You might have heard about this new rock and roll band called Green Day - they’ve had a song or two on the radio once or twice. Interestingly enough, for all the punk anthems and great rock they’ve put out since starting out, this ballad off Warning is my favorite song they’ve ever done.

Well, this upstart punk group has now teamed with the Natural Resources Defense Council to create a MySpace page dedicated to the environment.

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A teenage girl named Crystal has turned to Youtube to share her story of being raped. According to CNN, Crystal is among dozens of young people who are turning to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to talk about sexual assault.

Sadly, the comments which appear below the Youtube video are disgusting. Many think the girl is putting on an act, while others support the attacker. Everything about this makes me sick: the fact that a girl who claims she was raped has no where to turn but to the internet, that people commenting on the video think rape is funny, and that rape even happens at all. I’m really not sure what to make of all of this.

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Social networking, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Youtube… Did you ever stop to think how our interaction on these sites would transfer to the real world? Are the ways we keep in touch actually normal? The answer might lie below:

Perhaps when we left high school, we were really supposed to leave high school….

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Facebook will add new safeguards to keep younger users safe from sexual predators and cyber bullies. These new safety features will include banning convicted sex offenders from the site and finding better ways to verify users’ ages and identities.

The agreement was announced by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in a deal along with other attorneys general around America. “This marks another watershed towards social networking safety,” he said. It will “protect kids from online predators and inappropriate content,” he added. It comes on the heels of a similar comprehensive agreement that 49 states and Washington, DC, made with MySpace last January. [BBC]

Keep your kids safe from Internet danger, and check out http://www.netsmartz.org. NetSmartz is an Internet safety resource from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America that uses the latest technology to create high-impact educational activities for even the most tech-savvy kids of any age group.

If you’re anything like me, you’re pretty overwhelmed with what seems like an infinite amount of social networking sites. I mean wouldn’t it be much nicer to see all these “friends” rather than clicking through the profiles of all these “friends?” Well in the meantime social networking sites offer a way to stay connected with old friend while also providing opportunity for artists, activists and entrepreneurs to mingle. Social network sites allow users to promote their work, find people to work with, and create communities that share interests, goals, and ideas.

Different social networking sites are geared toward different goals, from sharing good books to sharing plans to save the world to simply just making new friends. Here are just 10 of the hundreds of social networking sites available:

1) MySpace: Probably the most popular of the networking sites, MySpace offers an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally. MySpace has greatly helped promote new bands, comedians, and social issues. The site is so popular it’s even become a verb aka “hey totally MySpace me!”

2) Facebook: Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and

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The MySpace Impact Awards honors MySpace members that have had a positive impact on our culture. Each month MySpace will choose a winner in one of the following categories: Community-building, Environmentalism, Health and Safety, Social Justice, Poverty Relief and International Development. Winners of the award receive exposure and MySpace promotion.

This month’s winner in the category of Social Justice is Why Tuesday? Watch their video below

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GOOD, Kenneth Cole Productions and MySpaceTV have launched On Skid Row, a five-part documentary series that will shed light on a place that is invisible to most people; a place where 9,000 homeless people, whose average age is 9, live in abject poverty, card board boxes, surrounded by feces, urine, rats, prostitution and crime; where mentally ill are dropped off to fend for themselves. And this isn’t a far away place in the third world. In the words of the writer and narrator Sam Slovick, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, this is the first “Third World city in America.” This is Los Angeles’ Skid Row, the notorious neighborhood, which, ironically, is right next to LA’s financial district. On Skid Row is produced by Good Magazine, will be screened on MySpaceTV, and is sponsored by Kenneth Cole Productions. So and check out Part One of On Skid Row on MySpaceTV, at GOODMagazine or at Kenneth Cole Productions’ Awearness Blog. And to find out other ways you can to help alleviate homelessness, check out HELP USA.

Are online social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others making us better or worse off socially and psychologically? It’s a question that analysts have been asking more frequently, with a growing number of crimes and suicides being reported upon with regard to said sites.

The general consensus of a six-chair round table, hosted by Stephen Dubner at the NY Times, reminds us not throw the baby out with the bath water. Social networking sites have both good and bad attributes, but unfortunately the negatives ones are generally more newsworthy, and therefore get more attention in many mainstream media outlets. There’s something to be said for taking a more sensible approach, say analysts.

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Combining the power of celebrity with the power of the Internet, Tom Hanks is making a difference with the Freeplay Foundation.

Serving as the foundation’s US Ambassador, Hanks has posted videos on both Youtube and MySpace to promote the Freeplay Foundation charity auction. The Freeplay Foundation supports rural poor areas of Africa by providing innovative and practical energy solutions and ensuring sustained access to information and education via radio. Through this mission the Freeplay Foundation created the Lifeline radio, as described on Freeplay’s site:

The Lifeline is a self-powered radio designed specifically for children living on their own, distance education or other humanitarian projects. Robustly constructed to operate in the harshest of conditions and climates, the Lifeline radio is rugged, colourful, easy to use and carry, receives excellent AM/FM/SW and plays for many hours non-stop on wind-up energy or solar power. It is available to aid and donor agencies for bona fide humanitarian initiatives.

Hanks auctioned autographed Freeplay radios on Ebay along with a personal letter and signed picture. All of the auction proceeds go towards Freeplay’s work in Africa.

To donate a Lifeline and learn more about the Freeplay Foundation visit freeplayfoundation.org

After months of being on strike, the WGA (Writers Guild of America) has voted to lift the strike and will begin writing again. After unofficial talks and scheduled votes today, the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) and the WGA have come to terms officially, with some writers returning to work as soon as tomorrow:

The vote on whether to lift the strike was held three days after the Writers Guild of America cinched its contract agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The strike vote was held over a 48-hour frame, with members able to vote in person at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills and Gotham’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, or via fax.

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