"Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace"

"Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace"

danah boyd
American Association for the Advancement of Science
February 19, 2006

Citation: boyd, danah. 2006. "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace." American Association for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis, MO. February 19.

[This is a rough, unedited crib of the actual talk.]

Much appreciation to the Macarthur Foundation for funding this research and to the rest of the Digital Youth team for guidance and insight.

If you have feedback about this talk/essay (especially if you think i'm wrong), write me: zephoria@zephoria.org

This crib has been translated to French thanks to Laurence Allard.

Introduction:

I want to talk with you today about how teenagers are using a website called MySpace.com. I will briefly describe the site and then discuss how youth use it for identity production and socialization in contemporary American society.

I have been following MySpace since its launch in 2003. Initially, it was the home to 20-somethings interested in indie music in Los Angeles. Today, you will be hard pressed to find an American teenager who does not know about the site, regardless of whether or not they participate. Over 50 million accounts have been created and the majority of participants are what would be labeled youth - ages 14-24. MySpace has more pageviews per day than any site on the web except Yahoo! (yes, more than Google or MSN).

Many of you may have heard about MySpace, most likely due to moral panic brought on by the media's coverage of the potential predators and bullying. There is no doubt that the potential is there, but there are more articles on predators on MySpace than there have been reported predators online. Furthermore, bullying is a practice that capitalizes on any available medium. Moral panics are a common reaction to teenagers when they engage in practices not understood by adult culture. There were moral panics over rock&roll, television, jazz and even reading novels in the early 1800s [1]. The media, typically run by the parent generation, capitalizes on and spreads the fear with little regard for data or actual implications. Examples are made out of delinquent youth, showing how the object of fear ruined them in some way or other. The message is clear - if you don't protect your kids from this evil, they too will suffer great harm to their minds, bodies or morals.

There _are_ potential risks on MySpace but it is important not to exaggerate them. The risks are not why youth are flocking to the site. To them, the benefits for socialization outweigh the potential harm. For this reason, i want to ask you to put your fears aside for the duration of this presentation and try to see the values of MySpace for youth. What they are doing is really fascinating.

What is MySpace:

So what is MySpace?

MySpace is a social network site. In structure, MySpace is not particularly unique. The site is a hodgepodge of features previously surfaced by sites like Friendster, Hot or Not, Xanga, Rate My Teacher, etc. At the core are profiles that are connected by links to friends on the system. Profiles are personalized to express an individual's interests and tastes, thoughts of the day and values. Music, photos and video help users make their profile more appealing.

The friend network allows people to link to their friends and people can traverse the network through these profiles. An individual's "Top 8" friends are displayed on the front page of their profile; all of the rest appear on a separate page. Bands, movie stars, and other media creators have profiles within the system and fans can friend them as well. People can comment on each others' profiles or photos and these are typically displayed publicly.

Originally, the site was 18+ and all data was public. Over time, the age limit dropped to 16 and then, later, to 14. The youngest users are given the option to make their profiles visible to friends-only and they do not appear in searches.

When someone starts an account, they are given an initial friend - Tom Anderson, one of the founders of MySpace. By surfing the site, they find and add additional friends. Once on MySpace, most time is spent modifying one's own profile, uploading photos, sending messages, checking out friends' profiles and commenting on them. Checking messages and getting comments is what brings people back to MySpace every day.

When MySpace was initially introduced, skeptics thought that it would be just another fad because previous sites like Friendster had risen and crashed. Unlike the 20-somethings who invaded Friendster, the teens have more reason to participate in profile creation and public commentary. Furthermore, MySpace's messaging is better suited for youths' asynchronous messaging needs. They can send messages directly from friends' profiles and check whether or not their friends have logged in and received their email. Unlike adults, youth are not invested in email; their primary peer-to-peer communication occurs synchronously over IM. Their use of MySpace is complementing that practice.

Many teens access MySpace at least once a day or whenever computer access is possible. Teens that have a computer at home keep MySpace opened while they are doing homework or talking on instant messenger. In schools where it is not banned or blocked, teens check MySpace during passing period, lunch, study hall and before/after school. This is particularly important for teens who don't have computer access at home. For most teens, it is simply a part of everyday life - they are there because their friends are there and they are there to hang out with those friends. Of course, its ubiquitousness does not mean that everyone thinks that it is cool. Many teens complain that the site is lame, noting that they have better things to do. Yet, even those teens have an account which they check regularly because it's the only way to keep up with the Jones's.

Of course, not all teens are using the site, either because they refuse to participate in the teen fad or because they have been banned from participating. Such non-conformity is typical of all teen practices.

With this framework in mind, i want to address three issues related to MySpace: identity production, hanging out and digital publics.

Profiles:

Every day, we dress ourselves in a set of clothes that conveys something about our identity - what we do for a living, how we fit into the socio-economic class hierarchy, what our interests are, etc. This is identity production. Around middle school, American teens begin actively engaging in identity production as they turn from their parents to their peers as their primary influencers and group dynamics take hold.

Youth look to older teens and the media to get cues about what to wear, how to act, and what's cool. Most teens are concerned with resolving how they perceive themselves with how they are perceived. To learn this requires trying out different performances, receiving feedback from peers and figuring out how to modify fashion, body posture and language to better give off the intended impression. These practices are critical to socialization, particularly for youth beginning to engage with the broader social world.

