do you like being mugged by an American while on Bebo in the winter sunshine?

DarthWraak

Havent you heard? Everyone loves him apparently...

shane86

Depends. It has produced some of our most important inventions (cars, computers etc), it invented rap music and its companies are largely responsible for our current healthy economy (if it wasnt for American investment, instead of being in my decent finance job id still be working in mcdon......eh no, wait......let me think this over)

Alright, so not all US investment freed Paddy from the Brit slave wages but still, they propped us up.

On the downside......

Alot of them are plain kunts. Mainly the upper class Americans. Jesus, the ****ing prick of a woman my friend went out with until early this year. You know the type, "oh my god you guys, like, drink too much!" pissed on 4 bacardi breezers type of all American my daddy got rich off Iraqi oil stocks girl. In the end she accused me to my friend of trying it on with her, me and my friend nearly got into a fight (in the end, he realised that on the only times we had met we hadnt been in the same room alone at all, so he forgave me and soon after they broke up). Also, in work I feel alot of the errors and avoidable mistakes I have to justify and apologise for to customers were made by the guys in US head office, and you think "If i was there Id do my job properly, so how come these guys earn thrice as much per year as I do?"

Food- my mother is one of these people who loves the USA. Thinks its heaven, she spent a year or two there in her late teens and thought it was the sh1t. Me, Im more cynical. She always goes on- the weather, the money, the food. Sorry mam, but last time I checked, USA weather was an hours flgith away in Ibiza, Ireland was the second richest country in the world and

1- US takeaways are now all over the place, and a Big Mac in feckin Tralee tastes the exact same as one in Miami Beach

2- It is no longer impossible to get truly delicious fresh pizza in Ireland. Show me a pizza joint in New York that beats Pizza Mia in Dunshaughlin (always stop when going through the town, savage stuff) and Ill show you....eh.....me willy

3- Ive been to New York (when I was young mind you, 11 or 12 odd). Its only when you arrive you realise its not all you dreamed of, you cant, say, actually go into the crown of the Statue of Liberty (only her feet). And that was in 1998, Im nearly suprised they let you on the island at all now. And the subways, **** me, no.1 theyre impossible to figure out, no.2 its all machine ioperated, the few staff there dont speak three words of English, and no.3 nobody in NY financial district will stop if you need directions anywhere.

Still, mucho respecto to the real Americans. Not your Cape Cod jocks and prom queens, but the violent, thick headed proud NYC Italians, the laid back 40 drinkin rollin down the street indo gin and juice homeboys, and the old Irish boyos who will buy pints for anyone from Ireland who claims his dad and all his uncles are locked up/dead because they got caught up in the "struggle"

In fairness, move this back to AH and keep it there ffs.

Saskia

Apparently in a recent study 2 million homepages were looked for the 13 - 17 age group and the majority of them could be publicly viewed. Just on the radio news there. Well I hate to say I told you so.

Given the recent events and the fact that cyber stalkers can access information so easy, is it time to close Bebo down?

Big Ears

The majority of children in primary schools are aged between 4-12 , most of them can be viewed publicly , is it time to close primary schools down ? :rolleyes: .

CiaranC

Seriously, someone needs to write a script that scans posts and hands out insta-bans if the word 'bebo' is detected

Rabies

With young kids, it is up to the parents to monitor and control their internet usage.

Bebo is an "oh look at me" website. You put up what you want people to see. The option is there to make the profile private.

At the end of the day, there is only so much control the website can force over it's users. It comes down to the parents at the end of the day.

bluto63

If people are stupid enough to show their address and phone number publicly, that's their problem

Ste.phen

It's almost like the pages are private by default and the kids had to manually specify they want the pages to be viewable by anyone
*almost*

Ste.phen

bluto63 wrote:

If people are stupid enough to show their address and phone number publicly, that's their problem

I gather they changed it so this information isnt public unless you specifically choose individual people that can view it.

doesnt really stop people putting personal info on their blog, in the 'about me' section ,etc though

Savman

bluto63 wrote:

If people are stupid enough to show their address and phone number publicly, that's their problem

By "people" I assume you mean "kids"? Of course, kids know everything...

mountainyman

Igy wrote:

It's almost like the pages are private by default and the kids had to manually specify they want the pages to be viewable by anyone
*almost*

It is almost like children are being manipulated into revealing information to drive traffic to a website that has an estimated market value of $550 million.
It is almost like Michael Birch is happy for children to be raped so long as he gets his money.
*almost*

MM

CiaranC

Savman wrote:

By "people" I assume you mean "kids"? Of course, kids know everything...

kids are people too you know

mountainyman wrote:

It is almost like Michael Birch is happy for children to be raped so long as he gets his money.
*almost*

Its almost like you are a total gob****e
*almost*

Faith

Oh my god, let it go. What good is this thread doing? Do you think that the creators of Bebo are going to read it and think "Wow, why didn't we think of making all the under-18's homepages private? What were we thinking when we gave people a choice? We sure are stupid!"

