Watching Your Kids Online

A few years ago, when MySpace started getting popular, the media began reporting on social networking with predictable alarm. Reports were filled with lurid stories of adult men posing as teenagers to seduce young girls, and of cyberbullying leading high schoolers to suicide.

Some of the stories are true - last year a Burlington, Vermont, man was charged with kidnapping and killing his twelve-year-old niece. At first, state police believed the girl had met someone she had befriended on MySpace, but then learned her uncle had used the girl’s MySpace page to plan her abduction while deflecting attention from himself.

Such stories are the rare exception, and MySpace has taken steps to prevent misuse of its site. But now parents can turn to a new tool that helps monitor their kids’ activity on MySpace and Facebook. It’s called YouDiligence. Initially launched a year ago to help college athletic directors keep tabs on their student athletes, the tool is now being marketed to parents. Here to answer some questions is Michael Howe, one of the site’s three co-founders.

(Photo by Tyron Francis)