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Lawmen demand names of sex offenders using MySpace website

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Published Date: 15 May 2007
By SAMUEL SPIES
THE top law enforcement officers from eight US states yesterday sent a letter to MySpace.com, demanding the social networking site hand over the names of registered sex offenders who use the service.
One attorney general branded the website "a playground for predators". The letter asks MySpace, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, to provide information on how many registered sex offenders are using the site and where they live.

Richard Blumen
thal, Connecticut's attorney general, said that he learned of the large number of sex offenders on the site as a result of an investigation, but did not make clear his source.

"Mixing sex offenders with children on MySpace is a recipe for tragedy," he said. "MySpace is more than a place for friends to meet. It's a playground for predators."

The attorneys general of Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and New Hampshire also signed a letter to the company asking it to provide the information.

Roy Cooper, the attorney general of North Carolina, said law enforcement agencies have identified more than 200 cases nationwide of children "lured out of their home by predators they met on MySpace".

In their letter, the attorneys general also asked that MySpace describe the steps it has taken to warn users about sex offenders and remove their profiles.

MySpace's policy prevents children under 14 from setting up profiles, but it relies on users to specify their ages.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Defence (DoD) has decided to block access to 13 websites from its network, including MySpace and YouTube, because of an overabundance of "recreational traffic".

General B B Bell, the military commander in South Korea, said use of those sites "impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge".



The full article contains 303 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 14 May 2007 8:59 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Internet chatrooms
 
1

BW2,

Everywhere 15/05/2007 00:54:04

Send them all a Virus

http://williambeck.blogspot.com/

http://sccrcunjustdecisions.myfastforum.org/

2

Dave From Barra,

Western Isles 15/05/2007 06:43:50

Isn't there an age limit for these kind of sites?

I know that you have to be over 13 to be on Bebo (however, it is not monitored by Bebo is it, even though the user displays age, date of birth and face pic in many cases).

3

Petar Subotic,

Ohio, US. 15/05/2007 12:56:16

Attorney generals mentioned above are reaching way out of their playing field on this one.
First of let's reflect on the fact that ANYone can sign up for myspace, all you need is an e-mail address (which by the way, you can get for free from myspace as well.) You can make up your name, your age, your gender and your location. All the information on there is trust-based (and how much exactly can we trust the sexual predators?) This brings us to another interesting thing, there is no way that myspace.com would be able to list all of the predators on the website, or if even any...
Internet is one of the most lawless places on the planet. Anyone can say what they want, in which ever way they want, and will not be held responsible for it, (that is if you just check that "I agree to terms of service" button without even reading it) But if you do, you will see that all these websites are not naive in any way, all of them state that if you sign up to use it, they are not in any way responsible for anything that happens.
Back to the issue, myspace cannot control predators without totally rebuilding its system and requiring social security numbers when registering (which would be totally redundant).
If the government really wants to do something, they, on their own, need to track down predators' computers, look up their IP's and track their surfing around the world web... set some limitations and enforce the rules... it's the best you could do.
In conclusion, myspace is not to blame for any of this, if anything it is the lack of government being willing and involved. I think this was a terrible move on their behalf.

4

BW2,

Everywhere 16/05/2007 02:35:19

Never mind the virus just do them in, They have too many supporters and #4 is right it would be too hard to police.
How about never letting them back out of Jail if they survive 40 year sentences.
How about them never being allowed near computers.
How about E Mails having to be registered, Surely big companies like them should be able to devise a way of doing something more.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.myvideos

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll...


 

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