people interact."

Portals into personal lives

Pages on MySpace, Facebook .com or other social-networking Web sites provide a portal into personal lives, intended for friends but visible to anyone.

Among the millions of users, potential employers and child predators may be lurking in the hidden reaches of MySpace's web.

Paul Kent, 16, a sophomore at Franklin Central, said most teenagers use the site responsibly, mainly to communicate with friends from school.

He began posting his thoughts about his life on his MySpace page last year -- but unlike many of his peers, he locked it so only his friends could access it, he said.

"You can just put on what you're thinking and feeling," he said, "and everyone can see what you're going through."

Child safety experts fear the unpoliced personal Web pages put teens at risk.

It's not hard to find examples.

A 17-year-old Indianapolis boy posted pictures of himself in the basketball uniform of a Northside high school. He writes that he doesn't smoke or drink alcohol but uses drugs and has sex.

A 14-year-old Brownsburg girl featured a picture of herself in a bikini on her page and provides enough personal information to look up her address in the phone book. A 16-year-old Hancock County boy wrote about being gay and depressed and posted a picture of himself almost nude.

'Absolutely dangerous'

Pages like those terrify Sgt. Mike Hornbrook, who investigates cybercrime for the Marion County Sheriff's Department.

"They're dangerous, absolutely dangerous," he said. "What scares me most is that pedophiles have just got an open book on these people."

Most teenagers are safe when they post information to the Web and at worst will draw enemies or spurned classmates to their sites, said Nick Baldwin, 17, a senior at Lawrence North High School.

"Sometimes people can know a little too much about you, people you don't know, not in a creepy way that would make parents freak out," he said.

There's more than enough on many teens' pages, however, to freak parents out.

Susan Booth keeps tight rein over her two sons' Internet habits, but she walked by the computer a few months back while her 17-year-old son was looking at what seemed to her an inappropriate picture.

"I came through there one day and saw that and said, 'What is this?' " the Johnson County mother recalled. "He said, 'It's all right, Mom. It's a friend's Facebook page.' "

She's comforted that Facebook limits who can access pages -- mostly her son's friends at Center Grove High School -- but both boys also have pages on Xanga.com, which does not.

Booth hadn't checked the teens' Web pages beyond a passing glimpse, but she plans to start, she said.

Many parents have been alarmed to see their children's pages on social-networking Web sites, said Parry Aftab, a lawyer specializing in Internet safety and founder of the Web site wiredsafety.org.

"They always said 'It's not my kid,' " she said. "Now they can go to MySpace and see it is their kid."

New kind of hangout

But Aftab recommends that parents not freak out as their first reaction, but rather talk to their children about the sites. Give them time to clean up their page and then visit it the next day to see what they've posted.

"Say, 'I read this article in the paper, I want to look at it tomorrow,' and give them time to take down whatever they don't want you to see," Aftab suggested. "Thereafter, don't warn them. . . . if they're too stupid not to fix it in 24 hours, they're too stupid to use it responsibly."

Whatever the risks, the sites have already made an impact on youth culture and are unlikely to disappear any time soon, users of social-networking sites and experts agree.

The site is essentially a modern take on the old-fashioned teen hangout, said Anastasia Goodstein, publisher of ypulse, a blog that tracks Generation Y.

"It's huge," she said. "Among Generation Y, for your phone number you're pretty much giving out your MySpace page these days."

Wade Baker, a 21-year-old aspiring musician who attends the University of Indianapolis, uses his page on MySpace to reconnect with old friends and build a potential fanbase for his music, which plays on his page.

"People from high school say, 'Hey, I hear you are becoming a rock star,' just from reading my page," Baker said.

A lifeline to the world

Kelli Whitenack's home in tiny Ridgeville lies 12 miles from her high school, 25 miles from some of her school friends around the county and hundreds of miles from her Key Club friends across Indiana.

The 18-year-old senior at Jay County High School logs onto MySpace.com daily to bridge the distance.

"It helps me keep in touch with people all over the state," said Whitenack, who was one of the first three people at her school on the site.

Whitenack is already planning new ways to use the site to keep in touch with friends who aren't in Jay County. She lives on the edge of the county and doesn't often get to visit friends on the other side.

Plus, she just finished a state post for the Key Club and doesn't expect to see her friends from the group as much.

"MySpace will help me now that I'm no longer a state board member, and a lot of my friends have it," she said. "And I don't get to go into town that often, especially with gas money now."

Whitenack's not sure MySpace will be the wave of the future, but she's sure she wants to stay in touch. For now, MySpace is the best way for her.

And 72 million others.

Star reporter Raygan Swan contributed to this story. Call Star reporter Andy Gammill at (317) 444-2607.

Copyright 2006 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved

[From IndyStar.com]

Worrysome Headlines

If you are certain that your child is safe, you can relax. For many parents, however, these headlines have become a horrifying reality:

This list of headlines could go on forever, but your child's innocence cannot. Spend time in your child's world.