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

Ruu_Old

Ibid wrote:

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.

At last, thanks for the link. MM, bebo is a free service like Myspace and a few others, they are not going to go and hire thousands of people to go through every conversation. People are simply using bebo as a scapegoat here.

kittenkiller

This whole topic reminds me of the film Bowling For Columbine.
Let us all blame anything we can for the atrocious things that happen in society!

An intelligence test to decide who's permitted to sign up to bebo?
Good one!

Perhaps we should blame Cananda?

Does anyone know how many assaults have been directly linked to bebo?
Can anyone post up some links to the news reports?

MM

Karoma

There have been a few cases where people met off BEBO and got into trouble. However, how many involved BEBO employees... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say none?

This is a corporate thet indirectly or directly; willingly or unwillingly; gets kids raped.

There is a definite need for corporate responsibility. However, you're completely misguided.
If alcohol or drugs (Even legal ones) are abused then the user is going to end up in some trouble eventually. Oddly enough, in many (All that I've seen) of the reported cases the victim abused alcohol or drugs... where are you(r misguided) anti-Diageo posts? Or does alcohol and drug consumption have no bearing on the case? Just like meeting up in a private location with strangers is perfectly fine - it's only because it was BEBO... riiiiight.

Dragan

kittenkiller wrote:

MM

At the risk of seeming a little odd, can i just ask why kittenkillers account would sign off the way MountainyMan normally does?

Not trying to imply anything at all, just curious?

Karoma

A pisstake perhaps? Stay on-topic.

MM

Chucky the tree

Maybe she forgot she was signed in as kittenkiller?



MM

CiaranC

Chucky the tree wrote:

You were lucky there wasnt one for boards.

lol

Concannon7

mountainyman wrote:

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

Bebo is not rubbish. It helps people keep in touch for free. A stupid comment, I could easily say this forum is rubbish. Of course that comment would be equally as stupid.

Bebo gives out guidelines and safety tips. If people dont abide by them then Bebo is not at fault. Children should have more sence than meeting a stranger over the internet. I know I would nave have done that at my age.

mountainyman

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

How is he manipulating children?

Binomate

Mountainyman, your argument doesn't hold water.

Mad Finn

Here's a test to see how one should react to Bebo.

How many of you were told when you were kids never to get into a car belonging to a stranger or an adult you had just met?

Now ask the same question of your parents.

Now ask (or speculate on the answer of) your grandparents.

My guess is that most of you were given that advice as kids; that most of your parents were given that advice as kids and (depending on when they were born) some of your grandparents were given that advice as kids.

I suspect my grandparents weren't because there were precious few cars on Irish roads before the first world war. But as this whizz new piece of technology became commonplace and some of the malicious uses to which it could be put became known to people, we, the human race, (or at least that section of it that doesn't live lonely lives on the side of a mountain somewhere) developed strategies to deal with it other than 'close it down' or 'make the car companies pay to police every playground with special guards to ensure no kid leaves without their parent/'minder.'

MountainyMan says 'use e-mail not bebo' to communicate. It wasn't so long ago that people were worried about molesters getting hold of your kids' e-mail and them to meet them down the ether. Thank god for spam, eh? That soon sorted that one.

thebman

Targeting Bebo for social networking problems is as stupid as targeting GTA instead of all violent computer games.

Media is just going after whats popular because they know it'll get attention.

For example Youtube is the news today because of a violent video on it of a Dublin girl being attacked. Stuff like this has been going up on Youtube for ages but as soon as Google by them, it gets reported with the first line being, the Google owned online video viewer Youtube or something similar.

There are so many ways to target kids outside of Social Networking on the web and off that policing Bebo will just send the abusers elsewhere. For example, they could use any message forum, chat service (IRC,MSN), online computer game that features chat, picking random phone numbers until a kid answers, approaching a lost child on the street.

^Killing Bebo stops none of this. What is required is education not stupidity and over reaction to something happening on one website.

Nobody is defending child abusers right to do this, we are simply saying you can't police it and even if you could there are thousands of other methods to contact young people. Bebo is a social networking site. People that don't want to talk to strangers don't use it, I know I don't.

