This is week-and-a-half-old news, however it struck a nerve so I figured I’d post it. According to this article on App.com, Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, NJ is threatening students to make them stop participating in social networking with websites such as MySpace, Facebook and Xanga. The article states:
Effective immediately, and over student complaints, the teens were told to dismantle their Myspace.com accounts or similar sites with personal profiles and blogs. Defy the order and face suspension, students were told.
While public and private schools routinely block access to noneducational Web sites on school computers, Pope John’s order reaches into students’ homes.
The primary impetus behind the ban is to protect students, McHugh said. The Web sites, popular forums for students to blog about their lives and feelings about their teachers and schools, are fertile ground for sexual predators to gather information about children, he said.
While it seems like the school is trying to protect its students, they are going about it the wrong way. Its a violation of free speech to police the students in this way. Educating the students about the dangers of a web presence would be a more reasonable approach.
Everywhere I look, people are being made to give up their rights. According to the powers that be, we are “defending freedom”, but it seems we are loosing it at an allarming rate. I wish people would stop trying to protect me!
I agree totally with banning students from these sights (especially myspace.com) for their own protection.
Teens feel they are able to have a private life through the use of these sights but are entirely deceived. I have seen the personal information posted by teens in my community and intimate details of their
so-called “private life” being posted for virtually the entire world to see. These sights are a sexual preditor’s
smorgasbord. Schools and parents need to be educated about the dangers these sights pose to our youth.
In my opinion educating students and parents is a much better approach than to outright ban kids. Think about it, as soon as something is banned to a person, suddenly that person has a desire to participate…especially in the teenage years where rebellion is a way to express themselves. Educating parents on how to watch their kids’ online activity would be incredibly valuable! And despite what some people may think, teenagers are not completely stupid…if educated they can be much safer social website browsers.
its not harmful.
i think it should be aloud.
its not like your doing anything bad
our school blocked myspace for no freakin reason. WHAT is so wrong with it? its not like we’re plotting an evil scheme to blow up america or some dumb crap like that
WHY??? dats the question. why did schools block myspace?? its a way to express our selfs!!
look, yes, there are sexual preditors out there, i do not deny that at all. But you also have to relize that if some guy wanted to steal some little girl or some little boy, taking away a website is NOT going to do anything at all. Yes, it might make it alittle harder, but that only means that they would have to work twice as hard, or find some other website. So now you have sexual preditors getting smarter.. gee… that’s what we need. The point is, some website might “help” them.. but so do thousands of others. god, even the TV helps them. And what about the newspaper???? I know hundreds of people who are in the newspaper. Or get a story published about them. and What about online dating??? I would think that one would be worse then “myspace”. Think about it. On that website you set yourself up to actually “meet” the other person, rather then just talking to them through messages. No offence but i find that alot scarier. Not to mention that myspace is helping kids. Hundreds of thousands of people go on myspace all around the world. You have people from different cultures, you have people from different locations, different states. It allows a person, and student exspecially to “network” or learn about how things are in far away places. To get another aspect on things. Or in other words, meet new people. After a student graduate, if they intend to go on to collage, myspace has made it easy so that they can make some new friends before they actually get there. If you are going to ban myspace, you might as well ban parks, because that is just as bad. Or even going outside alone. ORRRRRR, you might as well ban the grocery store.
Alot more happens with a guy comming up and saying that he has a flat tire to lure some girl into his car, then it is with a guy going on a website.
OMG why does myspace.com haft to be BLOCKED from schools?
THAT IS SO GAY!
AND YEA
If they were smart then they would realize that we can hack into it whit the right research!
I MEAN YEA
Were not dumb people we know how to protect ourselves!!
I found these very useful intructions posted on the net that showed me how to access my myspace in school. I hope they help! :)
http://access-myspace.741.com
http://angelfire.com/planet/access
I heard in a forum that there will be duplicate sites like this just in case schools block those sites too. Good luck!
of course you cnnot download firefox at school, so you are pretty much screwed
ok, this is completly stupid in every way possible. i mean, before u can really talk to a person on myspace, u have to add them as a friend. that means u can check them out before u talk to them. thats what ive always done, and its worked pretty well for me. the only other wa is to message people, and if u don’t like em, don’t answer. and if they really start bothering u, block them, idiot. its not that hard if u have common sense.
