In my research about moral panics and social media I came across numerous articles that use the term "Technopanic." This is the term used to describe the panic around contemporary technology. In the 2008 essay by Alice Marwick entitled The MySpace Moral Panic, she states the characteristics of Technopanics:

"First, they focus on new media forms, which currently take the form of computer–mediated technologies. Second, technopanics generally pathologize young people’s use of this media, like hacking, file-sharing, or playing violent video games. Third, this cultural anxiety manifests itself in an attempt to modify or regulate young people’s behavior, either by controlling young people or the creators or producers of media products."

I would now like to discuss the panic over Myspace. This panic was based around online predators."The technopanic over “online predators” is remarkably similar to the cyberporn panic; both are fueled by media coverage, both rely on the idea of harm to children as the justification for Internet content restriction, and both have resulted in carefully crafted legislation to circumvent First Amendment concerns."(http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2152/1966)

MySpace was said to be a site that made it easy for "online predators" to make contact with minors. It was also argued that social network sites "generally lower cultural expectations around privacy, encouraging children to expose more of their lives online."

"This panic brought about the The Delete Online Predators Act (DOPA). This act would involve schools and libraries banning children from accessing social networking sites. The act was passed in July 2006 by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The bill, if enacted, would amend the Communications Act of 1934, requiring schools and libraries that receive E-rate funding to protect minors from online predators in the absence of parental supervision when using "Commercial Social Networking Websites" and "Chat Rooms". The bill would prohibit schools and libraries from providing access to these types of websites to minors or create restrictions to use of these type of sites. The bill also would require the institutions to be capable of disabling the restrictions for "use by an adult or by minors with adult supervision to enable access for educational purposes."

The bill is considered controversial because according to its critics the bill could limit access to a wide range of websites, including many with harmless and educational material. Arguments for the bill focus on the fear of adults contacting children on MySpace and similar websites. Many Internet websites, however (ranging from Yahoo to Slashdot to Amazon.com), allow user accounts, public profiles, and user forums, in accord with the bill's definition of "social networking". The bill places the onus upon the Federal Communications Commission to provide clarification."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deleting_Online_Predators_Act_of_2006)

As of 2007 this act seems to be dead legislation. It seems that like all other panics they reach a point where they begin to decrease or pass.

I found many interesting points in the essay posted on facebook,
Techno-Panic Cycles (and How the Latest Privacy Scare Fits In):

Why Do Techno-Panics Pass?

To be clear, there are no clear boundaries with techno-panics. They do not just suddenly begin and end, and it is impossible to gauge their relative severity since no metric or yardstick exists to measure them against. Nonetheless, these techno-panics certainly seem to have peaks and valleys in terms of public / political / media attention.

Just a few years ago, for example, the online predator panic reached a fever pitch and “stranger danger” reports were all over the media. As a result, legislation banning social networking sites in publicly funded schools and libraries was introduced, and state attorneys general proposed mandatory online age verification schemes for the Internet to segregate adults and children online. And then, it seems, the fever passed. I couldn’t tell you exactly what week or month it happened — and in many ways some of those fears still exist out there — but it’s clear that the panic about online predation has subsided greatly. I’d like to think that education and awareness helped debunk some of the myths that were fueling that particular panic, just as I’d like to believe that education and awareness helped deflate the fear bubbles that surrounded previous panics.

While I don’t want to entirely discount that possibility, I’m convinced another more cynical explanation may exist: New techno-panics simply crowd-out old techno-panics. There may be several explanations for this:

Perhaps there is only so much fear-mongering our minds can handle at any given time.
Perhaps it is becuase the media gets myopically focused on one panic and then hammers it till all the fear has been squeezed out of it such that they have to move on.
Perhaps it is because a new technology comes along that spooks politicians and the media even more than the previous one they were demonizing.
Or perhaps all of those factors combine to limit the duration of panics.

Regardless, it seems evident that moral panics and techno-panics have always been with us and will always be with us. From the waltz to rock and roll to rap music, from movies to comic books to video games, from radio and television to the Internet and social networking websites — every new media format or technology spawns a fresh debate about the potential negative effects it might have on society or our kids in particular. An excellent recent report by the U.K. government entitled Safer Children in a Digital World noted that “New media are often met by public concern about their impact on society and anxiety and polarisation of the debate can lead to emotive calls for action.” Indeed, each of the media technologies or communications platforms mentioned above was either regulated or threatened with regulation at some point in its history.

(http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150095472156218&comments)