In the case of the MySpace lawsuit of 2006, a 14 year-old girl and her mother filed a lawsuit against MySpace after the girl met with a man she had contact with over the website. The meeting started out with dinner and a movie, but ended with the girl getting raped by the 19 year-old man. In Kevin Alexander’s essay titled, “MySpace Not Responsible for Predators”, he places the blame on the mother and the daughter stating that “The girl, as traumatic as her experience was, should be held responsible, too.” His reasoning being that, the girl, at 14 years, was old enough to, “Calculate Risk” as well as have “Other higher brain functions.”. Who is to say that 14 year-olds have that kind of brain function? Today, adolescents and young adults …show more content…
It can be understood that social networking sites can only do so much to ensure the age of their participants, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try harder to make the process of applicants more secure. One suggestion may be to have to use a credit card upon registration, so that those using it must be 18 or older. While this is troublesome, it does guarantee the security of the site, therefore, lawsuits should be virtually non-existent since the website has done everything in its power to make sure the blame rests with those who use it. Another precaution is that upon registration, participants much watch or read something that educated on internet safety, involving real life examples. This could be mandatory for everyone, or maybe just for those who have said that they are under 18. Social networking sites would only need to put more effort into the registration process to eliminate the blame aimed at them when something happens that came about through their services. It seems that just checking a box that you agree to their terms isn’t enough to keep them out of court. Instead of blaming the underage participants, let us permit the adults who are old enough to fend for themselves and make wise decisions take the responsibility for their actions, and
Follow membership restrictions- It is observed that despite social networking websites state minimum age restrictions most of the children have a membership account for these sites at very early age. For e.g. for Facebook or skype account registration the child needs to be minimum 13-years-old. But children aged 8-11 also have these accounts.
Even with the dangerous developments in social media over the past several years, many parents have chosen to allow their children to use these sites despite age restrictions. There are three reasons to argue for age restrictions on social media sites: lack of supervision by parents, targeting of children by pedophiles, and the prevalence of children falsifying their age. The ability of pedophiles to conceivably target children with social media proves that this is an issue that parents need to examine so that they may better protect their children. The threat from pedophiles causes an enormous problem for millions of children on social media sites. Unfortunately, Western Daily Press states that “Pedophiles can get away with grooming young teenagers on social media sites.” My essay will argue that age restrictions need to be in place, and additional regulations should ensure that law enforcement agencies have the tools required to supervise underage children 's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter. Quoting from Business Wire, “three out of four parents feel that social network sites are not protecting children.” According to Irish Independent, “four out of ten children falsify their age” when using social media. I will also argue that additional research on this topic can be used to raise the awareness of parents, and can also help to alert the children themselves to the danger. My essay will also examine questions, such as: How can social media sites protect
The article “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” is written by Dana L. Fleming and appears in the winter 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Higher Education. Fleming’s objective with this article is to show college students the dangers of social networking sites, and at the same time she is advising parents on the social networking world.
The second discrepancy with Fleming’s article is the role that schools, especially universities, should play in protecting students’ privacy online. The fact that Fleming lists multiple examples of minors being hurt by poor social networking decisions has nothing to do with the topic suggested in her title “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” This is a red herring fallacy that appeals to the reader’s emotions yet has nothing to do with the writer’s original topic. Protecting minors online is a separate issue in itself in which parents and likely schools should be involved. On the contrary, for college students, the FERPA policies under which Fleming says a university employee must adhere to are meant to protect
The article was written by Diana Graber on December 8, 2014. This article was written to show why age restrictions on social media matter. Diana’s audience is parents of children of why they should wait until the age limit of certain social media sites. Diana’s article gave insight on why age matters when it comes to your kids having a social media account. The article is about a girl named Rebecca and the study of children and social media. Rebecca was just twelve years old when she decided to end her life due to cyberbullying. The victim and the two bullies were underage using social media. The story shows that both the victim and the bullies were not ready to have a social media account. Rebecca's bullying took place on Facebook, Ask.fm,
New media has been easily made available everywhere and Facebook in particular as one of the world most popular social networking site (SNS) can be made accessible from desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablet because of this, almost everybody can have access to Facebook anywhere they go. For the most reason, due to the introduction of new media, Facebook plays a key role communication and staying in touch with families, friends, acquaintances, businesses, groups meetings and a whole lot of others. Moreover it has also been useful in growing markets and advertising mediums through big companies, brands and highly respectable top class businesses. New media as a broad topic can be defined as a “form of communication which transmits information through a medium that uses routers and servers via high-speed internet and involves materials been received via desktops, computers, tablets and smartphones”.