Because the teenage years are a liminal period between childhood and adulthood, teens are often waffling between those identities, misbehaving like kids while trying to show their maturity in order to gain rights. Participating in distinctly adult practices is part of exploring growing up. Both adults and the media remind us that vices like sexual interactions, smoking and drinking are meant for adults only, only making them more appealing. More importantly, through age restrictions, our culture signals that being associated with these vices is equal to maturity.

The dynamics of identity production play out visibly on MySpace. Profiles are digital bodies, public displays of identity where people can explore impression management [2]. Because the digital world requires people to write themselves into being [3], profiles provide an opportunity to craft the intended expression through language, imagery and media. Explicit reactions to their online presence offers valuable feedback. The goal is to look cool and receive peer validation. Of course, because imagery can be staged, it is often difficult to tell if photos are a representation of behaviors or a re-presentation of them.

On MySpace, comments provide a channel for feedback and not surprisingly, teens relish comments. Of course, getting a comment is not such a haphazard affair. Friends are _expected_ to comment as a sign of their affection. Furthermore, a comment to a friend's profile or photo is intended to be reciprocated. It is also not uncommon to hear teens request comments from each other in other social settings or on the bulletin boards. In MySpace, comments are a form of cultural currency.

For those seeking attention, writing comments and being visible on popular people's pages is very important and this can be a motivation to comment on others' profiles. Of course, profile owners have the ability to reject comments and Tom rejects most of them. Some people literally spam their network with comments. Last week, there were "Valentine's cards" that people made and added to the profiles of all of their friends via comments. People advertise events through mass comments. Some comments are also meant to be passed on, creating virus like memes.

The rules of friending are also very important. It is important to be connected to all of your friends, your idols and the people you respect. Attention-seekers and musicians often seek to be friended by as many people as possible, but most people are concerned with only those that they know or think are cool. Of course, a link does not necessarily mean a relationship or even an interest in getting to know the person. "Thanks for the add" is a common comment that people write in reaction to being friended by interesting people.

While these dynamics may not seem particularly important, they are essential to youth because they are rooted in the ways in which youth jockey for social status and deal with popularity. Adults often dismiss the significance of popularity dynamics because, looking back, it seems unimportant. Yet, it is how we all learned the rules of social life, how we learned about status, respect, gossip and trust. Status games teach us this.

Hanging Out:

So what exactly are teens _doing_ on MySpace? Simple: they're hanging out. Of course, ask any teen what they're _doing_ with their friends in general; they'll most likely shrug their shoulders and respond nonchalantly with "just hanging out." Although adults often perceive hanging out to be wasted time, it is how youth get socialized into peer groups. Hanging out amongst friends allows teens to build relationships and stay connected. Much of what is shared between youth is culture - fashion, music, media. The rest is simply presence. This is important in the development of a social worldview.

For many teens, hanging out has moved online. Teens chat on IM for hours, mostly keeping each other company and sharing entertaining cultural tidbits from the web and thoughts of the day. The same is true on MySpace, only in a much more public way. MySpace is both the location of hanging out and the cultural glue itself. MySpace and IM have become critical tools for teens to maintain "full-time always-on intimate communities" [4] where they keep their friends close even when they're physically separated. Such ongoing intimacy and shared cultural context allows youth to solidify their social groups.

Digital Publics:

Adults often worry about the amount of time that youth spend online, arguing that the digital does not replace the physical. Most teens would agree. It is not the technology that encourages youth to spend time online - it's the lack of mobility and access to youth space where they can hang out uninterrupted.

In this context, there are three important classes of space: public, private and controlled. For adults, the home is the private sphere where they relax amidst family and close friends. The public sphere is the world amongst strangers and people of all statuses where one must put forward one's best face. For most adults, work is a controlled space where bosses dictate the norms and acceptable behavior.

Teenager's space segmentation is slightly different. Most of their space is controlled space. Adults with authority control the home, the school, and most activity spaces. Teens are told where to be, what to do and how to do it. Because teens feel a lack of control at home, many don't see it as their private space.

To them, private space is youth space and it is primarily found in the interstices of controlled space. These are the places where youth gather to hang out amongst friends and make public or controlled spaces their own. Bedrooms with closed doors, for example.

Adult public spaces are typically controlled spaces for teens. Their public space is where peers gather en masse; this is where presentation of self really matters. It may be viewable to adults, but it is really peers that matter.

Teens have increasingly less access to public space. Classic 1950s hang out locations like the roller rink and burger joint are disappearing while malls and 7/11s are banning teens unaccompanied by parents. Hanging out around the neighborhood or in the woods has been deemed unsafe for fear of predators, drug dealers and abductors. Teens who go home after school while their parents are still working are expected to stay home and teens are mostly allowed to only gather at friends' homes when their parents are present.

Additionally, structured activities in controlled spaces are on the rise. After school activities, sports, and jobs are typical across all socio-economic classes and many teens are in controlled spaces from dawn till dusk. They are running ragged without any time to simply chill amongst friends.

By going virtual, digital technologies allow youth to (re)create private and public youth space while physically in controlled spaces. IM serves as a private space while MySpace provide a public component. Online, youth can build the environments that support youth socialization.

Of course, digital publics are fundamentally different than physical ones. First, they introduce a much broader group of peers. While radio and mass media did this decades ago, MySpace allows youth to interact with this broader peer group rather than simply being fed information about them from the media. This is highly beneficial for marginalized youth, but its effect on mainstream youth is unknown.

