More Than 2,100 NC Sex Offenders Found On MySpace:
Our esteemed Attorney General here in North Carolina, Roy Cooper (didn’t vote for him), announced yesterday that 2,116 convicted North Carolina sex offenders were found on MySpace. Cooper has subpoenaed MySpace for the names, addresses and other information about said sex offenders so he can share the information with police. Personally if I was the AG I would not have announced this because now 2,116 probation violating sex offenders could be going into hiding. You’d think it would make sense to hold off any announcements until arrests are made. In my opinion Mr. Cooper is more of a PR seeking bureaucrat than he is an Attorney General. This isn’t his first rodeo when it comes to MySpace. In the past AG Cooper has made what I consider to be some ridiculous demands from MySpace in the name of the children. And like most Attorneys General not once does he call on parents to be more vigilant. That’s because they’re voters and MySpace is just a faceless website.
The article also mentions that these numbers don’t include sex offenders that haven’t been convicted or sex offenders using aliases. Yet I don’t hear what Mr. Cooper plans to do about them.
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Facebook has removed 5,500 sex offenders since May:
Facebook removed over 5,500 convicted sex offenders from their site between last May and this January. That’s roughly an average of 600 per month.
In two years MySpace removed 90,000 sex offenders. That works out to 3,750 a month.
But the question remains does MySpace have more sex offenders on their site or are they just better at finding them than Facebook?
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MySpace Finds 40,000 More Sex Offenders, 90,000 Total:
After being subpoenaed by Conn. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal MySpace has identified 90,000 sex offenders that had accounts on MySpace. This is definitely bad news for MySpace that was supposed to be active in deleting accounts that belonged to registered sex offenders.
Let’s hear from AG Blumenthal…
“These convicted, registered sex offenders creating profiles under their own names unmasks MySpace’s monstrously inadequate countermeasures,” Blumenthal, co-leader of the state coalition focused on Internet social-networking safety, said in a statement. “MySpace must purge these dangerous offenders now
While MySpace definitely dropped the ball on this one I still believe that parents should be the first and last line of defense in protecting their kids. You obviously can’t trust MySpace to do it and I would add that you shouldn’t rely on the government to do it either.
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Conn. AG to MySpace: Turn over sex offender data:
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has subpoenaed MySpace, again, to get them to turn over information about sex offenders belonging to their sites.
Yet another PR move from the AG’s office in my opinion.
You know MySpace isn’t the only site where sex offenders reside. You may want to try Facebook and MyYearbook as well but MySpace is the face of sex offenders by the soccer moms that Blumenthal is courting for votes.
I have an idea. Why doesn’t the AG’s office try and find these sex offenders themselves. It’s not that hard really. Myself and other bloggers constantly find various criminals on MySpace. It’s not that hard.
But then AG Blumenthal wouldn’t have anyone to blame but his own office and that won’t happen. Nor will calls for more parental responsibility.
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Bruning Plan Would Keep Sex Offenders Off Networking Sites:
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning says that it’s of critical importance that it be made illegal for sex offenders to use sites like MySpace.
Like I’ve said to all the other Attorneys General before him that’s all well and good but how are you going to stop the unregistered sex offenders from using it?
He’s just another politician kowtowing to Luddite parents instead of telling them to monitor their kids internet activities.
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Georgia sex offenders must hand over computer passwords:
Here we go again with possibly the most useless law on the books. It’s now required by law for sex offenders in the state of Georgia to hand over their internet usernames and passwords including social network sites like MySpace and Facebook. I’m sure convicted criminals wouldn’t hand over false information. That was sarcasm by the way.
Even law enforcement admits it’s not much…
” If they want to violate it they can, hopefully we’ll be there to catch them when they do.”
Hopefully? That doesn’t really build the public’s confidence does it?
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MySpace can now expel sex offenders:
Yesterday President Bush (remember him?) signed a bill into law yesterday that grants sites like MySpace and Facebook to have access to a national database of registered sex offenders.
With that access the sites would be able to cross reference their user base and expel any registered sex offenders on it.
Sex offenders who do not register their e-maill addresses and other internet information could face up to 10 years in prison.
I actually think this is an enormous step to getting sex offenders off of places like MySpace but again I have to note that it doesn’t do anything to keep off the sex offenders that haven’t been caught yet.
Parents still need to remain vigilant in their kids’ internet usage. If you don’t know how to monitor their net habits educate yourself.
Parents should always be the first line of defense.
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MySpace Deletes 146 Nebraska Sex Offender Profiles from Site:
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning announced this past Friday that in the first half of 2008 MySpace has deleted the profiles of 112 sex offenders that are registered in Nebraska. In 2007 247 were deleted.
No word on what Nebraska is doing about the unregistered sex offenders or the registered ones that aren’t on MySpace.
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MySpace Helps AG Crackdown On Sex Offenders:
Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett is in the process of possibly cracking down on 185 Pa. sex offenders that are on MySpace.
What is AG Corbett doing differently than most pf the AG’s I’ve written about? He’s not grandstanding and he’s not putting the blame to MySpace to garner votes. (Unlike AG’s Blumenthal, Cuomo, and Cooper.)
“So we were were able to discover who they were – at least MySpace was. Our concern is that there’s other people who are registered sex offenders that probably have MySpace accounts that there’s no way if they use an alias that we’re going to discover.”
Wow, he even addresses the issue of sex offenders using aliases on MySpace and he does it realistically.
Once the records from MySpace have been reviewed the AG’s office will be forwarding the information to the sex offenders’ parole officers.
Other AG’s should take note that this is how to get things done instead of pandering to clueless soccer moms.
Thanks to Gage for the tip.
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Sex offenders nabbed on MySpace and Facebook:
The state of New Jersey has arrested 3 sex offenders that were found to be on MySpace and Facebook.
The perpetrators were Stanton Ulmer, 32, of Neptune Township, Felice Black, 24, of Paterson, and Pietro Parisi, 34, of Westville.
While the New Jersey AG, Anne Milgram, is busy patting herself on the back I think this shows that recent legislation is not keeping sexual predators off social networks.
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