In a recent purge of sex offenders on the social networking site MySpace, it was discovered that there were over 29,000 profiles online, many of which used the actual names of offenders. While legislation is trying to pass laws to prevent these kinds of things from happening, it is important that parents should know about things like this. Make sure you are aware of what your children are doing online, especially when it comes to social networking sites.

Social networking site MySpace’s systematic purge of sex offenders from its membership has identified more than 29,000 people on states’ registries using their real names on the network, the Attorneys General for Connecticut and North Carolina stated this week.

The states’ top prosecutors highlighted the data amongst calls for significantly stronger legislation to prevent people on the state’s sex offender registry from using social networking sites and enhance penalties for predators that use the Internet to solicit minors. The Attorney General for North Carolina, Roy Cooper, used the data to garner support for a bill (PDF) in that state’s Senate that aims to accomplish those goals, while Connecticut’s Attorney General took MySpace to task for not implementing better age verification techniques.[more]

Tags: Social Networking