The Battle for Social Networking Supremacy Continues: Is Facebook Safer Than Myspace?

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With the advent of the internet came the introduction of many high-tech forms of communication and services. Our socio-cultural awareness has been revolutionized by social networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Multiply and the like. These online communities have widened our reach from just within our local neighborhood to the entire world. However, in so doing, they have also posed danger to our privacy and safety as they have become a vehicle for criminals to invade our lives through stalking or sexually harassing us, stealing our personal identities or performing similar other forms of cyber-bullying. While some of us just bear witness to these perpetrators, others are unfortunate enough to have become their victims.

Despite this setback, I don’t think that any one of us is ready to rid our system of all these networking sites. What we can do, however, is to look for the safer venue where we can hang out and make friends, and use our heads to make valid decisions.

Let’s examine two of the leading networking sites in the last few years - Facebook and Myspace. Over the years, both sites have battled criticisms regarding the security of their members, and although Facebook has been regarded as the “safer” choice than MySpace, let’s try to probe some more to really answer the question Is Facebook safer than MySpace?

During my research, I have made few interesting discoveries to help us resolve this matter:

On MySpace Safety Issues:

• In October 2006, Wired reported that in an automated scan, it was discovered that MySpace has over 100 million profiles for registered sex criminals including one named Andrew Lubrano, who was cut loose in September 2004 but came back in 2005 hunting underage boys through his Myspace account.

• In November 2007, Foxnews.com exposed what is now known as MySpace Hoax whereby a 13-year-old Megan Meier took her own life after a teenage boy who pretended to be “Josh” befriended her and then suddenly ended their relationship. “Josh” turned out to be a fake profile created by an adult who was a member of a neighborhood family and was really intending to get the young girl.

• In its August 2008 article, Cnet.com cited a flaw in the mobile security system of MySpace which permitted public viewing of private messages made by members. Another security defect allowed users to delete bulletins from groups that they are not a member of and to post messages in groups that they were restricted from.

Myspace Safety Tips

On Facebook Safety Issues:

In 2007:

• The source code for Facebook’s main home page was leaked. With this defect in security of the social network, other security vulnerabilites could be found and exploited.

• A secret investigation conducted revealed that within days of registering in Facebook, teenagers were already receiving sexual advances from other members.

• On one occasion, an undercover police who posed as a 14-year-old girl
received sexually explicit notes from a 24-year-old male. A month following the discovery, the comments were still not deleted by Facebook.

In 2008:

• In March, it was revealed that a crack in the site’s security allowed individuals to view private pictures of other members even those of celebrities like Paris Hilton.

• In August, another glitch allowed ‘non-friends’ of members to read comments on their pages.

• During the test run of the site’s beta format in July, over 80 million ‘not for publicly display’ personal details of members were made public.

Facebook Safety Tips

With the aforementioned presented- Is Facebook safer than Myspace or the other way around?

As you can see, both sites have been without security problems.

On the positive side, however, their respective owners have taken subsequent steps to keep their networking sites safe:

• In May 2008, Facebook and the attorney general offices in most of the states in the US have agreed to oversee younger members more conscientiously and to set up an age verification system that would alert Facebook officials when messages are sent by minors to unknown adult members.

• MySpace has also planned on launching a similar security strategy by setting the profiles of 14- to 15-year-old members to private without control by said members to change it to public. In the same way, profiles of 16- to 17-year-old members will also be made private but they will have the choice to set it to public.

• Add to that, the privacy settings of MySpace gives members control over who can see them online, who can view their profiles and pictures,who knows their personal details like birthdays,and how to block other members.

• Facebook’s privacy policy, on the other hand, specifies that registered members are provided options with regards to their profiles information such as “contact and personal information, pictures, interests and groups.” Members are also in control in terms of who to share the information with.

So, with all the facts presented, is Facebook safer than MySpace?

I think it boils down to your personal preference really… So, which do you prefer and why?

Note:Below are the comments we were able to retrieve when we switched our servers but lost our blog data.

Retrieved Comments

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   1
   dakota said at 7:50 pm on April 13th, 2009:

   true dat

2. 

   2
   zack said at 11:24 am on April 30th, 2009:

   cool

3. 

   3
   zack said at 11:25 am on April 30th, 2009:

   nice

4. 4
   How Do We Ward Off Facebook Impostors? | Facebook Profile Customization and User Lifestyles Blog said at 1:13 pm on May 19th, 2009:

   [...] Facebook’s management is also doing its part in reducing the occurrences of impersonations. For this purpose, the site offers the following advice to members who want to protect the safety of their online profiles: [...]

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   5
   rosesred35 said at 5:27 am on June 6th, 2009:

   First of all i want everyone to know their is a way to keep their identity safe, and their is a way to keep out hackers. But facebook and all the people who use face book. Needs to down load my identity defender toolbar look for a security toolbar and set the settings to safe mode. We have this on our computer and it works well. If down loading slows down your computer try using another one. Watch and use codes also when someone writes you. Ask questions like what did we talk about yesterday and and whats my animals name, or whats my favorite food. But please keep safe and start using a safe toolbar. Believe me it works.

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   rosesred35 said at 5:35 am on June 6th, 2009:

   I forgot to add set your photos to private, and only your friends can see it. If you want to add another picture of yourself. And there is another tool bar called cyberdefender. Give this a try, it will keep you and your family safe. If you have children that use a computer u may need to add kidrocket browser for them i have this for my family members when they visit. Try this way and if it don’t work we will work as a team to figure it out together. We must protect all users.