|
News & Noteworthy © ---
Featured Issue 5-15-07 |
|
The new form of vigilantism against registered sex offenders?
|
|
5-14-2007 National:
US states ask MySpace for details on sex offenders |
.Eight U.S. attorneys general on Monday demanded that MySpace hand over to authorities the names and addresses of thousands of convicted sex offenders they say are using the social networking Web site to contact children. Rhode Island Attorney General Richard Blumenthal along with his counterparts in seven other states made the demand in a letter to the unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
He said that he learned of the large number of sex offenders on the site as a result of a company investigation, but did not make clear his source. "Mixing sex offenders with children on MySpace is a recipe for tragedy," Blumenthal said in a statement. "MySpace is more than a place for friends to meet. It's a playground for predators."
..more..
: by Reuters
|
2-2-2007 Oklahoma:
UPDATE: Convicted sex offender arrested for address violation |
.A investigation this weekend led to the arrest of a convicted sex offender ... We showed you a disturbing Myspace web page Saturday night supposedly belonging to ....
Following our newscast, Police Chief informed us that .... was arrested for lying about where he was living. ....
She says he still maintains that he did not create a Myspace web page containing statements about wanting to meet children. He believes someone else is impersonating him. On the page, it shows several of ......'s prison mug shots.
Chief tells us she contacted Myspace to ask them to take the page down and they haven't responded to her. "It will continue to happen until Myspace comes up with a way to resolve it. Like I said it's not the first time. It's happened numerous times.
|
.Earlier today I posted the article about State AGs saying they want the names of "thousands of sex offenders" who have MySpace profiles.
Then it dawned on me, in today's climate RSOs are not going to be opening MySpace accounts just for the heck of it, although that is a good way to voice their opinion in an act of civil disobedience. All they have to do is continually open accounts and simply do not use them, there is no law against that.
So I did a little research remembering two past news articles about two registered offenders who were arrested and who claimed the accounts on MySpace were not setup by them. Bingo, how do we get from about 700 who LEGALLY had MySpace accounts to the "thousands" claimed by the AGs now?
Didn't MySpace say they were going to close those original 700 accounts? Have they or are we facing the same group because MySpace failed to do what they claimed they would?
A new form of vigilantism against registered sex offenders? Consider this news article: "NBC2 Investigates: A new form of Identity Theft." A thought just occurred to me, within every sex offender registry is more than sufficient information -available to the public- to use to setup MySpace accounts or any other social networking website account. True -or-false?
ABC news report: When Your Web Profile is Not You is quite interesting, but if it is a RSO reporting such, how much attention are they going to get to remove erroneous accounts?
It is more likely the police will be notified and an arrest warrant issued and maybe MySpace will even press charges.
I guess what must happen is, MySpace and every other social networking website on the Internet, must keep the link to the computer that established every new account, and the information from that computer. Certainly MySpace will not object to doing that to protect children? If they do then Congress could easily force them to do it, Congress already has them checking every picture for child porn.
Lets assume that it is true that thousands of RSOs have setup MySpace accounts. If true I would hope they are not on parole or probation or other state supervision. But if RSOs have done this, consider this, MySpace still has not changed their "Terms of Agreement" to prohibit such action. Why? Do they want the press for marketing purposes so they can maintain being the biggest on the Internet?
Why would MySpace not make such a change? Folks, that is beyond me. The answer must be a higher power within the corporate structure.
So, good luck to the AGs, I think they are on a wild goose chase that will lead to the new form of vigilantism against RSOs, but thats just my opinion.
eAdvocate
----------------
A few comments from news articles today: ""Many teens also use fake online names and other false details, at least partly to protect themselves from online predators, according to the survey of more than 900 teens." ................. A Video: "One shows a young woman creating a fake profile on the social networking Web site MySpace. She goes to Google and lifts a photograph of an "average-looking" 15-year-old white girl. She includes in her profile that the girl is a cheerleader. After the bait is laid out, the young woman waits for a predator to bite. Two weeks later, a man claiming to be 22 years old obliges." .............."Ques: . I'm impressed with the blogging. You probably have a MySpace page, too, don't you? Ans: I have an official Curtis Granderson MySpace page. The interesting thing about MySpace is the fake pages about me. There are three pages out there that aren't mine that have pictures and accurate information about where I went to school and they pretend to be me. I read some of the comments on the page that say nice game, but it's not me they are talking to."
|
|
|
