MySpace and Facebook
MySpace and Facebook are American based social networking websites offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos.
Please see our special MySpace and Facebook Parents' Surivival Guide.
MySpace profiles contain two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also contain an "Interests" section and a "Details" section. However, fields in these sections will not be displayed if members do not fill them in. Profiles also contain a blog with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. MySpace also supports uploading images. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image," the image that will be seen on the profile's main page, search page, and as the image that will appear to the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. Flash, such as on MySpace's video service, can be embedded. Also there is a "details" section which allows the user to provide personal information on the user such as his/her race, religion, and sexual orientation.
The MySpace user's Friends Space contains a count of a user's friends, a "Top Friends" area, and a link to view all of the user's friends. Users can choose a certain number of friends to be displayed on their profile in the "Top Friends" area. The "Top Friends" used to be restricted to eight friends, commonly called the "Top 8". People bypassed this limitation by using third-party tools to emulate a "Top X" friends. MySpace now allows four, eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty, or twenty-four friends to be displayed in the "Top Friends" area.
The minimum age to register an account on MySpace is 14. Profiles with ages set to 14 or 15 years are automatically private. Users whose ages are set at 16 or over have the option to restrict their profiles and the option of allowing certain personal data to be restricted to people other than those on their friends list. Accessing the full profile of, or messaging someone when their account is set to "private" (or if under sixteen) is restricted to a MySpace user's direct friends. However, this does not work as children can misrepresent their ages to bypass restrictions.
MySpace often has problems with profile identity theft. These are profiles containing the pictures and sometimes information of someone else's profile. These stolen profiles are commonly used to advertise websites. MySpace will delete these profiles if the victim verifies their identity and points out the profile via e-mail.
Facebook is another social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information.
