In Kevin Alexander’s essay Myspace Not Responsible for Predators, Alexander writes that sexual predators will strike anywhere. The fact that MySpace is around for sexual predators to prey on people is merely a tool. Alexander believes that MySpace is not responsible for the predators because “there is no way to stop a determined predator, there is no way to stop a determined victim” (119). I see where he is coming from with this point because people are going to do what they want, despite the consequences. He uses an example of a lawsuit against the MySpace company because a 14 year old girl was raped by a guy she met on MySpace. The male allegedly lied about his age and convinced the girl to go on a date with him, where he raped her. Though this is a tragic event, I feel like it could have easily been avoided. Where were the girl’s parents while the communication (between the predator and the girl) was happening? And why in the world did her mother let her go out on a date with a guy she met on the internet? There have been internet sexual predators stories in the news since the internet was popular. Didn’t her parents watch the news at some point? Let’s think about all the places the mother went wrong here: she didn’t teach her daughter about the dangers of cyberspace, she didn’t monitor her daughter’s internet usage or divulged information, she allowed her sweet teenage daughter to physically meet an older male (he claimed to be 19 but he was much older), and she is now playing the blame game by putting the blame on this website which has no control over mentally disturbed predators (120). This most definitely sends the wrong message to both her daughter, and the rest of the nation by shoving off the responsibility of to rape to an inanimate object: a website. The girl’s mother sued the company for not having sufficient security checks on the people who use it and their personal information. However, I believe there are more inherent problems here. Alexander makes very valid points about the parenting in this situation (well, lack thereof). While Alexander’s claims that MySpace is by no means “a babysitting service” (119), I believe the whole problem could have been avoided had the girl’s mother been more involved in what was happening. Maybe the issue here is age limit. How young is TOO young for usage of MySpace? Obviously (though extremely sad and unfortunate) this teenage girl found out the hard way. We should all be a little more careful with the internet…
Rottenberg, Annette T., and Donna Haisty. Winchell. Elements of Argument: a Text and Reader. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Print.