The bigger challenge is that, online, youth publics mix with adult publics. While youth are influenced by the media's version of 20somethings, they rarely have an opportunity to engage with them directly. Just as teens are hanging out on MySpace, scenesters, porn divas and creature of the night are using MySpace to gather and socialize in the way that 20somethings do. They see the space as theirs and are not imagining that their acts are consumed by teens; they are certainly not targeted at youth. Of course, there _are_ adults who want to approach teens and MySpace allows them to access youth communities without being visible, much to the chagrin of parents. Likewise, there are teens who seek the attentions of adults, for both positive and problematic reasons.

That said, the majority of adults and teens have no desire to mix and mingle outside of their generation, but digital publics slam both together. In response, most teens just ignore the adults, focusing only on the people they know or who they think are cool. When i asked one teen about requests from strange men, she just shrugged. "We just delete them," she said without much concern. "Some people are just creepy." The scantily clad performances intended to attract fellow 16-year-olds are not meant for the older men. Likewise, the drunken representations meant to look "cool" are not meant for the principal. Yet, both of these exist in high numbers online because youth are exploring identity formation. Having to simultaneously negotiate youth culture and adult surveillance is not desirable to most youth, but their response is typically to ignore the issue.

Parents also worry about the persistence of digital publics. Most adults have learned that the mistakes of one's past may reappear in the present, but this is culturally acquired knowledge that often comes through mistakes. Most youth do not envision potential future interactions.

Without impetus, teens rarely choose to go private on MySpace and certainly not for fear of predators or future employers. They want to be visible to other teens, not just the people they they've friended. They would just prefer the adults go away. All adults. Parents, teachers, creepy men.

While the potential predator or future employer don't concern most teens, parents and teachers do. Reacting to increasing adult surveillance, many teens are turning their profiles private or creating separate accounts under fake names. In response, many parents are demanded complete control over teens' digital behaviors. This dynamic often destroys the most important value in the child/parent relationship: trust.

Conclusion:

Youth are not creating digital publics to scare parents - they are doing so because they need youth space, a place to gather and see and be seen by peers. Publics are critical to the coming-of-age narrative because they provide the framework for building cultural knowledge. Restricting youth to controlled spaces typically results in rebellion and the destruction of trust. Of course, for a parent, letting go and allowing youth to navigate risks is terrifying. Unfortunately, it's necessary for youth to mature.

What we're seeing right now is a cultural shift due to the introduction of a new medium and the emergence of greater restrictions on youth mobility and access. The long-term implications of this are unclear. Regardless of what will come, youth are doing what they've always done - repurposing new mediums in order to learn about social culture.

Technology will have an effect because the underlying architecture and the opportunities afforded are fundamentally different. But youth will continue to work out identity issues, hang out and create spaces that are their own, regardless of what technologies are available.

Phrase Bibliography:

[1] Thomas Hine's "Rise and Fall of American Teenager" p. 104-105
[2] Erving Goffman's "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life"
[3] Jenny Sunden's "Material Virtualities."
[4] Misa Matsuda in "Personal, Portable, Pedestrian"

Note: A great deal of other literature informed this talk even if not explicitly cited. Citations are used to explicitly reference people's turn of phrases.

MySpace

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
MySpace
URL http://www.myspace.com
Alexa rank 6
Commercial? Yes
Type of site Social network service
Registration Required for most services
Available language(s) Multilingual
Owner News Corporation
Created by Thomas Anderson
Christopher DeWolfe
Launched August 2003
Current status active
Fox Interactive Media headquarters, where MySpace is also housed
Fox Interactive Media headquarters, where MySpace is also housed

MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. It is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California, USA,[1] where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media; in turn, the owner of Fox Interactive and therefore MySpace, News Corporation, is headquartered in New York City.

According to Alexa Internet, MySpace is currently the world's sixth most popular English-language website and the sixth most popular website in any language,[2] and the third most popular website in the United States, though it has topped the chart on various weeks.[3] The service has gradually gained more popularity than similar websites to achieve nearly 80 percent of visits to online social networking websites.[3]
The company employs 300 staff[4] and does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. With the 100 millionth account being created on August 9, 2006,[5] in the Netherlands[6] and a news story claiming 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006,[7] the site reportedly attracts new registrations at a rate of 230,000 per day. As of December 18, 2007, there are over 300 million accounts.[cita

History

MySpace was founded in August 2003[8] by eUniverse (which later in mid-2004 changed its name to Intermix). eUniverse created and marketed the Myspace website, providing the division with a complete infrastructure of finance, human resources, technical expertise, bandwidth, and server capacity right out of the gate so the MySpace team wasn’t distracted with typical start-up issues. The project was overseen by Brad Greenspan (eUniverse's Founder, Chairman, CEO), who managed Chris DeWolfe (MySpace's current CEO), Josh Berman, Tom Anderson (MySpace's current president), and a team of programmers and resources provided by eUniverse.

