Recent reports seem to prove that MySpace, a social networking website, is posing a huge risk to children who are among the site's most avid users.

For those of you that have been following some of my stories over the last few years, it won’t come as any surprise that I would see this article as being of great relevance to parents, and to children old enough to understand danger.

For many moons I have been writing articles and stories about the Internet and the dangers that I could see were coming down the road – soon.  Well now those dangers have arrived just as I knew they would and even though I was ridiculed and accused of trying to spoil the fun of others, many would now see that perhaps I had it right long before most would admit even a hint of danger.

My website home page has child protection on the Internet website links right at the very top – that’s how important this issue has always been to me.  I spent a lot of time floating around in chat rooms, talking to adults and to teenagers and even younger kids if they happened to somehow end up in the adult rooms I was chatting in.  That’s how easy it is for kids to chat where they like.  It is also very easy for adults to infiltrate children’s’ so called ‘safe chat venues’.

The exposure I had to what was going on in chat opened up my eyes very early on that the apple was rotten at the core and that the bad would soon infiltrate the good. 

Eight US attorneys-general have said that “thousands of convicted sex offenders have registered for profiles on social networking website MySpace, posing a risk to children who are among the site’s most avid users.” 

I knew of one teenager who was involved with a social networking website with frightening repercussions for him and his family.  His parents read about me in a local newspaper and made contact via the newspaper asking for any help or information that I might be able to give them.  I had never heard of these websites until then, but other parents have contacted me and told me their children spend time on them and what did I think about the websites.  All I could do was suggest that they surf the net and research the websites, reading all the available information they could find and then make their own decisions.

Apparently MySpace had discovered hundreds of sex offenders registered on its website in an internal investigation.  The company is reportedly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.  It is stated that around 100 million people worldwide use the fast-growing MySpace service.

The concern expressed in what I read is not only about this one particular website;  it is about all social networking websites. 

Chief Legal Officers of Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania have written asking for information on what action MySpace has taken since their announcement in December 1996 regarding the identification of registered sex offenders on the website.

If you care about your children and where they are spending their time on the Internet, please go to http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/15/1178995111156.html and read the information there. 

Perhaps with this little story of mine I can help save some children from harm by opening up the eyes of some parents, or friends of children who are being placed in harm’s way by them being permitted to spend time on these websites.  Visit MySpace – it looks harmless doesn’t it?  Join up and then go inside for a look.  Don’t worry that you have to pretend to be a teenager – that’s apparently what the paedophiles and sex offenders are doing and your children are using that website to chat to them.  

As always, it is our right to believe or disbelieve what we read and then make our own judgements on our gut feelings.  All I ask is that you read the stories at the link above and give this serious issue some thought.  I personally do not know the truth, I can only be guided by my own experiences and by what I read and where I read it.  My philosophy about the Internet has for a long time been 'be aware, be wary and beware'.

Yours in safety on the Internet and Stranger Danger Awareness Education - Vena McGrath