Myspace and predators!

"There's no way to stop a determined predator. There's no way to stop a determined victim" (119). By stating this, Kevin Alexander starts his essay about cyber-predators "MySpace Not Responsible for Predators". In this essay the author narrates the story about a young girl who was abused sexually by a 19 year old who pretended to be of less age, contacting his victim via MySpace and convincing the 14 year old to meet personally. The victim's family proceeded to file a law suit against MySpace stating that "MySpace is more concerned with making money than protecting children online" (119). According to the mother, the website wasn't efficient enough to provide a safe environment for her daughter, leaving sex offenders and predators with an unlimited range of options to attack naive kids. Alexander explains that even though this is a serious tragedy, it is not under MySpace responsibility that these situations are currently occurring. It is important to remind the reader that in today's internet web there are hundreds of social networks such as Facebook and Hi5, not just MySpace. The author remarks in the last paragraphs that this episode instead of being the social network's fault, in this case MySpace, it is the parents lack of responsibility. It was the mother's responsibility to explain to her kids the dangers of social networking with strangers. Also, a 14 year old girl is able to realize the risks of having conversations with strangers, and above all she ignored the danger of meeting someone she didn't know.
MySpace has forseen these kind of situations, and the company is doing everything on their hands to prevent them. By this, every user has to agree to some terms and conditions which include that "Myspace.com is not resposible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any user of the Myspace.com services" (120).
I agree with Alexander's point that there's is no way to stop a sex predator from contacting victims, but there are definitely ways to avoid being the victim.




Alexander, Kevin. "Myspace: Not Responsible for Predators." New York: Morrow, 1985. Rpt. in Elements of Arguments: A Test and Reader. Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2009. 119-120.