The very first MySpace users were E-Universe employees. The company held contests to see who could sign-up the most users.[9] The company then used its resources to push MySpace to the masses. eUniverse used its 20 million users and e-mail subscribers to quickly breathe life into MySpace [10], and move it to the head of the pack of social networking websites. A key architect was tech expert Toan Nguyen who helped stabilize the MySpace platform when Brad Greenspan asked him to join the team.[11]

Shortly after launching MySpace, team member Chris DeWolfe in its first business plan suggested that they start charging a fee for the basic MySpace service.[12] Brad Greenspan nixed the idea, believing that keeping MySpace free and open was necessary to make it a large and successful community.[13]

Some employees of MySpace including DeWolfe and Berman were later able to purchase equity in the property before MySpace, and its parent company eUniverse (now renamed ‘Intermix’), were bought in July 2005 for US$580 million by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (the parent company of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises). Of this amount, approx. US$327m has been attributed to the value of MySpace according to the financial adviser fairness opinion.

In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of MySpace in a bid to "tap into the UK music scene"[14] which they have since done. They also released it in China and will possibly launch it in other countries.[15]

The corporate history of MySpace as well as the status of Tom Anderson as a MySpace founder has been a matter of some public dispute.
Contents of a MySpace profile
Blurbs, blogs, multimedia

Profiles contain two standard "blurbs:" "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also contain an "Interests" section and a "Details" section. However, fields in these sections will not be displayed if members do not fill them in. Profiles also contain a blog with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. MySpace also supports uploading images. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image," the image that will be seen on the profile's main page, search page, and as the image that will appear to the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. Flash, such as on MySpace's video service, can be embedded. Also there is a "details" section which allows the user to provide personal information on the user such as his/her race, religion, sexual orientation.
Comments

Below the User's Friends Space (by default) is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments for all viewers to read. MySpace users have the option to delete any comment and/or require all comments to be approved before posting. If a user's account is deleted, every comment left on other profiles by that user will be deleted, and replaced with the comment saying "This Profile No Longer Exists."
Profile customization (HTML)

MySpace allows users to customize their user profile pages by entering HTML (but not JavaScript) into such areas as "About Me," "I'd Like to Meet," and "Interests." Videos, and flash-based content can be included this way. Users also have the option to add music to their profile pages via MySpace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs for use on MySpace.

A user can also change the general appearance of his page by entering CSS (in a element) into one of these fields to override the page's default style sheet using MySpace editors. This is often used to tweak fonts and colors, but it has its limitations due to poorly-structured HTML used on the profile page. The fact that the user-added CSS is located in the middle of the page (rather than being located in the element) means that the page will begin to load with the default MySpace layout before abruptly changing to the custom layout. A special type of modification is a div overlay, where the default layout is dramatically changed by hiding default text with
tags and large images.

There are several independent web sites offering MySpace layout design utilities which let a user select options and preview what their page will look like with them.

MySpace has recently added its own "Profile Customizer" to the site, allowing users to change their profile through MySpace. Using this feature bypasses the CSS loading delay issue, as the MySpace default code is changed for the customized profile.
Music

MySpace profiles for musicians are different from normal profiles in that artists are allowed to upload up to six MP3 songs. The uploader must have rights to use the songs (e.g their own work, permission granted, etc). Unsigned musicians can use MySpace to post and sell music, which has proven popular among MySpace users.
MySpace features
Bulletins

Bulletins are posts that are posted on to a "bulletin board" for everyone on a MySpace user's friends list to see. Bulletins can be useful for notifying an entire, but usually a portion of the friends list (depending on how many friends are added), without resorting to messaging users individually. Some users choose to use Bulletins as a service for delivering chain messages about politics, religion, or anything else and sometimes these chain messages are considered threatening to the users, especially the ones that mention bad luck, death, or topics similar to that.[16] They have also become the primary attack point for phishing. Bulletins are deleted after ten days.
Groups

MySpace has a Groups feature which allows a group of users to share a common page and message board. Groups can be created by anybody, and the moderator of the group can choose for anyone to join, or to approve or deny requests to join.
MySpaceIM

Main article: MySpaceIM

In early 2006, MySpace introduced MySpaceIM, an instant messenger that uses one's MySpace account as a screen name. A MySpace user logs in to the client using the same e-mail associated with his or her MySpace account. Unlike other parts of MySpace, MySpaceIM is stand-alone software for Microsoft Windows. Users who use MySpaceIM get instant notification of new MySpace messages, friend requests, and comments.
MySpaceTV

In early 2007, MySpace introduced MySpaceTV, a YouTube look-alike video sharing website.
MySpace Mobile

There are a variety of environments in which users can access MySpace content on their mobile phone. American mobile phone provider Helio released a series of mobile phones in early 2006 that can utilise a service known as MySpace Mobile to access and edit one's profile and communicate with, and view the profiles of, other members.[17] Additionally, UIEvolution and MySpace developed a mobile version of MySpace for a wider range of carriers, including AT&T[18], Vodafone[19] and Rogers Wireless[20].
MySpace News

In the month of April 2007, MySpace launched a news service called MySpace News which displays news from RSS feeds that users submit. It also allows users to rank each news story by voting for it. The more votes a story gets, the higher the story moves up the page.
MySpace Classifieds

Full service classifieds listing offered beginning in August 2006. Has grown by 33 percent in one year since inception.[21]
Controversy over corporate history
Spam/Tom Anderson PR

In September 2006, a lengthy article written by web journalist Trent Lapinski, "MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0", was published by the Silicon Valley gossip blog, Valleywag (a Gawker Media property). The article recounted a detailed corporate history of MySpace, alleging that MySpace was not organically grown from Tom Anderson's garage, but rather was a product developed by eUniverse aimed at overtaking Friendster, and that had initially gained popularity through an intensive mass internet campaign and not by word of mouth.[22] Amongst other claims was the assertion that Tom Anderson had originally been hired as a copyeditor and his "founder" and "first friend" status was a public relations invention. Lapinski suggested that News Corp. had attempted to suppress the publication of the history by threatening his original publisher.
Brad Greenspan / The MySpace Report

