I fully agree that MySpace *can* be a bad thing, especially when children and teens are concerned. Their profiles are often sexual, they can network about crime, anorexia, hurting themselves, etc. and predators can find them more easily.

But honestly? The first thing I'd've done if my parents started checking up on ME at MySpace would've been to just move to another site just like it. There are tons, and I hear about new ones ALL the time. You can get your friends to follow with the snap of a finger too.

Checking up on your kids is going to be trickier than just getting a MySpace account. Maybe that will work for now, but so did prosecuting Napster, and all that did was spread the free file sharing networks out across a broader range of programs. Any real progress in encouraging people to purchase their downloads has come from commercials, ad campaigns by artists, trying to make it seem like the "in" thing (like the iTunes site) etc.

So what, should we do nothing? No, I'm not saying that at all. It's just more complicated. People tend to have a few "alias" sign-in names. Learning those and tracking them down on the web is one tactic (although those will get changed). Search for sites like MySpace as if you really wanted to belong to them. Heck, create another MySpace portfolio and just ask around, get people to recommend other sites like that to you. The Internet community is big on referrals lol. Do not confront the child unless you NEED to, and if you do, try to find a plausible "other way" that you could have gotten the information. If you tell them it was MySpace or a similar site, you will just run yourself into a hole. Screen names will be changed, profiles will get sneakier, etc. Cutting them off from the Internet entirely forever is no good either - how can they ever regain trust if you won't let them? Besides, when I was a teenager, the biggest prompter for me to not go out of my way to follow rules that I didn't really want to was when I felt like my parents were assuming that I WAS doing the wrong thing all along, even when I wasn't.

A *few* sites that I know of, and they are not many, are MySpace, VampireFreaks, Hi5, and any photo sharing profiles like photobucket (this may be where they are storing, AND sharing, those incriminating or sexualized photos). You may also want to try to find their blogs - Xanga and MSN Spaces are popular ones, and so is ijournal. Yahoo has something similar to MSN Spaces as well. Also, check "hot-or-not".

All of this being said, I still think that there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these sites. The problem is that when kids network, there is pressure to be cool, to be sexualized, to conform, and the Internet simply exacerbates and broadens this. If a 14 yr old girl took "sexy" photos of herself and brought them to school, she'd probably get called names. But online, it almost looks weird if they *don't* have them in their profiles! People message you less often, it's harder to get adds, and "everyone else is doing it."

In short, these sites are merely the medium through which these problems can be manifested and shared. This experience may encourage negative behaviours but the sites do not.