A question of responsibility
Feb. 27th, 2006 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stargaterBecause all I've been hearing lately seems to be about the safety issues stemming from websites like MySpace and Facebook, I feel prompted to share my opinion. Do I agree that there is a problem with the amount of personal information that people are sharing online in such communities? Yes. The news has been running rampant with how these sites need to be shut down and action must be taken immediately to protect people.
However, I don’t necessarily believe that it is the websites fault 100%, should they have warnings of such dangers? Of course, but do people read them when they are present? No. Is a 10 year old going to lie to sign up for a site that says 14 and over? Sure. There really isn’t much more they can do, it’s left in the users and the parents hands after that.
Adults of course should be fully capable of deciding what to and not to share, though it's where children/adolescents are concerned that seems to be where the problem lies. Understandably so, I wouldn't want my kids to be putting all sorts of stuff like that out there for any Joe Blow to read. It can't be reasonable to stick all sorts of personal info on a webpage and think that other people aren't going to look at it and possibly take advantage of it. Here's the kicker though, parents need to actually parent their children and know and be involved with what's going on in their kids' lives. If a child is sharing sensitive information, they need to be instructed on the dangers of it and taught what is right and wrong from the start.
Time and technology may have changed but the dangers are still the same, just now it may be a bit more easily accessible. For example, when you were 10 years old, you wouldn’t walk up to some stranger on the street and announce your age, school, hobbies, address, phone # etc… so why would you put it on the internet? Parents just need to be aware of what their kids are doing, don’t blame the website because they put all their personal info on it instead you should be more concerned about why they didn’t know better in the first place. It all comes down to responsibility again, it just seems to me that no one wants to be responsible for their own actions anymore, they just want to blame others and go on. Sigh.
However, I don’t necessarily believe that it is the websites fault 100%, should they have warnings of such dangers? Of course, but do people read them when they are present? No. Is a 10 year old going to lie to sign up for a site that says 14 and over? Sure. There really isn’t much more they can do, it’s left in the users and the parents hands after that.
Adults of course should be fully capable of deciding what to and not to share, though it's where children/adolescents are concerned that seems to be where the problem lies. Understandably so, I wouldn't want my kids to be putting all sorts of stuff like that out there for any Joe Blow to read. It can't be reasonable to stick all sorts of personal info on a webpage and think that other people aren't going to look at it and possibly take advantage of it. Here's the kicker though, parents need to actually parent their children and know and be involved with what's going on in their kids' lives. If a child is sharing sensitive information, they need to be instructed on the dangers of it and taught what is right and wrong from the start.
Time and technology may have changed but the dangers are still the same, just now it may be a bit more easily accessible. For example, when you were 10 years old, you wouldn’t walk up to some stranger on the street and announce your age, school, hobbies, address, phone # etc… so why would you put it on the internet? Parents just need to be aware of what their kids are doing, don’t blame the website because they put all their personal info on it instead you should be more concerned about why they didn’t know better in the first place. It all comes down to responsibility again, it just seems to me that no one wants to be responsible for their own actions anymore, they just want to blame others and go on. Sigh.