I'm so fúcking sick of these threads trying to blame Bebo for something that's not their fault, and therefore absolving the actual guilty parties from blame.

Kingsize

Saskia wrote:

Apparently in a recent study 2 million homepages were looked for the 13 - 17 age group and the majority of them could be publicly viewed.
Given the recent events and the fact that cyber stalkers can access information so easy, is it time to close Bebo down?

Thats not including the kids who lie & say they are 18 or over.

Ive noticed a trend arouund town (Dublin) that Internet Cafes seem to have a new clientelle of kids,usually in gangs & all on Bebo.(Theyre never very quiet about it)
Not sure what the parents can do short of following them
Of course if the kids are old enough to go into town unaccompanied they are at risk to all of the sh_t that goes on in the city, but a parent who does their best , lays down the law @ home can still be caught out by this.
Not Bebo's fault ultimately.Parents should be aware of the dangers facing their kids - either real or percieved.(i.e. the tabloid / evening herald view that gangs of perverts are running rampant in the streets trying to ensnare our little kiddies with bebo & alcopops & explicit R&B hits)

mountainyman

OK what about an intelligence test/online safety test.
If you don't pass it you can't have a bebo.

Also so far no one has explained the utility of bebo? So far as keeping in touch goes what is wring with email or having a homepage?

MM

joe_chicken

Savman wrote:

By "people" I assume you mean "kids"? Of course, kids know everything...

They know not to wear t-shirts with their mobile number on it...

They know not to talk to strangers...

Maybe we should ban mobile phones

Parents: if you don't know where your children are or who they are hanging around with, that's YOUR fault. Take an interest. Don't default to ignorance.

biko

Doesn't bebo have it's own forum for these discussions?
I just don't get why you would chat about one forum on another, over and over again...

Dragan

mountainyman wrote:

OK what about an intelligence test/online safety test.
If you don't pass it you can't have a bebo.

Also so far no one has explained the utility of bebo? So far as keeping in touch goes what is wring with email or having a homepage?

MM

You first post was marvelous, it really was!

Now then, clearly the only solution is to lock up all the kids, and keep them wrapped in bubble wrap and fed through tubes until they are 18 and legally responsible for themselves.

Anyone who wants to the blame the platform of communication is an idiot, simple as. You can pretty much trace the argument back to "we should ban the spoken and written word because pedo's might lure kids to dark alleys".

Extreme? Indeed, but everything is baby steps. I will happily sit here and say if parents don't know what there kids are up to then they have failed as a parent. If a parent wants to install a computer in there house they are well aware of what can be accessed on it, and should be closely monitoring what there kids are doing with it.

The simple fact is the girls from the rape story need to accept responsibility for what they did as well. The went off to meet strangers on the internet...whether the guy turns out to be 35 or 15 do these girls really think a guy would want to meet a random girl to have a good chat?

Cop the **** on, stop blaming the platforms and realise people need to accept responsibility for what they allow others to do with tools like this.

Else we might need to shut down boards are post from Mountainy Man will make me go postal.

Kingsize

These Media "outrages" happen all the time they enflame the anger of people who buy Newspapers & never read / or question the Stories.
They Are Slowly pushing an agenda of Total Lockdown & this is all done in the name of the "Common Good"/protecting our way of life, our freedoms, our chilren's future etc etc

We might see a day when they are calling for the banning of Scrabble because of the OFFENSIVE & SUGGESTIVE words that can be created.

bluto63

Why are people singling out Bebo? There are other sites that are very similar to Bebo that nobody seems to care about, they just go for Bebo because it's the biggest.

You can't shut down an entire site with millions of users just because one kid was stupid enough to meet up with someone. If that's the case, you might aswell shut down the whole internet.

Faith wrote:

Oh my god, let it go. What good is this thread doing? Do you think that the creators of Bebo are going to read it and think "Wow, why didn't we think of making all the under-18's homepages private? What were we thinking when we gave people a choice? We sure are stupid!"

