Four years ago if you showed me a flashy photo of some random girl on MySpace or FaceBook I would have been shocked. If you showed me the half naked profile picture of a girl I knew in elementary school today – I’d be semi-stunned.

A friend of mine who does a lot of babysitting made the conscious decision to take down certain photos of herself on her MySpace page because the kids she babysits have MySpace accounts – and so does their mother.

When websites like FaceBook and MySpace first started out, they were seen as our very own piece of the Interweb that do with we as please. We’re able to add weird YouTube videos, play random music that nobody likes but you, and superimpose huge photos of puppies, kittens and werewolves next to celebrities. Now, social networks like FaceBook and MySpace have raised the issue of exactly where we draw the line between, privacy and social decency.

Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and Massachusetts are just a few states where teachers have been suspended for some – risqué – found photos on their MySpace page.

I don’t think a career in teaching automatically means your social life has to go through the school administration, conservative, paranoia filter. Now, unless teachers start stripping and pole dancing in the middle of the classroom, or display a slideshow of their weekend trip to Vegas – I really don’t think parents have anything to worry about.

Speaking of concerned parents. If these people are so worried about what their kids are seeing on sites like FaceBook and MySpace, shouldn’t they be a little more aware of what their kids are and aren’t looking at on the Internet to begin with? I think we’ve already had this conversation about what kids see on the Internet. Not to mention there are a whole batch of people on MySpace and FaceBook with photos and videos, which I bet are a lot worse than what some 2nd grade teacher has on his or her MySpace page.

Common sense starts at home. They’re called parental controls, use them people!!!
—Eming Piansay