In October 2006, Brad Greenspan (the former Chairman, CEO and largest individual shareholder of Intermix Media, who claims to be the true "founder of MySpace") launched a website and published "The MySpace Report" that called for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the United States Department of Justice and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance to investigate News Corp's acquisition of MySpace as "one of the largest merger and acquisition scandals in U.S. history."[23] The report's main allegation is that News Corp. should have valued MySpace at US$20 billion rather than US$327 million, and had, in effect, defrauded Intermix shareholders through an unfair deal process.[24] The report received a mixed response from financial commentators in the press.[25] An initial lawsuit led by Greenspan challenging the acquisition was dismissed by a judge.[26]

Greenspan's report also states that the MySpace program code had originally been the brainchild of an Intermix/eUniverse programmer named Toan Nguyen who made the breakthrough technical contributions to the project.[27]

Valleywag speculated that Greenspan was likely a key source for Lapinski's September article, "MySpace founder accuses company of defrauding investors of $20 billion."
Criticism
Customer Service

To compound potential issues, MySpace has no customer service telephone number readily available for the public,[28] and contacting them for help via any other available corporate phone numbers rarely yields substantial results.
Accessibility and reliability

Because most MySpace pages are designed by individuals with little HTML experience, a very large proportion of pages do not satisfy the criteria for valid HTML or CSS laid down by the W3C. Poorly formatted code can cause accessibility problems for those using software such as screen readers.[29] The MySpace home page, as of December 27, 2007, fails HTML validation with 117 errors, using the W3C's validator.[30]

Furthermore, MySpace is set up so that anyone can customise the layout and colors of their profile page with virtually no restrictions, provided that the advertisements are not covered up by CSS or using other means. As MySpace users are usually not skilled web developers, this can cause further problems. Poorly constructed MySpace profiles could potentially freeze up web browsers due to malformed CSS coding, or as a result of users placing many high bandwidth objects such as videos, graphics, and Flash in their profiles (sometimes multiple videos and sound files are automatically played at the same time when a profile loads). PC World cited this as its main reason for naming MySpace as #1 in its list of twenty-five worst web sites ever.[31]

In addition, new features have been gradually added (see featuritis). This, and the increasing number of MySpace members, leads to an increase in bandwidth used. This increase in usage often slows down the servers and may result in a "Server Too Busy" error message for some users who are on at peak hours, "Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred. This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group," or a variety of any other error messages throughout the day.[32]
Security

In October 2005, a flaw in MySpace's site design was exploited by 'Samy' to create the first self-propagating cross-site scripting (XSS) worm. MSNBC has reported that "social-networking sites like MySpace are turning out to be hotbeds for spyware", with "[i]nfection rates are on the rise, in part thanks to the surging popularity of social-networking sites like MySpace.com."[33] In addition to this, the customization of user pages currently allows the injection of certain HTML which can be crafted to form a phishing user profile, thus keeping the myspace.com domain as the address.[34] More recently, there has been spam on bulletins that has been the result of phishing.[35] Users find their MySpace homepage with bulletins they didn't post, realizing later they had been phished. The bulletin consists of an advertisement that provides a link to a fake login screen, tricking people into typing in their MySpace e-mail and password.

Other security fears regarding profile content itself are also present. For example, the embedding of videos inherently allows all of the format's abilities and functions to be used on a page. A prime example of this surfaced in December 2006, when embedded QuickTime videos were shown to contain hyperlinks to JavaScript files, which would be run simply by a user visiting a 'phished' profile page, or even in some cases by simply viewing a user's 'about me' elsewhere on the site. Users who entered their login information into a fake login bar that appeared would also become 'phished', and their account would be used to spam other members, thus spreading this security problem.[36]

In April 2007, a house in the United Kingdom was wrecked by gatecrashers storming a party after reading an invite for it on MySpace. The party caused an estimated £20,000[37]-£25,000[38] worth of damage, forcing the family to move out after graffiti was sprayed on walls and light fixtures were ripped out. Rachel Bell, the organizer of the party, claimed that her account was hacked and she only expected a small number of people to turn up. The resulting situation required several police cars and a dog-handling unit in order to restore peace.[39]
Child safety

The minimum age to register an account on MySpace is 14.[40] Profiles with ages set to 14 or 15 years are automatically private. Users whose ages are set at 16 or over have the option to restrict their profiles and the option of allowing certain personal data to be restricted to people other than those on their friends list. Accessing the full profile of, or messaging someone when their account is set to "private" (or if under sixteen) is restricted to a MySpace user's direct friends.

MySpace will delete these profiles if the victim verifies their identity and points out the profile via e-mail.[41]

Recently, MySpace has been the focus of a number of news reports stating that teenagers have found ways around the restrictions set by MySpace, and have been the target of online predators.[42] In response, MySpace has given assurances to parents that the website is safe for people of all ages. Beginning in late June 2006, MySpace users whose ages are set over 18 could no longer be able to add users whose ages are set from 14 to 15 years as friends unless they already know the user's full name or email address.[43] Some third party Internet safety companies like Social Shield[44] have launched online communities for parents concerned about their child's safety on MySpace.