ugh you know this is so insulting to teens. I’ve been doing xanga and myspace for two years now. I am well aware of the unsafe aspects of them. I know about people getting raped from people they meet on myspace and xanga. But for schools to completely ban them is completely insulting! First of all, they don’t even BOTHER asking the students for their opinion, and second of all, you can’t control the teen’s out-of-school life. I’m sorry, but believe it or not we DO have lives out of school and we DO have social lives. The majority of students are only able to comunicate with friends through myspace [during the school week]. And by banning us from using them you’re sending out wrong messages to the teens. You’re saying that we’re all stupid dunderheads that’ll be dumb enough to meet up with a complete stranger we’ve met on myspace. And you’re saying that we’re all untrustworthy and we don’t even deserve to keep in touch with friends. I know some of the reason for banning it is so we have more study time but GIVE ME A BREAK. I’m online about 2 hours a night and I have all A’s and I’m in several after school clubs. Also, by denying us this right you’re going against your own guidelines. The school’s concern should only be what goes on in school and nothing more. For them to actually think they have the right to tell us what we should be doing with our free time is insulting and unacceptable. They think they’re doing it for our safety but you should let it be the parent’s decision. If your parents are fine with your online diaries then nothing is wrong with it. If you take the necessary safety measures, you’ll be fine. Teens need their own place to call their own. I should know. xanga and myspace have helped me through my troubles. they’ve been an outlet for my emotions and without them i’d still be the person i was two years ago: a workoholic with no friends. i’m a much happier person now and if schools ban xanga and myspace i’m gonna get pretty pissed.
Most high schools have MySpace blocked, but at my school every one uses TheRealNET to get on.
http://therealnet.cafe150.com/
It has links for MySpace, Facebook, and AIM proxies!
Enjoy :)
I think it is stupid that schools block websites then we cant get onto anything….i hate it. we should be able to get on anything we want because when we go home we do what we want anyways…its agrovating when all these sites are blocked. schools need to quit doing it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My school has even blocked google so we can’t even get on that site anymore without finding a loop hole…
school = boring as hell now
lol, too easy, just use an IP reverser. Flasharcade.cc has one and i have one on my site. My schools so stupid. can anyone say l-l /\ }{?
YOU GUYS ARE SO STUPID TO BLOCK MYSPACE.COM!!! ITS A FREAKIN LITTLE SITE THAT DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ITS COMPLETELY HARMLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WAS ON FOR 12 HOURS STRAIGHT ONCE! THE TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS ARE TAKING AWAY THE KIDS’ RIGHTS MORE AND MORE EVERY DAY. LAY OFF!!! & YOU KNOW WHAT? WE DON’T CARE IF YOU BLOCK IT AT SCHOOL; THATS JUST MORE TIME WE SPEND ON IT AT HOME INSTEAD OF DOING HOMEWORK!! UNBLOCK MYSPACE.COM FROM SCHOOLS AND WE’LL GET BETTER GRADES. YOU GUYS ARE STUPID TO BLOCK IT.
ok my school is freaking dumb just to point that out! anyways the computer will let me get onto myspace through a proxy but it wont let me sign in itll refer me to make an account!
Kirtsten, youre wrong, Freeing myspace will in no way help your grades or anyone elses for that matter, the best it will do is get you worse grades in a computer class, or get you a good ol’ stalker/pedaphile. And you must really be a lonley person to spend 12 hours on myspace. And trust me, you should focus more on school than a social life. Im only a sophmore, but its really obvious now. School cant hate you, and trust me, people change alot in 3 years from 7th to 10th grade. you wont be with your same friends. Most of them probably wont even be seen in public with you, because youre not in their new friends cliq. So have fun while it lasts, cheers kids.
I discovered a hidden danger in MySpace everyone seems to have missed. A web “Hate” page was set up dedicated to my daughter. There was a gun on the page. The page prominately displayed her first and last name as the inspiration for “hate”. The page was set up annonymously and sent to many classmates. My child did not know about the page until her friends told her about it. She does not and never had a page set up. I contacted MySpace and they did not take the page down until the police got involved. MySpace never responded to me personally.
Now think about it. If there is some crazy teen thinking of shooting up students at my daughter’s school, she has just become the primary target as a result of MySpace.
ok what i dont get is how come all the schools block myspace.com i think its really retarded!! ok i unerstand that parents think that something bad is going to happen because of all the stories on the news about girls meeting people on myspace then end up meeting up with the people they meet on there and end up getting raped or something like that but its the dumb girls fault for meeting up with them! and i just think its really dumb get lives parents and dont always find a way to ruin things!!!
this blocking is stupid. the hopatcong schools have gone block happy! we get access to one website for every 100 blocked. I swear I will find a way around this and tell the world how to do it! I have a theory all I have to do now is test it………
any other websites
yall can use uhhh…
http://www.sn33k.com
or http://www.unblockmyspace.com
if they aint blocked em yet… or ya its all good
i need a proxy to help me get to my spce pleaze post if u have one ok ill wil be very thankful of u ok got to go by
any more web sites
uhmm..wow…our school systems are gay..they’re not protecting us..they’re takinh away our rights.i’m so sick of school officials thinkging their our parents..i have some at home, i don’t need some here
seriously, get over it. myspace is a load of crap anyway. are you kids really that desperate and lonely? spending 12 hours a day on the internet is pretty pathetic. go outside, get some sun once in a while. myspace isnt just lame, it causes drama, and it can be dangerous. its not taking away your god damn rights. you’re at school to do SCHOOL WORK. do you idiots ever want to graduate? its pretty sad you cant wait a few hours to go home and waste your life away on myspace.com.
there is life outside the internet. try growing up sometime. they’re not taking away your rights. geez. there’s a freakin reason that the site is blocked. like i said, you’re supposed to be doing work at school, not sitting on the internet. myspace is some stupid trend that everyone wants to conform to. apparently school officials NEED to be your parents because your parents aren’t doing their job.
get over it.
