Posted May 24, 2007 4:35 PM  (Hartford-WTNH)The popular social networking website, Myspace.com, said it is doing its part to help the state keep sexual predators offline.

Websites like Myspace.com have been referred to by law enforcement as fishing ponds for sexual predators.  In most cases, victims of child molestation know their attackers and these websites give predators a bigger hunting ground.

“The internet provides and opportunity to become known to potential victims,” said Rep. Mike Lawlor, (D) East Haven.  “To engage in grooming behavior through a chat room. So this is a new option for child molesters.”

Lawmakers want to remove that option by passing a law requiring convicted sex offenders to provide the state police with not only their physical address but any email or instant message address as well. The people at Myspace.com said they have helped develop the first software designed to get sex offenders off their site.

“During the registration process there’s certain information that’s collected that’s compared into a data base and then spits out a list of potential matches,” said Hemanshu Nigam of Myspace.com.  “Then we have a team that works 24 hours aday, 7 days a week reviewing every single match to determine whether or not this is a convicted sex offender and if that person is that information is preserved for law enforcement use and the profile itself is deleted.” Read the rest @ WTNH.com

OSA Editorial Comments:

I for one am happy to see MySpace using new technology to weed out sexual predators, and start taking a proactive roll in the process, everyone has to be aware of the behavior of online predators and pedophiles and we need to really start to understand the new face of the 21st century predator they are not who think we they are, find out here from:

Julian Sher!

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• Don’t open or read messages from cyber bullies. Your child can’t be bullied online if they don’t open or read messages from cyber bullies. Teach your child to curb his or her curiosity to read and respond to a message once he or she recognize a cyber bully has sent it.

• Encourage your child to tell an adult, if for some, their reaction to being bullied is not only fright, but also embarrassment and confusion of

what the right thing is to do. Coach your child to tell a trusted adult if they are ever being bullied.

• Report chat bullying to your ISP. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can often block a cyber bully. Save the bully’s message and the screen

name, then contact and report it to your ISP and request they be blocked.

• If the cyberbullying is related to school, inform an administrator

Schools have specific procedures and rules to handle bullying of all types—including cyber bullying. Use your child’s school as a resource to resolve conflicts between students before they cause greater harm.

• No chatting while angry. Sending angry, hostile or taunting messages attracts cyber bullies. Make certain your child knows netiquette and is not using email messages or chat rooms to vent their own anger in a way that hurts others. This is how cyberbullying begins.

• If your child is threatened with harm, tell the police. Even if your child doesn’t know how to identify the individual who has made the threat, law enforcement has access to information and may be able to track them down and arrest them before they do harm.

• Be part of your child’s online experience. It can be a fun journey to explore the wonders of the Internet, and your children should see you safely exploring the internet as well.

OSA Technorati Tags: children, cyber bullies, cyber bullying, CyberBullying, Keeping Our Children Safe, Law Enforcement, MySpace, MySpace Guidelines, Safety Tips

Two danger areas in a member’s profile provide far more information than they probably realize.  The first is where the member goes to school and the other is the list of comments from friends.

Children should be taught the dangers of exposing too much personal information in any online community.  As of now there is no way to conclusively verify the age of a new member. It’s definitely not an uncommon thing for an underage minor to obtain membership despite the the fact that the site’s minimum age restriction is 14 years of age. The younger a child is, the more prone they are to being taken advantage of especially online.

Discussion groups are one of the major activities members can participate in, and there are many that are alot of fun and very interesting, but, there are also some that are very questionable Groups as well. MySpace membership is needed to join these groups, view uploaded photos and participate in the discussion.  Membership is not required to view what others are discussing and what’s more, even if your child is a member of one of these Groups, it can be virtually impossible to find out. The search functions that are currently available do not allow you to see who is active in each particular group.

Parents who track MySpace and other online activities that their children are involved in, are often surprised to see exactly where they have been.  Most children are pretty good, but children are curious and that curiosity will occassionally get the better of them.  Many children and adults follow links that they normally wouldn’t simply because we don’t pay enough attention to where they may be going.

Keep your children Internet savvy, and explain the consequences to them on a regular basis.  For some children having an internet usage agreement is the best way to help them understand how important their safety is to you.  Visit Online Security Authority to download the OSA Agreement.

OSA Technorati Tags: childrens personal information, deleting myspace account, friendships, predators

Open communication with your teen is critical. Expect your child to tell you the truth and understand that they probably will make mistakes in judgment. It is your job to stay one step ahead of them.When teens are sneaky, appropriate consequences should follow. They need to understand what happens when trust is lost and what you have to do to rebuild that trust.

OSA Editorial Comments: 

Thanks to Kevin Heath and More4Kids.info for sharing this wonderful article and story, by Julie I so appreciate people and organizations that really try, and make a difference. I believe your company and websites are truly an example of a caring operation, whose intentions are to provide your visitors with those life learned instructions that parents never received, in the beginning … Read the rest.

Thanks again Kevin, for all your hard work on our behalf!

For more great content, informaiton and stories like this, please Join Us, every Monday LIVE @ 11:00 MST for:

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Bill Wardell

You can use MySpace layouts for customizing blogs and MySpace profiles. The MySpace layouts are very easy to install as they are custom designs. All you have to do is to copy paste layout code in ‘About me’ box of your profile. You can use MySpace layout like a central computer of the MySpace page to keep and maintain your online friendship. You can boost the profits of your business or impress your friends with intimacy by adding personalities to MySpace layout. You can use MySpace, the most popular social networking website used by millions of people all over the world for various purposes whether it is for developing business contacts or engaging in personal matters. You can keep on changing the MySpace layouts as and when your mood changes.

When you use a basic profile layout which is given freely with MySpace accounts, you may get unnoticed in the maddening crowd as there is nothing special, unique or attractive about it. You can not show case your own individual personality when you use the free default layouts. You can make best use of the pre-made and custom layouts to make your profile unique and different from others. If you are a novice to MySpace you can begin with a basic profile design or take the assistance from expert MySpace designers to get attractive MySpace flash layouts and MySpace div layouts.

After identification of a right myspace layouts which suits your personality and basic needs, you to place them in an appropriate place by associating the layouts with a code. You have to feed the code in MySpace profile when you log on to the MySpace account in the link named as ‘Edit Profile’. You have to click the link, on the right side of your image and insert the new layout code.

To dress up your social profile you can make best use of free layouts. You will receive exponential traffic to your free layout by linking or incorporating an image in the MySpace layout. With the use of back links you can enhance the search engine rankings and develop your personality or business.