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A Disquisition about the Social Networking Society |
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MySpace, Facebook, and Match.com are sites in which people can communicate, meet, and develop some type of connection with people all over the world. Throughout time, communication has been essential to our way of life. Now, it has become the very foundation on which progress is based. With the invention of the internet, social networking has dramatically changed the way we communicate in this day and age. Another type of social networking site takes information from one individual and compares it to another’s to suggest a possible relationship between the two. One such example is Match.com. |
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The Problem with Social Networking Sites: In recent years social networking sites have blossomed into a vast array of linked blogs and member pages, some totaling well into the millions. The most common problems involve privacy and security. Although, the websites initially faced a problem with minors (under the age of 14) lying about their age to setup a personal web page. , there are predators on the sites as proved by a recent study done by Wired News. In a matter of hours, a simple query found five registered sex-offenders in a limited range with personal pages on Myspace. Teenagers are especially vulnerable to privacy and security issues since they are more unaware in most cases to assess the risks of posting personal information to the web through social networks. The social networking industry is timid to use the state’s registry as a “blacklist,” but as more issues arise the companies realize that something has to be done to ensure the safety of all their users. Also, the issue is not clear if these sites can legally use any state’s sex-offender registry for their site.
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The Solution: Currently many actions are being taken to correct the problems with social networking websites. Most of these sites, like myspace or facebook, have a privacy policy and safety tips to protect the innocent users from people, who do not use the site as it was intended. Since Some employer have looked myspace or facebook accounts, a general rule is to not put any information about yourself on the Internet that you would not want the entire world to know. The government is taking action with a proposed federal legislation, the "Deleting Online Predators Act," to restrict access to many social networking websites. If this bill passes, all schools and libraries would receive federal funds to seriously restrict access to these sites. This bill will restrict access for children and teenagers, but, unfortunately, this does not stop sexual predators from gaining access to these sites. In an attempt to solve problems like these, Myspace hired Hemanshu Nigam, a former Microsoft security investigator and former prosecutor. |
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