Warning: The Internet is taking over

RTN FINAL LONG FOR...

For my final project, I wanted to do something that really interested me. I thought that online use would be a good start, especially as it becomes more prevalent in today's Internet-obsessed world. So I did my story about online predators on social networking Web sites like Facebook and MySpace.

I'm really happy with the way my story turned out. I spoke with Lieutenant Joe Donahue, who works for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) unit of the New York State Police, David Canfield, the director of the Youth Advocates Program in Oswego County, Joon Park, a professor and online security expert at SU, an SU senior who has a Facebook and Officers Jim Thompson and C.J. McCurty from SU's Department of Public Safety.

The best interview I got were with Lieutenant Donahue and SU senior Stephanie Rivetz. Donahue spoke to me for 25 minutes about how children are unsafe on the Internet. The best suggestion he came up with for safer use was to have parents check and see what their kids are doing online. He also told me about specific instances of sexual predation that have occurred recently, and you can hear about that in my story. The interview with Rivetz was good too because as a Facebook user, she was passionate about the positive and negative sides of the Web site.

For the project, I also tried to get in touch with Rick Woody, who's a police officer in Arkansas. He has a daughter who was a victim of a MySpace predator, but he never got back to me. I also tried to speak with the Attorney General's of New York and Connecticut, who have recently been really involved in working with Facebook to create better privacy policies, but couldn't get in touch with them either. I was surprised that neither Facebook or MySpace helped me either. Though they responded quickly, they just sent me e-mails, linking me to their privacy policy sites, which was kind of disappointing. I guess for them, not all publicity is good publicity.

Anyway, I'm really happy with how my project came out, though I wish I had been more creative with my music throughout. When I was picking NAT sound, I found two other songs that I really wanted to use, but since my project already went over, I left them out. I would have put them in, had I thought to let them play underneath my tracks like so many other people in the class did. I also wish I let my last song play longer, instead of cutting it at the end as soon as I tagged out. But if that's the thing I'm most upset about with my report, then I think I did a pretty good job.

...Sorry this post was so long. But I tried not to be "angsty," so there.