Social media is a huge trend right now, in fact over 78% of Americans have some type of social media profile. Everyone is “instagramming”, “snapchatting”, and yes still “facebooking”. This includes young 11 and 12 year olds, who use it more often than those above the age of 18. I believe minors should not be allowed to have any form of social media because minors do not know how to use it properly nor do they know how to protect themselves while using it. Middle and high schoolers are very immature for social media unlike adults. Middle schoolers and high schoolers think social media is used to post selfies and obtain ridiculous amounts of followers or subscribers. Adults often use their social media to connect with distant friends and family, which
I believe that minors should have access to social media with certain restrictions because limited social networking prevents immature decisions. Minors being introduced to social media is like teenagers learning learning how to drive. They can both be dangerous situations, but if the correct decisions are made, then it could be beneficial for them and they could possibly learn something from it.
After watching the movie The Social Network, the first thing I did was to search for Mark Zuckerberg’s real life experiences to see which parts are facts and which are fictions. As a matter of fact, this Harvard genius that founded the world’s first social network was not as childish as the movie portrayed. At least he didn’t write programming for getting into elite Harvard “Final Clubs” or for retaliating his girlfriend. During Mark’s high school, Microsoft and AOL tried to purchase the music player that he built and also invited him to join them. However, Mark decided to enroll in Harvard for further education. From where I stand, although the movie is fictional, it can easily
Social media is expanding due to its popularity; however it may be used for many different reasons. Many minors use it as a form of entertainment and interaction between friends and even other people around the world. Although minors use social media as a form of entertainment and interaction, nevertheless minors should not be able to use social media because it causes health issues, exposes them to explicit content, and promotes violence.
Majority of youths, or ‘Digital Natives’ are in the process of developing their identities and social media is one of the most attractive mediums available to them (White and Wyn 2008). As a result, gross amounts of fraudulent user-generated content are being uploaded and surface on the web almost instantaneously. (Keen
Facebook, twitter and instagram are all methods used to share your life with others. You’re able to post pictures and type statuses to inform your friends, followers, etc., what you have been up to and how you have been living your life. Adults usually post pictures and statuses focusing on their family, trips and special events in their lives, while the younger generation takes social media a lot more serious. Every moment of their lives are put out there for the world to see, sometimes without the realization. Teenagers on social media are always trying to impress and one up each other. They sometimes post inappropriate material to try to look as cool as possible without realizing that ultimately employers, teachers, parents, law enforcement and strangers all have the ability to see. The problem is once something is on the internet it is there forever, and if caught you can find yourself in major trouble.
Despite the fact that we’re already in the 21st century, society continues to show signs of progress and development strongly leaning towards the direction of advancement, constantly evolving. This pattern is no different from the world of advertising, as it has also evolved through the years and quite recently an unexpected technological innovation took the world by storm. It made such a tremendous impact that eventually led to the transformation of traditional marketing, and it’s no other than social media that we all learned to love.
Just as there are positive effects of social media, there are also negative effects as well. False connections are often made on SNS. Ninety percent of students have Facebook which is constructed to be socially shared with any user. It may seem obvious that users of social networking cannot stray far from reality from his or her online identity, although the users can depict what he or she wishes to display (Moreno et al. 452). There are many young teenagers on social networking websites posting true personal information, but there are also many young teenagers who false information. In fact, many young users of social networking, especially boys, give false information (Moreno et al. 251). Manipulation can occur in order for young users to join that network. Many times younger users have to lie about his or her age which is not always approved by his or her parents (Moreno et al. 253). A survey was done from children ranging from eight years old to twelve years old to provide the results that those who lied about their age did so within a four year range of their actual age. Thus, they knew they had to use false information, so they provided it with care (Moreno et al. 256). Because of the easiness to create an account falsely, it also makes it simpler to deceive one another. Deception is used to attack another user potentially causing upsetting consequences. The deception taking place online from networking is typically used to mislead others (Tsikerdekis and
People are increasingly sharing their lives online through social networking sites with little concern for who may be viewing their information. This has become an issue in current times and is up for debate based on the ethical issues associated with Social Media. People don’t realize joining a social network is like joining a community. As any community in real life, your business has a place in the community but should not invade one’s privacy. Social networking is one of the most popular methods apart from forum marketing that is available to Internet users today. Places like MySpace and Facebook among others have gone from just social interaction spaces to a part time marketing program as