Almost 30,000 sex offenders on MySpace, say US officials.

[demoleft]

This, in particular, according to Roy Cooper, North Carolina's attorney-general, as reports Al Jazeera.

"The number is more than four times what was cited by the site two months ago.
After initially withholding data, citing federal privacy laws, MySpace began complying in May after states filed formal requests."

The problem involves cases of adults who use MySpace to prey on children. "Based on media reports, Cooper's office found more than 100 criminal incidents this year of adults using MySpace to prey or attempt to prey on children."

MySpace leaves no comment on the figures but insists it's making all the necessary efforts to remove sex offenders from its site.
Which we believe.

Solutions are suggested, but some may change the nature of the internet.
Parental control/permission for children and a law enforcing age and identity verification: can they work or is it simply impossible to avoid sex offenders on the web?
Is it possible to monitor the internet without changing its nature?
Though I'm for more controls and hard punishment for sex offenders, I would not like that the internet become a place where you're suspected guilty until proved innocent.

The questions of restrictive laws or more controls involve free speech rights and privacy, because compelling age and identity check has been suggested as part of profile registration. It makes the subject a bit more complicated.

As regards a state law proposed by Cooper, critics "say the proposed restrictions are unconstitutional because they prohibit free speech or impede interstate commerce".

It looks like extrema ratio for the sex offender problem. If it must be, then be it.

The link to Al Jazeera article, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/65CF1CA7-339E-4E15-9D83-487C95CC2F01.htm

[napi21]

1. It doesn't surprise me that there are sex offenders on My Space!

Or any other site like it! When my DUL told me my grand daughter had a My Space Page, I asked her if that was really OK? She told me there are parental controls there and she monitors it all the time. My CH is only 10, and I am concerned about her safety.

BTW, how did Al Jazeera get involved in this?

[demoleft]

4. This is the N.C. initiative...

...maybe there are similar in many States, I don't know.
The link: http://ncfindoffender.gov/

I understand your fear. My brother's daughter's got a smartphone. I hope for daily controls over her contacts.

PS: Al Jazeera now gets involved in anything! The page relating to this news is in the "Americas" chapter.
A big online global newspaper!

:hi:

[LoZoccolo]

2. I'd be curious as to how they arrived at that number.

I don't think that people have to enter their complete address into MySpace, just their name, so I wonder how they matched the offender registries to MySpace accounts without them. I don't doubt that there are sex offenders on MySpace, but if the number just seems to explode in a short time like that, than perhaps it's due to a new - and possibly flawed - methodology of finding them.

[demoleft]

3. According to (and the link to) the official document...

"Social networking sites are the new playground for predators. As of July, 2007, MySpace has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders on its site, four times more than its original estimate."
This is from the Department of Justice of North Carolina.

So, if I catch it well, the figures source is MySpace. How they calculated them - if not by counting each and every case - I don't know.
"That number", says the document, "includes just the predators who signed up using their real names, and not the ones who failed to register or used fake names, or who haven’t been convicted."

Here's the link to the Department of Justice or North Carolina.
The official document by Attorney General Roy Cooper, Protecting Children from Predators, is available in *.pdf
The link: http://www.ncdoj.com/

[dorkulon]

5. Reminds me of something I read...

A great article from last year, Alternet's most popular of the year, Allan Uthman's "Top 10 Signs of the Impending US Police State", started like this:

1. The Internet Clampdown

One saving grace of alternative media in this age of unfettered corporate conglomeration has been the internet. While the masses are spoon-fed predigested news on TV and in mainstream print publications, the truth-seeking individual still has access to a broad array of investigative reporting and political opinion via the world-wide web. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the government moved to patch up this crack in the sky.

Attempts to regulate and filter internet content are intensifying lately, coming both from telecommunications corporations (who are gearing up to pass legislation transferring ownership and regulation of the internet to themselves), and the Pentagon (which issued an "Information Operations Roadmap" in 2003, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, which outlines tactics such as network attacks and acknowledges, without suggesting a remedy, that US propaganda planted in other countries has easily found its way to Americans via the internet). One obvious tactic clearing the way for stifling regulation of internet content is the growing media frenzy over child pornography and "internet predators," which will surely lead to legislation that by far exceeds in its purview what is needed to fight such threats.

Congress already passed the "Child Online Protection Act," but it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2004. That was before Roberts and Alito, though. The clampdown is coming.

[Sherman A1]

6. I now feel better having had a long talk with my teenage niece

about the information she had up on MySpace. Took her to lunch over the Christmas break and told her that she had far too much information exposed (DOB, place of birth, where she attends school, etc). She went home that day and made her profile private. I can't control what she does there or who she talks to to along the way, but at least she is got a little more protection against those just out trolling for a reasonably attractive teenage girl.


Thanks for the story link, I will send it along to her Mom.


:freak:

[Old and In the Way]

7. They'll need to shutdown chatrooms to save the kids.

All online communication is dangerous and needs to be monitored...for the kid's sake, of course.