The MySpace phenomenon has taken a storm of a dozen prepubescent teens and adults, who can’t grow out of their teens, logging in and out frantically looking for a new reason to get more addicted than they already are. To think that originally the only method of communicating with one who was out of touch was to make sure you had his/her phone number and address. Oh, those were the days! Originally, MySpace’s new innovative ideals genuinely promoted the concept of making new friends and keeping in touch (k.i.t.ing, for all you nerd speakers out there) with your brand spankin’ new friends from across the country or even better, the world. Now, things have gotten so distorted and MySpace’s true benefits and intentions have been abused and misused!

MySpace’s distinct features, from any different website, allow users to view MySpace accounts before adding someone. In defense of a MySpace profile, private profiles can be enabled and padded with the security option to render the viewer unable to view any pictures and comment the user and any of their pictures. These safeguards are opted to prevent any sort of cyber stalking or lurking to occur, but to some avail, these dwellers of the cyber realm have found more innovative and sneaky ways to bypass such security breaches.

In a method to prevent such actions to succeed, Attorney General Bill McCollum of Florida, and 48 other state attorneys general and the District of Columbia have reached an agreement with MySpace to further enhance the safety of the popular social networking site. The agreement includes many design and policy changes that will better protect youth from harmful images and unwanted contact from adults. According to McCollum’s press release on January 24th, MySpace agreed to “making the default setting ‘private’ for profiles of 16- and 17-year-olds and creating a closed ‘high school’ section for users under 18. MySpace will also compile a registry of email addresses provided by parents who want to restrict their child’s access to the site, and the company will prohibit anyone using a submitted email address from signing in or creating a profile.” Furthermore, MySpace has agreed to “strengthening its software identifying underage users, retaining a contractor to better identify and expunge inappropriate images, obtain and constantly update a list of pornographic web sites and regularly sever any links between those sites and MySpace, implement changes making it harder for adults to contact children and respond within 72 hours to inappropriate content complaints,” as stated in McCollum’s press release.

Can you imagine the monsters in the elite groups of MySpace gurus wailing at the sight of their friends list dwindling down due to the new actions that will take place by MySpace?! I could already hear the crunching of the keyboards against their faces to make an attempt against the “Almighty Tom” to reconsider such unimaginable and despicable acts.

Though, I admit I am a bit skeptical of the plan executing successfully, this effort surely will do MySpace some justice to its drama-infested playground that 9 year-olds love wreaking havoc upon with their text induced terminology. And with that, we can already hear the far cry from a sting operation on a 40 year-old posing as a 12 year-old.