ClubSpace
Youth centers grapple with MySpace:
In something out of a modern-day “West Side Story,” two teenagers from rival schools used MySpace after school at the local Boys and Girls Club of America to “cyberbully” other kids.
So six months ago, the club, located in San Francisco’s Mission District, decided to ban member access to the popular social network in the hope of thwarting threats of violence among teens on their personal MySpace pages.
Several other BGCA around the San Francisco Bay Area have banned MySpace too in recent months.
All that banning is, surprisingly, OK with MySpace’s top security executive. Hemanshu Nigam, who was hired in May to be chief security officer of News Corp.-owned MySpace. Nigam responded to the news by saying that the company endorses setting policies that let students explore the Web responsibly and safely.
“In our view, how that’s done should be left up to each individual community and we make ourselves available to help them find that balance,” he wrote in an e-mail.
But at other BGCA clubs, MySpace has touched off a debate less black and white. Some technology directors say that the hazards of social networks are often possible with or without the Internet or networking sites. And if kids are determined to visit MySpace, they’ll find a way, perhaps without adult supervision. According to one line of thought, by allowing access to the site, community tech directors have an opportunity to supervise kids and teach them the etiquette and skills necessary for their futures in a high-tech world.
“Here they have to be 14 to go on MySpace (which is the site’s policy) and they’re supervised at all times. Otherwise, they’ll sneak and go somewhere to use it where they’re not supervised,” said Manny Oronsaye, the technical director at another BGCA in San Francisco, which has not banned the site.
Reena Burton, education and tech director at BGCA in a downtown San Francisco neighborhood known as the Tenderloin, reversed her decision to ban MySpace for the same reason.
“We banned it and then we realized that the kids were going to go on somewhere else, so we kind of decided to let the teens go on while they’re here, and understand how to be safe on it,” Burton said.
Brian Hill, a representative at the BGCA headquarters in Atlanta, said that the organization’s mission is to provide a safe place for kids online and offline. But because each club is independently owned and operated, it does not have policy mandates or specific information about how each club is handling social-network issues. Still, BGCA does offer guidance to its various units.
“We do provide a Web site, YNet, which is public and secure. It is fully monitored by adult staff to ensure proper behavior,” Hill said.
The secure youth site, which offers chat services and bulletin boards, verifies membership among kids before allowing social networking features. It launched late last year.
“This is our little way to give them social networking features,” Hill added.
As for Columbus Park BGCA, Barajas said that it is currently scouting around for technology to block access to MySpace and is planning a meeting this summer with local parents to educate them about MySpace usage.
“If kids are using MySpace at clubs, at home is where they’re creating their pages,” she said.
I thought kids went to these clubs so they wouldn’t be sitting in a computer all day?
Anyway since common sense is in a drought these days it’s ultimately the parents’ responsibility to make sure whether or not their kids are getting on MySpace or not.
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