The reason I don't is simple, having your profile on Bebo is a great way for identity theft to happen to you if you put up too much information and it is a great way for employers to check up on you and what you get up to. I don't get up to anything sinister but I prefer not to leave myself open to a friend making a stupid comment on a page that reflects on me.

Its up to every individual person to decide if they want to be on Bebo or not. It is up to parents and schools to educate children, not Bebo.

Sam Vimes

mountainyman wrote:

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

yes, and if the rapist didn't have a car, he couldn't go to the meeting. if he couldn't get a computer or an internet connection he couldn't contact the child. if he had no fingers, he couldn't type his messages on the keyboard. there are many many things that contributed to the ability of the rapist to rape the child.

of course, the most important one is the child's parents. they didn't explain that the child should make their page private etc etc etc. the system has built in security to prevent paedophiles having access to children. if people choose to turn this securty off, its not bebo's fault.

in a similar way, you could suggest that we ban cars because someone chose not to wear a seat belt. there's no point spoiling it for everyone just because some people are retarded.


i always hated bebo. its a stupid website, mostly because i get 100 messages a day saying i have to forward it to 1000000 people in 3.2 seconds or a goat will grow on my face. but in the last few days i've found finally found a use for it:
a very good friend of mine died the other day. he was swept out to sea in australia and i've been thankful that people were able to leave comments for him on his bebo page. i can see how many people his life touched now because of how his page filled up with these comments.

its a good service for keeping in touch with people but as with almost anything, it can be dangerous if misused. two examples that pop into my head are a toaster and a cocktail umbrella. these things can be dangerous to the terminally retarded but that's no reason to ban them

r3nu4l

Saskia, do you write for 'De Evenin' Heggald'? Your obsession with Bebo is ridiculous!

Deleted User wrote:

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

Exactly! If a pedo lures a child into his house using the promise of a can of Coca-Cola and a pack of Werthers originals would the papers scream that Coca-Cola and the Storck group are responsible for the rape?

The answer is no!

Give up on the bebo obsession before they take out a court order against you

Zombrex

Considering that millions upon millions of people use websites like Bebo and MySpace, as sad and shocking as it is if a handful of people get raped, is this any higher than just normal life? If 5 out of the 40 million MySpace users gets raped a year that is still much less than the number of rapes that happen within the 40 million population.

Things like this are all about giving parents a sense that they have control over protecting their children.

The thing is parents like the idea that there is actually something they can do to protect their child, but they don't like actually doing very much. So instead of spending time teaching their children about internet and internet stalkers, which takes a long time and they can never be sure it is working, they prefer to focus on certain scape goats. This week it is Bebo. Its the same compulsion that drives parents to want to know the convicted paeophiles in the local area, believing that knowing about them will protect their children. It gives them a sense of control, but of course it igores the fact that their might be plenty unconvicted paeophiles they don't know about.

mountainyman

Deleted User wrote:

How is he manipulating children?

bebo is a sort of fad among teenagers, they all have to have a bebo page and they put up pictures of themselves and their boyfriend and leave annoying messages to each other.

You can't tell me that Michael Birch isn't tyring to encourage this fad, so bebo are manipulating teenagers.

MM

MrJoeSoap

mountainyman wrote:

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

Don't you mean Rupert Murdoch :rolleyes:

Big Ears wrote:

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: .

Best "first" reply I've ever seen!

Sam Vimes

mountainyman wrote:

bebo is a sort of fad among teenagers, they all have to have a bebo page and they put up pictures of themselves and their boyfriend and leave annoying messages to each other.

You can't tell me that Michael Birch isn't tyring to encourage this fad, so bebo are manipulating teenagers.

MM

what are you talking about? hes allowing them to do something that they really really want to do as any business man does. every 15 minutes, the tv takes a break and shows children hundreds of products and says how great they are. is that manipulation?

should we ban ads before the 9 o clock watershed in case children are manipulated into buying a can of coke

destraynor

That was me on the radio this morning, the survey was performed using Bigulo. If the OP had listened to the full story instead of dramatising, it goes like this...

1) Parents and kids need to be educated about the threat that this new popular social network poses.