In June 2006, 16-year-old American Katherine Lester flew to the Middle East, to Tel Aviv, Israel, after having tricked her parents into getting her a passport in order to be with a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace.[45] U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home.

In December 2006, MySpace announced new measures to protect children from known sex offenders. Although precise details were not given they said that "tools" would be implemented to prevent known sex offenders from the USA creating a MySpace profile.[46]

In February 2007, a U.S. District Judge in Texas dismissed a case when a family sued MySpace for negligence, fraud and misrepresentation; a girl in the family had been sexually assaulted by a man she met through MySpace, after she had misrepresented her age as 18 when she was 13. Regarding his dismissal of the case, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks wrote: "If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace."[47]

In July 2007, the company found and deleted 29000 profiles belonging to registered sex offenders.[48] Hardline anti-pedophile organization Perverted Justice has praised Myspace for its efforts to combat pedophiles using their service.[49]

In October 2007, a study published in the Journal of Adolescence conducted by Sameer Hinduja (Florida Atlantic University) and Justin W. Patchin (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) concluded that most adolescents use MySpace responsibly: "When considered in its proper context, these results indicate that the problem of personal information disclosure on MySpace may not be as widespread as many assume, and that the overwhelming majority of adolescents are responsibly using the website," they say.[50]
Social and cultural

Dave Itzkoff, in the June 2006 Playboy magazine, related his experiences of experimentation with membership in MySpace. Among his other criticisms, one pertains to the distance afforded by the Internet that emboldens members, such as females who feature photos of themselves in scant clothing on their profile pages or behave in ways they would not in person, and he indicated that this duplicity undercuts the central design of MySpace, namely, to bring people together. Itzkoff also referenced the addictive, time-consuming nature of the site, mentioning that the Playboy Playmate and MySpace member Julie McCullough, who was the first to respond to his add-friend request, pointedly referred to the site as "cybercrack". Itzkoff argued that MySpace gives many people access to a member’s life, without giving the time needed to maintain such relationships and that such relationships do not possess the depth of in-person relationships.

Furthermore, in terms of MySpace's potential for underhanded commercial exploitation, Itzkoff is particularly critical of the disturbing and fraudulent behavior of people who can contact a member, unsolicited, as when he was contacted by someone expressing a desire to socialize and date, but whose blog (to which Itzkoff was directed via subsequent emails) was found to be a solicitation for a series of commercial porn sites. Itzkoff is similarly critical of the more subtle commercial solicitations on the site, such as the banner ads and links to profiles and video clips that turn out to be, for example, commercials for new 20th Century Fox films. He also observed that MySpace’s much-celebrated music section is heavily weighted in favor of record labels rather than breakthrough musicians.

In relating criticism from another person, whom Itzkoff called "Judas," he illustrated that, while the goal of attempting to bring together people who might not otherwise associate with one another in real life may seem honorable, MySpace inherently violates a social contract only present when people interact face-to-face, rendering, in his opinion, the website nothing more than a passing fad:
“ There will come a moment when, like deer quivering and flicking up their ears toward a noiseless noise in the woods, the first adopters will suddenly realize they’re spending their time blogging, adding, and gawking at the same alarming photos as an army of 14-year olds, and quick as deer, they’ll dash to the next trend. And before you know it, we’ll all follow.[51] ”
Politics

* Many political organizations have created Myspace accounts to keep in touch with and expand their membership base. These range from larger organizations like Greenpeace and the ACLU to smaller locally focused environmentalist groups and Food Not Bombs activists.
* Several historical political figures (from Napoleon to George Washington to Herbert Marcuse) have had accounts created to either raise awareness about their role in history or perhaps sometimes to behave more in jest as if those historical figures were actually posting messages and adding friends, etc.
* Many hopeful 2008 presidential candidates have set up MySpace profiles, presumably in an effort to snare younger voters. Most profiles feature photos, blogs, videos, and ways for viewers to get involved with campaigning. MySpace features these politicians' profiles on its front page in the "Cool New People" section, on what appears to be a random rotation.

Censorship

Activist group MoveOn.org has criticized MySpace, claiming that the website practices censorship by not showing anti-media ads, removing fake profiles for high-profile media executives like Rupert Murdoch, and allegedly attempting to force users away from using third-party flash applications on their profiles.[52]
Stalking

According to Alison Kiss, program director for Security on Campus, social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook have made it easier for stalkers who target women on college campuses.[53]
MySpace China

The Chinese version of MySpace, launched in April of 2007, has many censorship-related differences from other international versions of the service. Discussion forums on topics such as religion and politics are absent, and a filtering system that prevents the posting of content about Taiwan independence, the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong, and other "inappropriate topics" has been added.[54] Users are also given the ability to report the "misconduct" of other users for offenses including "endangering national security, leaking state secrets, subverting the government, undermining national unity, and spreading rumors or disturbing the social order."[55]

See also: Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

International sites

Since early 2006, MySpace has offered the option to access the service in different regional versions. The alternative regional versions present automated content according to locality (e.g. UK users see other UK users as "Cool New People," and UK oriented events and adverts, etc.), offer local languages other than English, or accommodate the regional differences in spelling and conventions in the English-speaking world (e.g. United States: "favorites," mm/dd/yyyy; the rest of the world: "favourites," dd/mm/yyyy).