BUT: i do think its wrong to be forced to delete your account if you access it outside of school. what you do outside of school is your business and that IS a violation of your rights. you just shouldnt access it during school.
i think it is ridiculous that they blocked myspace, its the teens decision if they want to get bad grades in school rather than doing their work in class…
our school has blocked everything besides xanga and your email and its annoying because when i finish my work i want to check my myspace.. what is so wrong w/ that?
i know how to unblock it. go too http://www.atunnel.com and type in . http://www.myspace.com in the little search engine and it will come up
my school is totally gay!! i mean i want myspace. EVERYONE wants their myspace. it’s so much fun!! then the school has to be gay and block it on us. please, if anyone knows how to get on myspace at school beacuse mine is blocked, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me an IM and tell me how!! –>slytlyimperfect
school blocks everything but if u need to get onto myspace go to allaboutabe.com then click on the picture of abe on the top left the type in myspace it works
Its really simple actually, they block myspace because its fun. Think about it, I mean my school blocks EVERYTHING, there is hardly a reason to get on the net a school. Games are blocked, all social sites are blocked, Political sites are blocked. Its all blocked because it doesn’t apply to school. IT SUCKS!!!
none of that shiz works.. my school has every website blocked off!! even bungienet.com
How dare you!!! MySpace is a place for meeting new people half the friends i have, and hang out with i have met on MySpace and have now known for years just from meeting them on MySpace i dont think you people have room to comment about it if you haven’t explored the the features of myspace or used it! also you may think you are protecting us from something but you really arn’t people non these sites are all like me, wanting to make new friends and meet up or just general conversation. People are not so stupid they are guna meet them on their own!
yeh my skool blocked myspace too, it sucks..all i wanna do is talk to mates through it.
i used a few websites to get to it, but my skool just blocked them too..which just sucks even more.
so now i’m kinda stuck, but i’m gonna find a way to get onto it..no doubt about that.
I’m the author of JProx http://www.monkeysigns.com and my visitors use it all the time to access MySpace, for that matter, to access any site that their school or company may have blocked. You can use it for free.
I wrote it to encourage freedom of speech, as well as provide a means for secure anonymouse web browsing.
I haven’t gotten any complaints from users yet saying that their school is blocking my site yet.
Give it a try, worth a shot. And Enjoy.
This is unacceptable. Schools have no right or reason to even imagine they have ANY say in what goes on in student’s homes. They are not the students’ parents and have no power over what happens outside of the school. If my school ever did this I would drag them through court and I would be sure to make it O-so- messy :) This should be exploited all over the news. Schools hate that. The only tips I can give for this are:
1) Hold a protest
2) Continue to use the sites
3) Take the school system to court
its really gay that myspace is blocked, and it should be unblocked!!!!!..yeah. damn i still got that buz! sh!t im tired as hell :P
hey, yeah I’m in school at the moment and bored as hell. Our school just decided to block myspace and it has pissed off A LOT of people, including me. so any help would be very well appriciated. thanks.
wow why dey gotta ban ar stuff when we jus want to express ourselfz i mean its real stoopid
damn mfs.
my school blocked this sit dumb b/c it can be very helpfule and i think it was
please unblock this one guardster and tnt proxy because our school has it blocked
my school blocked myspace too but i can still get into it by going to chasebadkids.net and then you click on new myspae and its in the top right hand corner, ‘myspace at school’. It works for some schools but not for others.
ughh this is soo gay im at school right now and ive loked through so many blogs and none of them work…any more proxys?
i’ve tried
whos-blazin.org/proxy..
doesnt work
then i tried
google.com/gwt/n
btu now that doesnt work
ughh
ya
help por favor
help me!!! i need a website to get onto myspace and none of the previously mentioned sites seem to work!!! we need to figure out an alternate way to get on…i mean, our school tracks our websites and if one site gets a lot of hits then they block it, it’s so gay!!! please help me
i need a web site to get into myspace.com because i need it. it is the only way i can communicate with other people at school and it makes the day go by alot faster than it would if i had nothing to do at all that day i need it. non of the proxy sites will work because the school district blocked them all and ne think with the proxy word in it. pleas help my e-mail is ttlshorty15@alienxsoftware.com if you would like to talk becuase i did fined one that will get you in but you have to e-mail me for it
You can access blocked myspace here http://www.freewebjunk.com/myspace/index.asp