MySpace browsing - #3

I had definitely forgotten about MySpace after being an avid user of Facebook for so long. Although I did have a MySpace in... middle school, or whenever it was popular, I didn't remember much of the site's content, layout, etc. just that it was another internet epidemic that my social group was into. Now, especially because of the emergence of Facebook and it's extreme popularity, MySpace seemed to have fallen off the grid a little. When mentioned by friends, television shows, or other sources, it seems to have more of a negative connotation than it did when I used it.

I refreshed familiarity with the site, viewing 15 random profiles; all profiles that were open to the public and that I can view without having a page myself.

The first interesting thing I encountered after clicking, "Browse People," was when I tried to refine my search. One cannot search for random people (at least in the simple search) who are under 18. This struck me as an interesting security measure. In relation to technopanic, this feature seems to address the idea that pedophiles are jumping on and searching for underage girls (granted, I know there are ways around this). When trying to click on underage friends of a 19-year-old girl, their profiles were unavailable because I was not a "friend."

I went on to clicking on interesting names and faces.

Keeping technopanic in mind, there were two common trends on the profiles I viewed. First, many profiles were spammed (or so it seemed) with comments from profiles with pornographic (or borderline pornographic) pictures. Pornography may not be everywhere on the Web, but it is certainly prevalent and easy to access, even accidentally, on MySpace. Next, these revealing pictures gained a lot of attention from men (I'm assuming strangers, but I could be wrong), who posted encouraging comments; thus acknowledging and egging on the behavior.

I do think some privacy settings have improved, but it is definitely a site that is still very much uncensored and may not be entirely suitable for many of its underage users.