MySpace cracks down on 29000 sex offenders
By Sean P. Aune
In a long requested move, MySpace has finally struck a blow at one of the biggest complaints with the popular social-networking site: sex offenders.
It was announced today that MySpace had found 29,000 registered sexual offenders amongst their members, a number four times greater than the News Corp.-owned site had reported a mere two months ago.
After pressure from attorney generals of multiple states, which included formal legal requests, the site agreed to provide data on the registered offenders that included where they live. MySpace had originally stated that such information was confidential under federal privacy guidelines, but later conceded to working with the states to clean up its membership rolls.
Even with the new cooperation, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is asking for even more safeguards to be put in place. “These numbers dispel any doubt that age verification and other reforms are overdue and undeniable.” said the state’s top law-enforcement agent. “Steadfast opposition by MySpace to age verification and parental permission for minors has no shred of credibility. We hope that MySpace and other social networking sites will be convinced by this clear and present danger — 29,000-strong — to support effective reforms.”
Currently MySpace boasts nearly 180 million profiles, with 29,000 offenders representing .016% of their membership.
Related:
Stumble It!
Entry was posted
on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 9:05 am
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
July 25th, 2007
Although I think the age verification idea is a good one, there are still ways for young kids to get around this. I think parents need to be more proactive in teaching their kids about the dangers of the internet instead of worrying how the government is going to handle the situation. Ultimately they are responsible for what their kids do every day. I think its important for parents to monitor younger children as well as teach them safer habits while online. I know MySpace has a safety page. There are also sites like NetSmartz411.org which help parents monitor their children and teach them ways to keep their kids safer online. Although the number of sex offenders on MySpace is a small percentage, you can never be too careful when it comes to children’s safety. And lets not forget, 29,000 is just the registered sex offenders using their real names. I’m sure there are plenty more people out there on MySpace that shouldn’t be…