The News and the Internet

[Homer]

Just about every week or so, some news channel always have to do some report on MySpace. Yes, I know the internet has some creepy people on and with that some creepy sites. But this just makes me pissed...

 

Well, I was just microwaving up my dinner and my grandmother was watching those 20/20 news shows on ABC. So anyways, the show was discussing about MySpace. During this story, the parents were basically snooping around their daughters computer and looking at her internet history on MySpace. They took a look at her page and then they were kept in shock and awe when they saw an old blog post on her Space.

 

The old blog post was basically saying goodnight to one of her MySpace friends and the news totally flips out over this...

 

*hugz*

 

... thats it. The news basically overhypes one little "*hugz*". Certainly, I doubt she would try to meet up with this schmoe. Sure, I have never meet one person from the net before, but I have treated them as equally as my real life friends (without the internet acronyms). But the news flips out on something as small as that...

 

I would be more astonished if it were;

 

"A/S/L?"

"lmirl" (lets meet in real life)

etc.

 

But the news flips out over the stupidest crap ever. That and another story, this time regarding Nintendo Wi-Fi connection and the game Animal Crossing: Wild World. A news station in Philadelphia kept saying this was another way Pedos could talk to kids. They flip out because Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime: Hunters are games that you can chat with people online.

 

But you can't talk with strangers unless you both have "friend codes". Certainly I don't see kids meeting up with a pedo in real life for a friend code exchange. Sure, I know there are sites (such as DSMeet) in which you could exchange your friend codes for challenges. But the odds of meeting with a pedo on Nintendo Wi-Fi are slim to none. Well, thats our stupid, overhyping press...

 

Anybody else pissed off at exaggerated press?

[Luxo]

Ha, my parents were watching a thing on 60 Minutes about MySpace/Internet Safety, and they beat me down with all kinds of ridiculous questions. I spend my time mostly on TPR and other coaster/RCT websites, and they know that. It's just when this report came up, they completely changed.

 

I'm not even old enough to have a myspace account.

[Patrick]

I must be lucky. My parents never cared.

[Blue0ctane]

I'm lucky enough to have trusting parents, who mercifully gave me my laptop back after two weeks after they found my porn history.

[Movieguy]

It's just the way of the world. Anything that's identified with youth culture, that's distinctly used among young people, like rock music or video games, is going to be labelled as dangerous or even degenertative in some cases among the older generations who can't understand these things. And you always fear what you don't understand.

 

Yes, there are creeps out there who misuse the world wide web to fulfill those twisted desires, but more often than not, creeps like them can be very easy to sniff out and thus avoid. I don't know about other people, but the minute anybody I know online starts insisting we meet in real life, I immediately become suspicious.

[Wes]

You thought it was nothing, but *hugz*="i am going to come to your house and rape you" on myspace.