Sites currently offered are:

* MySpace Global
* MySpace Australia
* MySpace Brazil (currently in beta)
* MySpace Canada (in English) (currently in beta)
* MySpace Canada (in French) (currently in beta)
* MySpace China (in Chinese) (currently in beta)
* MySpace Denmark
* MySpace France
* MySpace Finland
* MySpace Germany (currently in beta)
* MySpace Ireland
* MySpace Latin America (in Spanish) (currently in beta)
* MySpace Italy (currently in beta)
* MySpace Japan (currently in beta)
* MySpace Mexico (currently in beta)
* MySpace Netherlands
* MySpace New Zealand
* MySpace Spain (currently in beta)
* MySpace UK
* MySpace USA (in Spanish) (currently in beta)
* MySpace USA (in English) (this is, in fact, identical to the "global" site)

MySpace is also looking at expansion into India, Korea, Greece and South Africa.
Musicians' rights and MySpace Terms of Use Agreement

Until June 2006, there was a concern amongst musicians, artists, and bands on MySpace such as songwriter Billy Bragg owing to the fine print within the user agreement that read, "You hereby grant to MySpace.com a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services." The fine print brought particular concern as the agreement was being made with Murdoch's News Corporation. Billy Bragg brought the issue to the attention of the media during the first week of June 2006.[56] Jeff Berman, a MySpace spokesman swiftly responded by saying, "Because the legalese has caused some confusion, we are at work revising it to make it very clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist's work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends."

By June 27, 2006, MySpace had amended the user agreement with, "MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, 'Content') that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose."
Blocking

Many schools and public libraries in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Malaysia have restricted access to MySpace because it has become "such a haven for student gossip and malicious comments."[57]

A Catholic school in New Jersey has even prohibited students from using MySpace at home, an action made to protect students from online predators as claimed by the school, although experts questioned the legality of such a ban. In Autumn 2005 Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta Township, New Jersey made headlines by forbidding its students to have pages on MySpace or similar websites or face suspension or expulsion, even if only using the website outside of school.[58][59][60]

On July 28, 2006, the United States House of Representatives passed a controversial bill requiring libraries and schools receiving certain types of federal funding (E-rate) to prevent unsupervised minors from using chat rooms and social networking websites, such as MySpace. This bill, known as the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 (DOPA), was approved by a 410-15 vote in the United States House of Representatives but was not brought to a vote in the United States Senate. Since the Congressional session of its introduction expired, the bill must be reintroduced in either chamber to be voted upon again.

Although schools and public libraries try to prevent the use of MySpace, they are not always successful; students have been known to use web proxies in order to log in to the site.

On July 31, 2007, a free MySpace blocker was announced by Solid Oak Software.
Legal issues

In May 2006, Long Island, New York teenagers Shaun Harrison and Saverio Mondelli were charged with illegal computer access and attempted extortion of MySpace, after both had allegedly hacked into the site to steal the personal information of MySpace users before threatening to share the secrets of how they broke into the website unless MySpace paid them $150,000. Both teens were arrested by undercover Los Angeles police detectives posing as MySpace employees.[61]

In April 2007, police in County Durham, United Kingdom, arrested a 17-year-old girl on charges of criminal damage following a party advertised on MySpace, held at her parents' house without their consent. Over 200 teenagers came to the party from across the country, causing £20,000[62]-£25,000[63] of damage, such as cigarette butts, urine on clothing, and writing on the walls. The girl's parents, who were away at the time, had to move out of the house.[64][65]
Celebrities on MySpace

Some MySpace users have enjoyed a degree of fame due to their accounts. One example is Christine "ForBiddeN" Dolce's appearance on The Tyra Banks Show and her own Playboy pictorial in the October 2006 issue. MySpace's music section has also helped many amateur bands progress. One illustrative example is English band Arctic Monkeys, who owe some of their success to the publicity that MySpace generated for them. When asked about the popularity of the band's MySpace website in an interview with Prefix magazine, the band pointed out that they did not even know what MySpace was, and that their page had originally been created by their fans. It has been claimed that pop artist Lily Allen's fame is also due in part to her being promoted on MySpace. In response to an interview question on Triple J, in which she was asked if she was 'discovered by MySpace', Allen stated, "Not accurate at all, I had a record deal before I set up my MySpace account so, erm, that's... couldn't really be further from the truth."[66] Other MySpace celebrities include Tila Tequila and Jeffree Star as well as newly renowned Chris Crocker.
YouTube

YouTube first appeared on the web in early 2005, and it quickly gained popularity on MySpace due to MySpace users' ability to embed YouTube videos in their MySpace profiles. Realising the competitive threat to the new MySpace Videos service, MySpace banned embedded YouTube videos from its user profiles. MySpace users widely protested the ban, prompting MySpace to lift the ban shortly thereafter. But since then, links from each embedded video on MySpace to the home pages of the video on YouTube have been blocked making it more difficult to find the same videos on YouTube's website.[67]

Since then YouTube has become one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web,[68] outgrowing MySpace's reach according to Alexa Internet.[69] In July 2006 several news organisations reported that YouTube had overtaken MySpace.[70] In a September 2006 investor meeting, News Corp. COO Peter Chernin claimed that virtually all modern Web applications (naming YouTube, Flickr, and Photobucket) were really just "driven off the back of MySpace" and that "we ought to be able to match them if not exceed them."[71]

Why parents must mind MySpace

Posting too much information on social networking sites may be dangerous

By Rob Stafford
Correspondent
NBC News


Rob Stafford is back with another report on the popular social networking site, MySpace.com, which has made headlines recently since several sex crimes have been connected to the site. In the multi-part report, "Dateline" follows a police officer who assumes a fake identity, engages in online conversations with young teens, and then shares with their parents what he has found. Airs April 9, 7 p.m. on NBC. The report, below, aired Dateline Friday, Jan. 27, 9 p.m.

