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Old 03-01-2002, 12:43 AM   #1
SSJ4Sephiroth
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Join Date: May 4, 2001
Location: The Outside Looking In
Age: 36
Posts: 4,361
What is with society and the media portraying all internet friendships as evil acts created to lure unsuspecting teens to the lair of some creepy 40-year-old who's waiting to capture and kill them. Or even just all internet relationships ending in something above, or that someone gives false information just to lure some young person into believing them to be a teen.

How dumb are the people who believe that all of them turn out like this? I told my gaming guild about IW and all the great friends I had here... they did a response like the one above, saying "Oh, they're just trying to trick you," or, "She's probably some eighty year old woman," or some such. Why does everyone believe this?

The media gives false portrayal of such things. I know this for a fact as all the time on the news we all hear about how someone was killed when they went to meet someone they met in a chat room, or how someone was missing after they went to a meeting spot. Why do none of the success stories, which are much more legion than those disasters, always make headlines? The answer is simple. Nobody wants to hear about people being happy because it makes them realize how bleak their lives are. They like hearing about how someone was kidnapped, killed, or molested. They don't like hearing about people meeting, being happy, and just having a jolly good time.

After the aforementioned guild incident, I told my family. That was about as big a mistake, as my aunt immediately began saying how she saw about ONE case on Oprah portraying one of the above scenarios and telling me that I should only talk to people I know in real life online (if anyone can see any use in the internet existing by doing that, please tell me). Nobody else in my family was supportive either. They mocked me, purposely got the names wrong and read my private conversations.

Anyways, I think I got a bit off track there. Where was I? Oh yes, why people believe such bad things about the internet. Well, I think that my thoughts can best be summed up by a couple of verses from "The Panama Deception" by Anti-Flag (alright, its not for these purposes originally but it works here).

Our lives reflect TV sitcoms and tragedies, by corporate choice. I ask "How many of you swallow the lies," "How many of you, do not realize..."

...And like a flock of sheep with wool over your eyes, you never stop to question you just fall into line. The media's a business that provides entertainment. Their bottom line money and stories that will make it so they run with stories that promote the lies to keep the ratings coming wealth from promoting world strife...

Life must be so easy when you dont have to think. Black and white like printing from a newspaper's ink...


and it goes on from there. Anyways, essentially what that says is that people believe whatever the media tells them about these things just because its easier. And the media isn't shy about putting these rare mishaps out there either; it keeps the audiences there, creating profit for them, so they dig for stories and if they can't find any, they'll likely make something up.
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Old 03-01-2002, 12:54 AM   #2
LennonCook
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Join Date: November 10, 2001
Location: Bathurst & Orange, in constant flux
Age: 37
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I agree entirely. Although we cant be sure that people on the net are who they say they are, we cant assume that none of them are. If there wasnt trust on the net, there wouldnt be happy places like IW on here.
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Old 03-01-2002, 01:10 AM   #3
Scholarcs
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Join Date: December 5, 2001
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Age: 38
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Excellent post Sephiroth! You perfectly portray what is typically happening in our modern society.

It is definately because of the negative media attention that the internet recieves that it is portrayed as a poor, dark hole where old men prey on young teens.

Of course we know that is not the case. [img]smile.gif[/img] As shown by the good friendly IW!

What we can do to fix this? I dont know. People seem set in their ways. Maybe when we grow up we will not be too hard on our children etc. who use the internet to form friendships.
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Old 03-01-2002, 01:27 AM   #4
Aelia Jusa
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Join Date: August 23, 2001
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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quote:
Originally posted by SSJ4Sephiroth:

The media gives false portrayal of such things. I know this for a fact as all the time on the news we all hear about how someone was killed when they went to meet someone they met in a chat room, or how someone was missing after they went to a meeting spot. Why do none of the success stories, which are much more legion than those disasters, always make headlines? The answer is simple. Nobody wants to hear about people being happy because it makes them realize how bleak their lives are. They like hearing about how someone was kidnapped, killed, or molested. They don't like hearing about people meeting, being happy, and just having a jolly good time.



I don't think this is the answer at all, Seph. Yes it's true that a lot of people are wary of meeting people on the internet, and for good reason. You can't know for sure whether people are telling you the truth, and if you're planning on meeting them in real life then you do have to be careful about when and where you do it, at least initially - it's just common sense. I recently had an incident where I discovered a person who I had met on the internet and had trusted (to a certain extent), had been feeding me a pack of lies; reasonably harmless lies, but it was easy for this person to do so because I had no means to verify what was said.

However having said that, you should also be careful with people you meet in 'real life'. I don't think it would be any more prudent to go somewhere secluded with someone you didn't know who you met in real life than someone you met on the internet. People are just as capable of lying to you to your face as they are in a chat room, and it's a sad fact that most people are raped by someone that they know.

