Myspace Mayberry RFD Barney Phife is on the prowl
Myspace "security" found this photo too "offensive" for me to use as a profile image. It "violated" their terms such as cyber-bullying (Do these idiots actually ever read ANY of the blogs on myspace?), terms such as violent images (Never mind that this is demonstrating the dangers of underestimating gang violence and showing how simple analysis works / oh, and especially never mind that there are THOUSANDS of Myspace sites out there with guns as layouts, gang flags and scenes as layouts, violent and bloody Gothic images as layouts and so on), and they also have terms against nudity.
Oh you mean like pictures of women stripping onstage, open mouthed incestuous kissing between a mother and daughter stripper and so on? A simple search engine using "burlesque" and "Myspace" turns up site after site after site.
Who are these IDIOTS working as Myspace security? Are they like the fat guys at the mall walking around like Barney Phife with their little flashlights and radios?
YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME.
Just do this. Google the word "Crip" and "Myspace" and see how many profiles you can find promoting the Crip lifestyle. You will find hundreds if not thousands. You can do that with any gang name.
So I have to wonder what was the motivation? Does Myspace have some gang member working as part of their "security team?" Why would they pick that image out of all the pseudo-porn, gang violent images, and death backgrounds to single out?
The Myspace blog I have promotes education about gang and other violence issues just like this one does. It promotes gang intervention and protecting young people from violence. But some idiot on their team decided that the above picture might be offensive. Can this jackass read?
There are pictures of underage kids drinking, running around barely clothed, and promoting gangsterism all over Myspace. Where are the security teams then?
Hmmm....one has to wonder. If they were to actually follow their own rules and delete every account that features such things, just how many profiles would they have left? Myspace exists not because someone "cares" so much about friends keeping in touch...its the advertising.
Get rid of hundreds or thousands of sites and your advertising potential goes away. Just like everything else you have to wonder just where money must figure into the picture.
I can tell you this. If Myspace wants to continue to make issues out of things that are meant to decrease violence and victimization of our youth and pick out those they feel won't fight back then they have a long road ahead.
Just like YouTube will take down material they consider offensive, like some fetish video where a woman steps on a bug yet they leave up thousands of jihadist videos featuring our soldiers getting blown up as entertainment you have to wonder what the motivation is really.
Oh but let's not forget Myspace has its terms. Its "security measures". You know like you have to be a certain age to have an account. No one would ever be able to lie on their profile though could they?
These "Mayberry" wannabe cops I suppose have to remove some things sometimes to actually look like they are doing their jobs. I just hope that the powers that be behind Myspace don't actually pay these idiots for their work.
I'm going to let this one go this time. But if I am harrassed again by these morons I will make it my personal mission to inundate their "report image violation" boxes. Wouldn't it suck for the Myspace "empire" to crumble due to all the porn, violence, and predatory opportunities they allow for child molesters to make CNN's headlines with a major lawsuit by a bunch of motivated concerned citizens?
One statistic from a couple of years ago mentioned that there are over 29,000 REGISTERED sex offenders on Myspace. What is Myspace doing allowing sex offenders to create Myspace accounts? These are the moronic sex offenders dumb enough to even get caught. Imagine how many other predators they have using Myspace as their personal shopping center for the rape of children.
It figures really. Someone tries to do the right thing, to do something good and there's always some SOB trying to throw a wrench into it. While allowing ungodly and unholy filth and violence to go on.
So Myspace if you want to become the new internet moral majority then you'd better be very sure of how in order your own house is.
Then "Nip it, nip it in the bud.
Myspace Security Teams Doing a Fine Job:
Myspace Investigations ...Just a few:
Sex, drugs, murder, terrorism...
Murder and Violence
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/03/tech/main1364880.shtml
Threats of mass shootings
http://blog.nola.com/updates/2008/02/jpso_investigates_my_space_thr.html
Child Molesters
http://www.knbc.com/news/7518830/detail.html
GANGS
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/277025_webgangs10.html
Street gangs using Internet for violent bragging rights
Masked hoodlums making threats at MySpace, other sites
The hoodlum in the photo holds a shotgun and claims to be a 17-year-old Tacoma gang member. He's draped in blue and uses "East Side Rebels" as his MySpace.com screen name, referring to a Tacoma street gang.