You may never have heard of MySpace.com, but it's a safe bet, your kids have.

It's a social networking sites — sort of a cyber combination of a yearbook, personal diary and social club. The biggest of them is MySpace.com. With more than 50 million members, its one of the fastest growing Web sites in the country.

Shannon Sullivan, teenager: Everyone has a MySpace and everyone wants a My Space.

It’s free, easy to join, and easy to message its members. Kids chat about everything from school, to sports, to fundraisers for Katrina victims. It all seems like innocent fun, and it can be. But many parents and teens are unaware there are hidden dangers.

Shannon Sullivan: I honestly just thought it was my friends looking at it

Which is why Shannon disclosed so much on her space. She put her name, her address, and where she went to school— everything about how to find Shannon was on that site.

Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: Were you worried about doing that?

Shannon Sullivan: I didn’t think twice about it.

Shannon did think twice about something else: The rules on my space say you’re supposed to be at least 14 years old.

Stafford: How old did you say you were?

Shannon Sullivan: I think it was 18.

Stafford: You think it was 18?

Sullivan: I was 13 at the time.

Shannon’s mother Margaret happens to run the computer system at a private grammar school. She has parental controls on her home computer, and several months ago, MySpace popped up on one of the reports Margaret gets on the Web sites Shannon has visited.

Margaret Sullivan: I was just very upset. Somebody looking for a kid could find a kid very easily.

Stafford: Had you ever heard of it?

Margaret Sullivan: No.

She was stunned by what Shannon revealed and found the sites of other kids far more revealing.

Margaret Sullivan: I found all kinds of pictures of kids in revealing positions, and pictures of kids scantily dressed.

It’s a cyber secret teenagers keep from tech-challenged parents who are not as savvy as Margaret. It’s a world where the kids next door can play any role they want. They may not realize everyone with Internet access, including sexual predators, may see the pictures and personal information they post.

When “Dateline” surfed MySpace, we found scenes of binge drinking, apparent drug use, teens posing in underwear, and other members simulating sex, and in some cases even having it. We also found less provocative pages like Shannon’s was, but potentially even more dangerous. Teens listed not only their names, and addresses, but even cell phone numbers and after school schedules.

Parry Aftab, Internet lawyer and safety expert: [It’s] one stop shopping for sexual predators, and they can shop by catalogue.

Internet lawyer Parry Aftab started the Web site wiredsafety.org, and her safety tips appear on MySpace.com.

Stafford: Do parents have any idea what some kids are posting on these sites?

Aftab: Parents are clueless. They’re caught like deer in the headlights.

Aftab educates parents and kids about the dangers lurking on the Web.

Aftab: Pedophiles are using all of the social networking sites. And every other anonymous Internet technology to find kids. The social networking sites are where kids are.

Aftab says even kids who don’t list their name and address can provide enough personal information— such as the kinds of bands and boys they love— for a pedophile to use to con their way into their lives.

Aftab: If someone knows you "like pina coladas and walks in the rain," it’s very easy online to be exactly what it is you’re looking for— to be your “soul mate.”

Stafford: Who might happen to be a 40 year old predator?

Aftab: Absolutely. The teens just don’t get it. To them, they’re talking to a computer monitor.They’re playing in an area where they don’t recognize the consequences.

In the last month, authorities have charged at least three men with sexually assaulting teenagers they found through MySpace.com and just this week police found a missing 15-year-old girl who investigators say was sexually assaulted by a 26-year-old man she met through the site. MySpace members are now warning each other about the danger of sharing information online.

Aftab says parents need to find out what their kids are sharing.

Aftab: Say to your kids, “I’d like to see your profile page tomorrow.” It’s important that you give them a day to clean up their page. That will be the last time you give them warning.

Then Aftab says look at their site: Are the pictures provocative? Their profiles too detailed? Who are they talking to? And perhaps most important— have they kept their profiles private, protected by a password, to keep strangers out?

MySpace.com would not agree to an on-camera interview but did tell “Dateline” via e-mail that it prohibits posting personal information and has a team that searches for and removes both underage users and offensive material. MySpace said it does not pre-screen the content of its more than 50 million members, but encourages all of them to exercise caution.

Shannon Sullivan’s safety lesson came from her mom who grounded her from the Internet for two weeks.

Stafford: And six months ago you had no idea this was a danger?

Shannon Sullivan: Six months ago, I thought it was just another place you can to on the computer.

Stafford: And you were 18 back then?

Shannon Sullivan: Yes. (laughs)

Her mother, Margaret, did something Aftab says too many parents are afraid to do: take control of their child’s computer.

Aftab: They’re afraid of their kids. They somehow think because technology is involved, they’re no longer the parent. Get real. You’re the parent. If you don’t like it, unplug the computer. If they don’t follow your rules, no Internet at all. If you’re not the parent and if you’re not going to step in, no Web site on earth is going to be able to help your child be safe.

Powered By Blogger