2) All parents of young children who use Bebo should make sure that their kids profile is private. This will make it far more difficult for potential predators to find their childs name/photo/hometown/school etc.

3) Parents should warn their kids not to create bebo friendships with people they have never met before, or at the very least be wary about the people they make the friendships with.

4) The problem isn't Bebo (or any other Social Network site). I said that in the interview, and I'll be saying it again and again. The problem is that the only thing slower than the broadband roll out in this country , is the rollout of decent advice and precautions for children online. We have ****loads of kids online clueless as to what could happen.

So in short, parents need to make sure their child maintains their privacy online. I realise it's a lot to ask of parents to monitor their childs computer usage, but the simple step of privatising their childs page will make a difference. Too often kids are just let wander away through a social network not realising there are bad people out there, and a 17" monitor only protects you for soo long, if you give away too many details of your life.

To make it clear, I agree with the majority of the posters on this thread. Bebo and social networks are not to blame for these attacks, people are. However, just like you teach a child not to talk to strangers, or how to cross the road safely, you need to educate kids about how to keep safe online.

Mossy Monk

mountainyman wrote:

You can't tell me that Michael Birch isn't tyring to encourage this fad, so bebo are manipulating teenagers.

and encouraging rape ad so on

jesus christ stfu already

Miguel_Sanchez

mountainyman wrote:

You can't tell me that Michael Birch isn't tyring to encourage this fad, so bebo are manipulating teenagers.

Michael Birch? Oh yeah, my little cousin told me alright that he was hanging around their school just last week telling all the kids without Bebo pages how uncool they are and encouraging other kids to pick on them.

mountainyman

Commander Vimes wrote:

... every 15 minutes, the tv takes a break and shows children hundreds of products and says how great they are. is that manipulation?...

Of course it is, toy adds are banned in half of Europe. How do you imagine that it isn't manipulation.

MM

Sam Vimes

mountainyman wrote:

Of course it is, toy adds are banned in half of Europe. How do you imagine that it isn't manipulation.

MM

first of all, that's retarded. i watched toy ads throughout my childhood. if i saw something i wanted, i asked my parents and they decided whether i could have it or not. the sky did not fall because i saw the latest super soaker on tv and my parents refused to buy it

secondly, i can only find mention of a ban in sweden and then things like talk of junk food ads being banned. can you provide some evidence of a ban in half of europe?


edit: the ban in sweden isn't against toy ads, its against specifically targetting an ad to those under the age of 12. they think that a person under the age of 12 is incapable of telling the difference between an ad and a tv show, so advertisers aren't allowed target things towards them. but children drink coke too and those ads aren't banned. as far as i can see it, the only way to prevent this "manipulation of children" is to ban all advertising from tv, lest they consolidate their loans into one easily managable monthly payment

this nanny state crap does my head in

Civilian_Target

Yay! A witch hunt! BURN THE WITCH!

mayordenis

ok can't wait to get banned

mountainyman, you are the biggest retard, but quite some distance, and that is such abuse to retards that i feel quite bad about that.
your biggotry on this issue is outstandingly stupid, i'd applaud if i was so appauled by it.

and just so this has some measure of on topic conversation you cant blame bebo anymore than you can blame offline laws that allow children to be alone, and not for one second am i saying that 13 year olds shouldn't be allowed on their own, but seriously you're such a moron.

Dyr

Civilian_Target wrote:

Yay! A witch hunt! BURN THE WITCH!

people dont kill babies, bebo kills babies! burn the babykilling bebo!
Curse these cheap torches!

Dave!

mountainyman wrote:

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

MM

Don't you mean Rupert Murdoch?

teeheeheeheehee.

You really need to sing a different tune. I'll bet you get your sense of morals from the Herald.

"This season, I'll mostly be hating Bebo!"

You have no sense of logic and just jerk your knee every time you think you're supposed to be getting outraged.

Still it's funny to read your posts. I get a giggle out of them.

mloc

sigh

Wertz

omg forward this topic to 10 other forums or your children will be raped lol

Ruu_Old

Once again, this is going nowhere. Knock yourselves out. *waves*