His Web page links to numerous others depicting self-described gangbangers from Seattle and Tacoma. They display photos of young men pointing guns at the cameras and flashing hand gang signs, some hiding their faces behind rags in gang colors or hoods.
One 20-year-old Tacoma man with a blue rag tied around his neck congratulates his friend online for beating up someone in a recent fight:
"I hope your hands feel a little better. I will get the video to you of what you did to that guy. Keep it up babe boy."
Street gangs nationwide are taking their turf wars online, using personal Web sites and social networking sites such as MySpace to showcase illegal exploits, make threats and honor killed or jailed members, The Associated Press recently reported.
"Net banging" is the term that authorities have coined for the trend.
Gabriel Morales, a Seattle-area specialist in gang culture who leads training sessions for law enforcement officers and at-risk youths, said gang members find the Web appealing for the same reasons child predators do -- one being it's difficult to police.
"Local kids are doing the same thing. It should be a concern for parents. Some of the stuff they're putting online could be harmful for their kids," Morales said.
"Sometimes they get on there and start dissing each other on the Net, and that can lead to real violence. That's another concern."
George Knox, director of the National Gang Crime Research Center, said he has trained hundreds of police officials in how to cull intelligence on gang membership, rivalries, territory and lingo from these Web pages.
"In order to understand any subculture, be it al-Qaida, witches, devil worshippers or gangs, you have to be able to know their own language," Knox said.
But most of the talk he sees online isn't from hard-core gang members, he said. Much of it spews from so-called wannabes, who use the Web to fantasize about violence.
"A lot of them are kids just messing around," he said.
Gangs once only roamed the streets of big cities but now can be found in 2,500 U.S. communities, according to the FBI. Police departments suddenly faced with the unwelcome arrivals are looking for help anywhere they can get it, including the gangs' own easy-to-find Web sites.
The tendency for gang members to brag about their exploits on Web pages such as the popular networking site MySpace.com has in some cases helped investigators make arrests.
Pierce County sheriff's investigators used MySpace.com earlier this year to solve an assault case involving two teens who filmed themselves pummeling a high school student. In the video footage posted online, the main suspect identified himself and faced the camera while racking a round into a shotgun, which helped investigators track him down, spokesman Ed Troyer said.
The case wasn't gang-related, but the clip was posted on MySpace, which has helped authorities in gang cases, Troyer said.
"The one thing going for us always through the years is that young people -- kids -- have an inability to keep their mouths shut. This is just another way for them not to keep their mouths shut," Troyer said.
In Seattle, the Internet hasn't played a significant role in the investigations of a special gang task force headed by the Seattle field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF Special Agent Julianne Marshall said.
The ATF's Violent Gang Task Force was formed last year and includes federal agents and a Seattle police detective. A King County sheriff's detective soon will be added, Marshall said.
"It hasn't been a part of any of our investigations that we've addressed so far," she said. "But it is something (we) monitor."
Deputy Tom Ferguson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department's gang investigation unit has identified a number of graffiti writers who used a public Web site to post photos of themselves in front of their work.
"Maybe they think we don't look at it," Ferguson said, "but we're out there gleaning information on them."
MySpace.com representatives could not be reached for comment.
The local gang scene is a fascination for one MySpace tenant, a self-described 25-year-old Seattle college student who calls his Web site "Northwest Gangs." His online profile claims he's researching street gangs and invites members to join his network of MySpace "friends."
He claims to have cataloged 325 gangs in Washington and has links to numerous self-avowed gang members' profiles on MySpace.
Knox, of the National Gang Crime Research Center, said it's important for police to learn how to read between the lines on gang Web sites and blogs. Just as time on the streets has given gang investigators the ability to read the hieroglyphics of wall graffiti, time on the Web helps them understand arcane Web clues. Gang identifiers, such as tattoos, graffiti tags, colors and clothing often are embedded in each site.
"You can study gang blogs and, an hour or two into it, pick up on subtle word choices," he told the AP. "These are holy words to them."
Knox and others fear gangs are using the Internet to recruit new members, who can be influenced by the secret handshakes, clothing and slang of gang cultures.
Morales, the Northwest gang specialist, said he hasn't heard of many gang members who were recruited online. That still mostly has to happen in face-to-face meetings. But gangbangers might use online banter to befriend individuals and invite them to parties, where recruitment takes place.
