Another mother's child is dead. She was last seen on a video camera at a local store being forced into her car. The suspect has been located and he is in jail. The friends and family have been interviewed by the press and as usual the neighbors are surprised. He seemed to be such a nice fellow, had a wife and child and seemed so, well, normal.
After the investigators began to look at this dude the first thing they found was that he has a MySpace account and listed his interests as "harming small animals and eating children." In the Casper, Wyoming Star Tribune article they indicate that his MySpace painted a different picture.
In my research into social networking one of the things I have found is that disturbed people like Virginia Tech shooter Cho and Canada's Kimveer Gill spend a lot of time chatting on line. When they post their interests they generally say right up front that they have odd or homicidal urges. Often they portray Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as heros or martyrs. If these people were muttering this sort of thing on a street corner we would lock them up. What is worse in my opinion is that they seem to feed off of other people. They talk to other Goth types as in Gill's case or find other people whose whacked view of life fits theirs. In doing so they build justification and momentum to put some over-the-top expression of their angst into action. What is weirder still is that there is no way for us to stop them unless they make specific threats. The people who provide these communications pathways are protected by the Communications Decency act. They can't be sued and they have no legislative mandate to truly protect their users. The safeguards they put in place are mainly to protect their own liability not truly protect your child. As you watch your child tonight surfing a social networking site for new friends - imagine that he or she is in their pajamas walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It's a lot closer to the truth than you want to believe.
Keep your kids close.
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