Nameless: Then your friend is of the same mindset as kitzur-dot-net; namely, that anything that CAN be used to access something assur is intrinsically assur.
Here’s a news flash: shutting out everything and anything in the world will not help, nor does it make you better than your neighbor. Especially in contemporary society, it is next to impossible for anyone other than the Amish or perhaps a tribe in the rainforests of the Amazon to completely remove themselves from the world.
What we CAN do–and should do–is MODERATE our exposure and our children’s exposure to different forms of media. USE your head, instead of hiding it in the sand. While it’s certainly easier to pretend that MySpace is the exact same animal as Facebook, anyone who has actually used both services knows very well that they are not in any way alike.
A few immediate differences:
1. Facebook profiles can only be accessed by friends that YOU approve of. MySpace profiles can be accessed and even hacked by complete strangers.
2. Facebook does not allow complicated profiles with background music and photo wallpaper. MySpace does. While Facebook users may post videos and music, these things can only be accessed by clicking on them, once again leaving your exposure to imagery and/or music that you don’t approve of to your OWN DISCRETION.
3. Facebook began as a college-wide effort to connect students with one another and continues to serve that purpose in an expanded capacity for students, family and friends. MySpace was never intended to be a facebook, and was always a social networking site for the purpose of meeting new people.
4. MySpace has traditionally been fertile ground for pedophiles and stalkers because of the anonymity inherent in it. Facebook users generally have accounts under their REAL NAMES, and cannot interact with people they haven’t “friended.”
They are both sites for social networking but are not in any way alike. Process that.
Thinkinghelps: I have already heard that speech, and the Rav makes some very good points. Facebook CAN be and HAS been misused, just like ANY tool can be, including YWN. That’s why it is our duty to use our own discretion (thinking helps, indeed) to understand how to control these tools. And in that discretion, it would be helpful not to immediately and knee-jerkingly ban anything and everything under the sun for the reasons that:
A) it ends in .com, or
B) that you absolutely no working knowledge of what it actually is.