Attorneys General Demand MySpace Give Up Sex Offenders
The top law enforcement officials in eight states are demanding that MySpace identify the sex offenders it found in a search of its user rolls inspired by my report on MySpace sex offenders last year.
Last October, I reported how I used a Perl script to screen-scrape the Department of Justice's National Sex Offender Registry and run all the names and ZIP codes through MySpace's search engine. The result was 744 verified matches from half the search results -- 497 of them with convictions for crimes against children. One of them was actively trolling for underage boys, and was arrested as a result of my investigation.
MySpace responded in December by announcing that it was hiring a background-check company called Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. to conduct a similar search, using a new, custom database containing height, weight, eye and hair color, and the complete offense history of each perp. Now word has leaked out of Sentinel that, as a result of the more advanced search, "thousands of known registered sexual offenders have been confirmed as MySpace members," according to a letter to MySpace (.pdf) signed by eight attorneys general.
If true, this dramatically exceeds the report from Wired magazine, which found 744 registered sex offenders with MySpace profiles. Perhaps thousands more sexual predators -- not registered or using fictitious names -- are lurking on your web site. We remain concerned about the design of your site, the failure to require parental permission, and the lack of safeguards necessary to protect our children.
We therefore request the following information: First, how many registered sex offenders in the Sentinel database have been cross-referenced against MySpace's membership? Second, what is the exact number of known registered sex offenders who have been identified as members of MySpace to date? Please forward a list of the names of the registered sex offenders that you have identified with profiles on MySpace and the states in which they reside. Third, what steps has MySpace taken to alert law enforcement officials as well as MySpace users of such sex offenders? Finally, what steps has MySpace taken to remove sex offender profiles and how many have been removed?
All good questions. But I don't know why the AGs want the names of the sex offenders -- it's not yet illegal for a former sex offender to be on MySpace. The social networking site had planned to ban all the sex offenders it found, so maybe law enforcement hopes to investigate them first, and bust any recidivists before MySpace scatters them to the four winds.
The letter is signed by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It asks MySpace to respond by May 29th.
Update: In a statement, MySpace told El Reg: "We are in the initial stages of cross referencing our membership against Sentinel's registered sex offender database and removing any confirmed matches."
No word on why it's still in the "initial stages" five months later.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/05/attorneys_gener.html
Even Terrorism:
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/05/17/myspace-is-terrorist-recruiting-ground
Myspace is "terrorist recruiting ground"
Kids like pizza, the mall and the overthrow of America
By Nick Farrell: Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 6:37 AM
A WRITER on Muslim terrorism in the United States claims that Myspace is the latest recruiting ground for al-Qaida backed groups.
Laura Mansfield, who has penned "One Nation under Allah" which includes her "undercover work" in US mosques to establish the terrorist threat in small town America, has suddenly focused her attention on MySpace.
She is "concerned" that some web pages seem to show American kids backing the likes of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, British jihadist Abu Hamza, and the 19 September 11 hijackers.
Mansfield spits tacks at one bloke who has an audio link which she says sounds "absolutely Hitleresque".
MySpace has a list of what she calls his "social network" which Mansfield claims to show that he has disturbing friends one includes Rashid Ali whose activities include reading Quran and hadith, Training Hui (Chinese-Muslim) kung-fu, Makoto-Ryu aki-jujitsu, and muay-thai-kick-boxing, NiNjitsu, Penjat-Silat, escrima:Kali/JKD and target shooting. So clearly he has no time to be a terrorist.
With fairly typical over concern Mansfield takes the case of one bloke who tells the site that when he grows up he wants to be a martyr for Palestine.
She didn't visit some of the other sites on MySpace where most of the teens seem to want to die or pen long odes about being buried alive while their friends play Marilyn Manson. She also failed to see how a lot of the comments were from young guys who listen to a lot of rap music. One of her so called terrorists specifically mentions that his group is not interested in any religious war.
Mansfield contacted the FBI over the websites and was told that they were all protected by the US constitution which allows everyone to have a view, even if it does not agree with hers. It doesn't mean that any of them are going to do it.
*NOTE:
I have worked with the aforementioned woman online in threat assessment. Myspace "security teams" Google is a wonderful search tool to assist YOU in finding violations.
posted by Anthony at 11:31 PM
<< Home