Website may be risk to kids

The Laguna Beach Police Department and the Laguna Beach Unified

School District have issued a joint warning to parents of school-age

children to protect them against websites that could foster

inappropriate contact with adults.

In a statement released last week, the school district named the

website o7MySpace.comf7, an online social forum, as one that has

caught the attention of the school district and police department.

“This is the part of law enforcement [in which] we prefer to

prevent it [rather] than react to it,” said Capt. Danell Adams.

Anyone who sets up a free account on MySpace can access and talk

with members from anywhere, and there is an option to run a search by

age and ZIP code, making it easy to locate minors in the Laguna Beach

area.

Although members must be 18 and older, the obstacle is easily

avoided. With one click of the mouse, a 14-year-old girl can become

18.

Police have been monitoring the website because there have been

concerns about inappropriate photographs of minors that are posted on

the site; adults who are accessing these photos have been interacting

with minors.

As reported in the Coastline Pilot in February, police said that

at least one sexual assault in Laguna has stemmed from a contact that

was made on MySpace.

When detectives find a Laguna Beach student registered on the

site, the police alert the child’s parents, Adams said.

“There seems to be still a great deal of unawareness on the part

of high school parents, whose kids have daily unsupervised access to

the Internet,” Adams said.

Laguna Beach Unified School District Board of Education President

Jan Vickers said the content on MySpace is “dark and sexualized,” and

parents need to take a role in what their children are viewing

online.

“If we don’t know what our kids are pulling up on MySpace, then

they won’t know that’s not normal,” Vickers said.

Vickers is the mother of a 13-year-old son and said at first she

worried about online predators, but now the pornographic content is

of equal concern.

“It’s some really heavy stuff,” Vickers said.

MySpace does have warnings posted on the website, including

Internet safety tips for parents and children.

“Parents should know that no one under the age of fourteen is

allowed to use our site,” according to a statement on MySpace. “While

we can’t always tell if someone is lying about their age, we try to

keep them off our site. If you discover that your child is posing as

someone older and using our site, please let us know. Its important

to us to help you keep your child safer online.” The website also

encourages parents and children to refer to o7wiredsafety.orgf7, a

website created by Internet privacy and security lawyer Parry Aftab.

Neither Aftab or MySpace could be reached for comment.

The online warnings are not enough to deter minors from viewing

user profiles on MySpace, Vickers said.

“I don’t know that a 14-year-old is going to pay attention to the

safety tips,” Vickers said. “They’re not supposed to be on there if

they’re not 18, but no one checks.”