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The Dangers

What social networking users, especially teens, don't realize is that MySpace is not "my space" at all. Some teens are oblivious to this and begin living in their own cyberspace bubble, thinking it's only their friends who are reading their MySpace pages. Too frequently these "friends" turn out to be predators in disguise.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, one in five children online is solicited sexually. While it's next to impossible to know how many pedophiles are online, there is more than enough evidence to know they are out there waiting for their next vulnerable target. After all, Connecticut Detective Frank Dannehey says a full name and a photo are the only essentials needed by any online predator.

"[M]ost of the time when kids get into trouble online, it's not because they went out looking for trouble, it's because trouble found them," Kush said. "A lot of them get embarrassed, and they feel they'll get in trouble, and they cut themselves off from the very help that they need, which is other family members, to help them get clear of it.

"[Predators] rely on the kid feeling embarrassed and feeling guilty, and they play on that in their own way to isolate the kids from their parents," he continued. "That's why a lot of parents have no idea this stuff is going on until it's too late, in many cases."

For example, MSNBC.com reported that within 60 seconds of logging onto an Internet Relay Chat channel, one is likely to be propositioned for sex. Online predators use these channels along with chat rooms and social networking sites to lure the children into a face-to-face meeting.

The Reality

The prevalence of this online luring tactic was most recently seen on four different broadcasts of "To Catch a Predator" on Dateline NBC. NBC Reporters and volunteers from Perverted Justice, a watchdog group that catches online predators by posing as children, held sting operations in various U.S. cities.

Perverted Justice volunteers set up computers at a designated house where volunteers took on their childlike personas and began chatting online. Within a short amount of time, men were showing up at the house ready to have sex with minors. Some brought beer, others brought sex novelties, and one even entered the house nude.

During the first sting operation, "Men from all over Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC, arrived at this house after chatting about sex, thinking they were meeting a 12-, 13-, or 14-year-old who is home alone," said Dateline's Chris Hansen. "Nineteen men in three days, from the down-and-out to pillars of the community [arrived at the house]" -- from school bus drivers to special education teachers to ministers.

In a recent WorldNetDaily column, Hagelin lists a sampling of similar cases. These deal specifically with MySpace:

• In February, a 14-year-old New Jersey girl was found dead in a dumpster after arranging a meeting with a stranger on MySpace.
• Hartford, Connecticut, officials are investigating eight sexual assault cases after teenage girls met men on MySpace.
• In Lafayette, Louisiana, four teen girls were sexually assaulted by a local pervert who found them on MySpace.
• In another Louisiana case, a predator lay in wait for a teen girl in the parking lot of her place of employment, which he had found on her profile page.

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