In fairness...Every discussion here gets us nowhere...

Taken from the bebo "Stay Safe" tips online.

Keep Your Personal Information to Yourself: Never divulge any personal information that could be used to find or identify you in real life in a public forum. Password protect this information. This information includes your real name, address, telephone number, mobile number, your workplace, health club, or links to websites or other profiles that might give this information away. It also includes this kind of information about your friends and family. You may be sharing more information than you intended to by including a pic with something showing in the photo. Your personal information could be easily abused and misused. Your password can often be guessed, your identity can be stolen, it can be used by people wanting to defraud you or groom a teen into an offline meeting, or used to cyberstalk or harass you or by cyberbullies. It's your personal information...PROTECT IT!

So, as you can tell. They tell people not to give out any of this information. If kids are stupid enough to give out their phone numbers to people they don't know or trust then its their own fault. Not bebo.

Why not just get rid of the internet altogether? It would do the world a whole lot of good, right?

# Minimum Age at Bebo: Bebo sets the minimum age of their users at 13. They mean it. While they can't know anyone's real age, if an underage user is reported to them and Bebo can confirm from statements on their profile page that the user is underage, they will be notified. Unless they can prove that they are 13 their profile page will be deleted.

Once again, from the bebo safety tips.

mountainyman

From a different thread:
Talking about corporations...

Akrasia wrote:

large Corporations and the increasing control they exercise over almost every aspect of our lives. These corporations are completely unaccountable and not only lack any morals or ethics, but are in fact legally obliged to disregard them in favour of increasing shareholder value.

bebo is a large corporation,
MM

mountainyman

mountainyman wrote:

From a different thread:
Talking about corporations...

bebo is a large corporation,
MM

But would most large corporations be in the news for young people being molested/raped etc.?

Nehpets

bebo is keeping kids off the streets

mountainyman

Deleted User wrote:

But would most large corporations be in the news for young people being molested/raped etc.?

Yeah that is my point every time I hear about Bebo it is a news story about some girl in her early teens being raped. This is a corporate thet indirectly or directly; willingly or unwillingly; gets kids raped.
End of, kids get raped because bebo exist who wouldn't
I know how bebo works my brother has one and it is rubbish. Bebo is useless.
They don't have those tips out of the good of their hearts, they are a minimal defense against lawsuits.

MM

Ruu_Old

mountainyman wrote:

It is almost like children are being manipulated into revealing information to drive traffic to a website that has an estimated market value of $550 million.
It is almost like Michael Birch is happy for children to be raped so long as he gets his money.
*almost*

MM

Once again, any link to backup that figure?

Saskia, this thread has been done to the death before and went around in circles and I can't see this one going much further but I'll let it continue for now.

Giblet

Hmm I thought the problem was the guy doing the raping, but hey, I'm just talking crazy talk right here.

Time Magazine

Ruu wrote:

Once again, any link to backup that figure?

It's actually reported to be worth about twice that, old son.

I read it in either The Economist or Business and Finance. Can't remember which exactly, but I think the latter.

A linky is here. And yes, it also states that Bebo men want over a thousand thousand thousand dollas, the figure that B & F quoted.

Dragan

mountainyman wrote:

End of, kids get raped because bebo exist who wouldn't

Your pretty much just recycling word for word the same garbage your were sprouting about Myspace, at least aim for some originality?

Now then, to say that kids get raped because Bebo exists is foolish. Kids get raped because other people want to rape kids. And people are kinda clever and will normally find a way to do what they want to do. No doubt people use Bebo to get up to no good, but I'm pretty sure that the number of young girls and guys hooking up to screw is far higher than the number of girls who get raped. As such, that is an issue, but there is no moral outcry for the moral majority because well, its consensual sex, right?

Not really, the legal age is what it is, yet nothing happens to people who have sex outside this age.

Now then, is any of this actually Bebo's fault? Not really. I imagine there was no "Dark Coucil Meeting" where the evil genius pedo's came up with a "social networking site" that they could use to lure stupid kids into there web. Sadly, Bebo is just a tool that people will abuse, and other people like you will just look to blame the tool.

Your argument smacks of sending a gun to the electric chair because someone used it to shoot another person. In short, your argument makes no sense.

Chucky the tree

mountainyman wrote:

OK what about an intelligence test/online safety test.
If you don't pass it you can't have a bebo.

You were lucky there wasnt one for boards.