Yes

by Daniel Hekman

Created on: January 28, 2012

MySpace - and much of life in general - is as safe or as dangerous as you make it. There are, of course, a non-trivial number of cases where teens and members of other age groups have gotten into trouble from what they put on MySpace. Some have undergone the horrible experience of abduction, or worse, but far more have merely had to deal with the consequences of earning a bad reputation on the internet. The questions are whether or not this a unique problem to MySpace and if MySpace encourages these negative outcomes either through malicious intent or irresponsible negligence.

I will begin with exploring the first question: are these risks-ranging from a bad internet reputation and the effects that can have on employability and social relationships to the risk of being the victim of truly heinous crimes like abduction-unique to MySpace? As a long-time blogger who's tried a number of different sites, there are two variables I see at play: accessibility and traffic volume. By accessibility, I'm referring to the ease in which strangers can access strangers' blogs. MySpace is one of the more open blogs around, as compared to Facebook or Blogspot, but sites like Xanga are considered both safe and as open, if not more open, than MySpace. Furthermore, the majority of Facebook users I've encountered don't take advantage of the so-called security settings. In terms of how MySpace stacks up against other internet sites, I have difficulty conceiving of a way in which MySpace is in any way more safe or more dangerous, in-and-of-itself. As far as traffic goes, MySpace is on the decline, but that is still the one thing that could possibly make MySpace more dangerous than Xanga, but it's certainly now less than Facebook. Although I could spend pages on the effects of traffic volume on incentives, that's getting out of scope. The short story is that an increase in volume tends to elicit greater care which more than compensates for the increased risk (that is still small) that a truly dangerous person is mixed into that traffic. For more perspective on this interplay of risks and reactions, I would recommend The Armchair Economist.

But is it possible that MySpace is just the posterchild for internet dangers generally - an unfortunate consequence of getting big first - and the internet as a whole is a dangerous place? While I find this more plausible than the claim that MySpace is more unsafe than Facebook or LiveJournal, again I have to disagree. My argument is that seeing a black swan does not mean all swans are black. Here's what I mean by that: just because something bad has happened - e.g. a child is tracked down based on their MySpace page or a Yahoo chat conversation and is abducted - does not mean that bad outcome is the normal outcome. In fact, the number of children or teens who have been kidnapped in the US is negligibly small as a percentage of population: less than 0.01%. As appalling as it is that the number isn't 0, the fact remains that most people, most of the time, behave in an amoral fashion when it comes to other people. How many of those exceptions are the result of MySpace or internet use in general is unknown, but regardless, it's a black swan and not a risk really worth losing sleep over. The vast majority of negative outcomes from MySpace and other social networking sites is reputation degradation, which is the result of people using poor judgement and irresponsibly posting content they shouldn't. 

This brings me to my next question: Is MySpace responsible for making sure its users don't post self-incriminating or self-damaging content? Are they in any way malicious or negligent for allowing users to write about how much they hate their boss or write racist propaganda? As damaging as these things can be - for both the writer and the reader - the staff requirements to police this behavior are prohibitively large for any organization, including major news networks, much less a free blogging site. The first amendment is a beautiful right, but it comes with responsibility attached to accept the consequences of your words. And the onus of that responsibility must fall on the individual benefactor of that right, not an outlet like social networking sites. This brings up a final question: are teens responsible enough to use social networking sites without playing with fire by posting their home address on their Facebook page or uploading racist videoblogs to MySpace? The obvious answer is that some are, and some aren't, just like adults.

So is MySpace safe? It's as safe as you, the user, make it. If your teen is mature enough to know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate, then congratulations, s/he is more mature than most adults! In any case, the risk of bodily harm resulting from social network interaction is slow low as can be safely ignored. Perhaps we should be having this discussion about whether or not it's safe for teens drive, since car crashes harm more teenagers and children more seriously than any social networking site ever could. Just remember that your First Amendment right comes with a responsibility and that slander has consequences; then blog away!

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