Moving at the Speed of Creativity - Can’t be a 1906 MySpace user

Can’t be a 1906 MySpace user

Published by Wesley Fryer in isafety, socialnetworking on October 16th, 2006

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Well this is interesting, apparently the MySpace admins want to force people to list their correct age (at least birthyear) in their MySpace profiles.

Problem is, I DON’T WANT to list my correct birth year, not because I am under 18, but because I don’t want to receive “friend requests” from people targeting males in my age range.

I changed my listed age, but changed the year to 1935. Hopefully they’ll buy that and not make me change it again. I think the problem here is that the MySpace folks want to develop demographically accurate databases of user information they can use commercially and sell. MySpace is an advertising-driven environment, and that is one of the biggest problems with it overall in addition to the poor decisions members often make about what personal info to post and share.

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4 Comments »

C Nelson

Was that a screen shot?? Note the grammar in the request: “Please set you age correctly”
Makes me wonder about those that are checking up on this.
http://www.wesfryer.com Wesley Fryer

Yes, that was a screenshot of the message in MySpace.

Good catch on the grammar. I suppose this could be from a user masquerading as a MySpace admin, I don’t know. In either case they should know about the use of possessive pronouns like “your!”
http://www.womenofweb2.com Jennifer W

Grins — so a bit sensitive on our age Don’t worry, once you pass 45 (sadly I know this to be true) it doesn’t matter anymore. Plus, I still feel in my early 30s — so no biggie.

But all kidding aside — there is NO way that you can tell me that this is the way that MySpace will protect kids. Look how easy it was for you to fake a year — think how easy it will be for the kids under 18???

I believe that you are right — and it truly made me think that that is what our kids need to know as well — that in the world of the internet (not the world of the classroom) they are just a statistic, a tracking method, and a potential consumer — and because of that, they are looked at as only a potention $ and not a human being or someone that could get hurt, stalked, or more.

Something new for me to dwell on.

Jen
http://lady.strathconn.com Lady S

If they don’t want you to say you are that old, it shouldn’t be in the drop down menu of choices.