MySpace Scams

Sexual predators aren’t the only ones drawn to social networking sites such as Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace.com.
George W. Knox, director of the National Gang Crime Research Center, is quoted by the Associated Press as saying as saying he’s trained “hundreds of police officials” on, “how to cull intelligence on gang membership, rivalries, territory and lingo from these Web pages” and Chicago police arrested a teenager who’d, “allegedly sprayed his gang nickname on a church by tracing the moniker to his Myspace.com account.
“His online profile included his address, photo and real name.”
And earlier this month, “two teens charged with beating a boy into a coma could be tried as adults after prosecutors showed photographs of the two from Myspace.com,” says AP. “In the images, they flashed the hand signs of a local gang.”
Notorious street gangs have gone online, “showcasing illegal exploits, making threats, and honoring killed and jailed members on digital turf,” says AP.
They’re posting potentially incriminating photos of members holding guns, messages taunting other gangs and boasts of illegal exploits on personal Web sites and social networking sites, it states.
And XV3Gang isn’t alone. Crips, Bloods, MS-13 and other gangs are online, says the AP story, going on, “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.”
Meanwhile, “www.XV3Gang.com is fully copyrighted,” says the 18th Street site.

Q: I’ve read and heard many stories about young people putting information on MySpace.com. What I want to know is: How would a parent go about getting the information that a teenager puts on that site removed? Don’t tell me to use parental controls because that is not my question.

A: How old is the teen?

If he (or she) is under 14, he’s lied about his age and inflated it to open an account on the social-networking Web site, which, as you almost certainly know, is immensely popular among teens.

In that case, you can contact MySpace and, after investigating the situation, it will delete the teen’s account. You can e-mail deleteaccount@myspace.com or customercare@myspace.com.

Meanwhile, if your child is 14 or 15 (and if his age is correctly listed with MySpace), his MySpace pages — including whatever personal information he’s posted — can be seen only by people on his friends list.

And any MySpace user of any age can make their profiles available only to their friends.

But if he’s 14 or older, you may be on your own if you want some or all of his information deleted from the Web site. In this case, a honeyed approach may serve better than a vinegary one because you’re probably going to have to work with your child.

Sure, you can delete his information or MySpace account yourself — if you know his e-mail address and MySpace password.

But if your child continues to have access to the Internet, he may simply create another account with another user name.

Parent advocates say it might be better to keep communication open and walls down by talking with your child about your concerns as well as his feelings about being on MySpace.

It’d be even better if you could talk with your child about such things before he ever got on MySpace in the first place.

But once he’s on the site — or on the Internet, in general — advocates say you should definitely monitor his activities there.

For information on monitoring software and tips on how to deal with your teen’s activities online, go to MySpace.com and click on “safety tips,” then on “tips for parents.”

Fifteen years ago, Stephanie Lovatos’ two-year-old daughter, Celina Aquirie, disappeared with Celina’s father.Lovatos says she never stopped searching for Celina, but it wasn’t until late last month that she found her, through a popular teen Web site, MySpace.com.

The site is frequently in the news as a place where child predators try to find victims, but the case of Lovatos and Celina is very different.

The two had an emotional reunion Friday night at San Francisco International Airport.

“It’s been an amazing time for me,” Celina told The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen Wednesday. “I never thought this day would happen, and it’s just wonderful to be sitting next to her right now.”

Earlier, Lovatos told CBS News, “The clock couldn’t move fast enough,” in the airport, as she awaited Celina’s arrival. “I was going toward the gate, looking, watching the clock. They were the longest minutes of my life. Then, I started feeling the reaction. … ‘Oh, my God.’ I was never so terrified. I was hyperventilating. I was a wreck.”

Lovatos gave birth to Celina in Maui, Hawaii in May of 1989. She had shared custody with her boyfriend, but left him for a new life in California in 1991, taking Celina with her.

When Lovatos couldn’t find a home she considered suitable for her and the toddler, she asked the boyfriend in Maui to care for Celina temporarily.

The boyfriend and his new wife left Maui, without telling Lovatos. It turned out that they moved to Florida, and told Celina the boyfriend’s wife was her mother.

It was only when Celina stumbled on her birth certificate when she was 13 that she learned the truth.

All that time, says Lovatos, she was desperately trying to find her daughter.
“Back then, obviously, there was no Internet or anything like that,” she told Chen. “So, I first tried to get legal advice, and that’s when I was notified that neither of us had actual legal custody of her and, because of that, there was nothing (police) could do. I was just told that my best bet was just to find them on my own, and then I could, you know, obviously, try for my custody then.”

She never married, had three other children, earned a master’s degree in business, bought a home in San Jose, Calif., and is a project manager for a construction company.

Then, out of the blue, a brainstorm hit Lovatos: Why not use MySpace?

She had someone create a page for her in February and, in the area asking whom she’d like to meet, she put Celina’s name, saying: “If you ever see this, I have not seen you since you were two. I have been looking for you all this time. Get a hold of me. I have important information to tell you.”

On June 14, Lovatos got a call from a long-lost cousin, which made Lovatos realize she could access the MySpace search functionality.

Within minutes, Lovatos had found Celina’s page.

“I kept thinking,” Lovatos says, “twenty minutes on a … Web site, after 15 years of phone calls and searching,” is what it took.

Ironically, Celina says she doesn’t go on MySpace, and her boyfriend had created the page for her.

It took some phone calls and the intervention of that boyfriend and Lovatos’ best friend to finally hook them up but, when it happened, 15 years of anxiety came to an end.

“I said Celina, ‘This is Mom,” Lovatos recalls. “I started to choke up, and said, ‘Look, hear me out, don’t hang up. I just you need to know, I never abandoned you. You were taken from me, no one has ever let me know where you are. The past 15 years, I’ve never given up. I’ve looked for you. I love you and miss you.”

Celina says she’s note sure whether she’ll stay in California with Lovatos or return to Florida and her father.