Also I think it depends on where you meet people on the internet. For example, I don't feel concerned that people here are misrepresenting themselves - why would they? It's a gaming forum, most people will never meet each other and there is clearly a wide range of ages etc so there is no good reason for people not to be honest about themselves. However if you meet people in chat rooms, like I saw one the other day for 13 year old girls only, or ones where people are actively trying to meet potential boy/girlfriends, it would be easy for people with nothing better to do to lie and lead them on, and some people find that sort of thing amusing, or worse.

And it's not true that the only picture the media paints of the internet is a negative one - I've seen many feel-good programs showing fairytale stories of couples meeting on the net and getting married in real life, talking about clubs and groups that meet on the internet and bring people together etc. Yes they don't often make the headlines, but then the news always has a disproportionate amount of bad news compared to good, that's just the way it is. It's not exactly newsworthy that, hypothetically of course , a 14 year old boy from Sallisaw meets 14 year old girl from Boston - it might be interesting for those involved , but not really front-page stuff. And it would be irresponsible of the media if they didn't warn people of the dangers of trusting absolutely people you meet on the internet, because it is foolhardy, and lots of naive people don't understand the risks.
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Old 03-01-2002, 02:30 AM   #5
khazadman
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Join Date: December 6, 2001
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there's good and bad in everything.and human nature being what it is,many people just want to see the bad side of something.
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Old 03-01-2002, 02:30 AM   #6
Neb
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Join Date: May 17, 2001
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Would it be SPAM if I said that I agreed fully with everything said by Seph and Aelia?

Here in Denmark just chatting is a social taboo, it marks you as a loser who can't make friends in RL, actually making a friend online will mark you as a wierdo to be mocked..... I'm actually getting that kind of treatment from my own family.....
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Old 03-01-2002, 06:36 AM   #7
Cerek the Barbaric
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Join Date: October 29, 2001
Location: North Carolina
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Sephorith,

How ironic is it that your Gaming Guild would buy into this? I assume that they indulge in the even larger "social taboo" of Fantasy Role-Playing games. You would think that type of exposure would make them wise to the ways of the media.
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Old 03-01-2002, 06:46 AM   #8
Talthyr Malkaviel
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Join Date: August 31, 2001
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That's what I find really strange about it Neb, they might mock you and say it's sad, but is it sad to be able to make new friends not just from near you, but from a huge array of different countries.
Also, on a gaming forum like IW, I doubt if many (or any) lie, and if they do, that's how many people out of 7000??
What would they have to lie about, it's not like people over a certain age or under a certain age are banned from playing BG2 is it?
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Old 03-01-2002, 07:15 AM   #9
Larry_OHF
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Join Date: March 1, 2001
Location: Midlands, South Carolina
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Oh by the way Sephiroth, I have a business trip that will be taking me to your town! Wanna meet some place for a drink?

(Just a joke...sorry!)

My wife shares similar thoughts about this, but in a little different way. I can have all the guy friends I want, whether it is RL or Internet, but if I begin to talk to a girl here on IW, and it is more than a response to a question...my wife gets very angry (jealous...is a more suited term). That bugs me to no end.

By the way, Sephi...what is your address???
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Old 03-01-2002, 07:44 AM   #10
Garnet FalconDance
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Join Date: August 30, 2001
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I empathize, Seph. Whenever I mention to anyone something that happens or is said on IW, I get this *look* and then the lecturing begins about "you know what happens on those chat rooms...why just yesterday I was watching..... and this...." give me a break! and it doesn't matter if you differentiate between a forum, a list, instant messenger or chat. It seems to all be bunched in to the same questionable arena.

I realize this is a broad generalization, but a valid one nonetheless. YES, horrid things happen to people when a *predator* lies and manipulates his/her way into their lives and they trust that individual. But regardless of what the media portrays, this IMO is a tiny percentage of the internet population! I am a grown woman with a grown son---and *I* still receive well-meaning but somewhat skewed admonishments to watch myself and don't get pulled into *any* internet friendships since we all know you guys are really a roomful of sick men who want nothing more than to abuse me!

Do I have any concerns with my children on the web? YOu bet! I refuse to allow my daughter to answer ANY e-mails from unknown sources--and I monitor all activity, period. Even with the boys, I question who they correspond with and NO personal info is allowed out (home address, meetings set, anything even remotely resembling). And while I do not portray myself as infallible, I think I am a little more able to spot something questionable than they...if for no other reason than I have met and dealt with a lot more people than they!

IW is probably one of the safest places on a whole than most other sites...and that is saying a lot! But it is safe because we all purposely make the effort to make it so.

All in all, IMO, the media is doing what it does so well--taking a legitimate concern and blowing it so far out of proportion as to be nearly unrecognizable. It is a case of Big Brother-ism rearing it's head from an unexpected source.
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