ROGERS — MySpace, Xanga and Facebook are online communities where teens and young adults like to vent their emotions, chat with friends, and even store music and photos.
But the Web sites are also a sexual predator's dream, with information about where young people live, go to school and even what colors they like, warns Kelley Cradduck, public information officer for the Rogers Police Department. "I've been getting several calls from parents about their children being approached from several people that the parents believe are adults," Cradduck said. He said the adults can arm themselves with information and use that to manipulate children. "If I were a parent, I would be extremely concerned about my children using it," Cradduck said.
Patrick Calvas, a senior at Pea Ridge High School, said the vast majority of his friends use Xanga, which is why he started posting an online journal and chatting with his friends on it. He said the online community is much cheaper than calling longdistance to friends in nearby Bentonville and Rogers.
Calvas said he is the only one able to view about half the information he posted to the Web site, and the rest is public. "It's like instant messaging but slower and you don't have to worry about the noises" that signal an incoming message, he said. Calvas also subscribed to receive daily e-mails from his friend's posts.
Emily Washburn, a sophomore at Rogers High School Sophomore Campus, said she and her friends are aware of the potential dangers of publicly posting their information. "You never give out your real information," said the 16-year-old who uses Xanga and Facebook. "I don't talk to anybody I don't know."
Her classmate Sarah Davis said she won't list her hometown when chatting in a public room on MySpace or another local online community, but she says her parents still worry about it.
A student was dismissed from John Brown University earlier this year for posting comments about his sexual orientation on Xanga and photographs of himself dressed in drag on Facebook. "They tried to make my whole Facebook profile look like a personals ad looking for sex. There is a section that asks if you are interested in men or women. Those are the only options, and I decided to be honest and answer ‘ men, '" Guinn told the Siloam Springs Herald Leader earlier this year.
If parents let their children use the online communities, Cradduck said they should monitor their children's posts and alert the police of anything criminal.
Policies vary between the online sites. MySpace. com forbids street addresses, telephone numbers, pornography and last names, though some users still slip in the information. Xanga. com only forbids pornography and tells its users their information will be used by Xanga's marketing affiliates. Facebook. com is intended to connect college students and encourages its users to post photos.
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