MySpace fingers 90,000 nonces

MySpace has admitted it has found, and removed, about 90,000 registered sex offenders on the social networking site in the last two years. The Attorney General of Connecticut Richard Blumenthal hit MySpace with a subpoena demanding the information. Blumenthal said the number of profiles refuted the final US Internet Safety …

[Stu]

MySpace BS!

This is mostly just a PR stunt from MySpace... people should listen to last weeks "Off The Hook" radio show ( http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/11804 ) if they want to hear how (in-)effective MySpace really is at removing the accounts of registered sex offenders.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, so many comments... this is hurting my head...!

"Gary Glitter has tagged you in a photo"

"Gary Glitter has sent you a friend request"

"You have been invited to a photoshoot"

"Gary Glitter sent you a message"

Paris because she loves it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

Why are they removing the accounts of sex offenders?

You can't exacly stick your cock through an ethernet cable, now can you?

These guys (and girls) might have some good, non-pervy reasons for using MySpace.

...but since I can't think of ANY good reasons to use MySpace, I'll get my coat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Convicted sex offenders

Includes people who were caught pissing in the street.

Discussing the night's events with these people is hardly a problem, and hardly warrants calling them nonces.

"I'm not asking you to stop hating, I'm asking you to hate the right people"

[Ian Ferguson]

Registered sex offender != paedophile

Despite what most people seem to think...

[Francis Fish]

Myspace chucks out 90,000 people who were honest

Honestly, the figure is meaningless, doesn't give any idea of the real size of the "problem". It just means people were forced to sign the offenders' register, which could mean things as trivial as they were urinating in public while drunk in some cases, particularly in the US.

Doesn't mean anything. The real predators will be well hidden. What we need to actually know is how many people have actually been prosecuted who actually used Myspace to find their victims.

The cops must know this, everything else is bs. Facts please.

[Steve Kay]

Define "sex offender"

Sex offenders do not equal those with a sexual interest in minors.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/07/chef_has_sex_with_goat/

Stephen Hall is a "sex offender", and whilst you wouldn't want him at a dinner party, he likes goats. Not kids. Awesome punnage there.

Evidence shows time and time again that the majority of "predators" are known to the families.

Forget about MySpace, start looking at that nice fella who runs the gym club or takes the familiy photos.

[Pascal Monett]

"monstrously inadequate counter-measures"

And what's your solution, Judge Know-It-All ? Have you ruled that all Internet users must be uniquely identified in a reliable way ? No, because it's impossible to enforce that rule. So you just shove the problem to a website and be done with it. Shoot the messenger, how convenient.

My guess is that you should have ruled that convicted sex offenders should be constrained to either not have Internet access, or submit to a perpetual search order that ensures that anything they do from their home connection is recorded for surveillance issues. But you didn't do that either because it probably violates Human Rights or something. Much easier to put the burden on a website and blame them when they cannot do the impossible.

Epic Fail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good call

"For every one of them, there may be hundreds of others using false names and ages"

You can now pretty much guarantee that there are at least 90,000 new accounts using false names and ages...

[TeeCee]

MySpace.

We've removed more perverts than Facebook.

I'd accuse them of willy-waving, but that might be considered inappropriate under the circumstances.

The long dirty mac, of course.

[AC]

Not that I care but

Is it illegal for a registered sex offender to use a social networking site at all times?

What about those sex offenders only had their friends on their profile and weren't messaging every 12 year old they find online, are they still banned from the site?

Seems a bit crap to me but then again, I don't care too much. "Peederfiles" sure, ban them, shoot them and the like but as has been stated sex offender != peederfile.

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

"MySpace fingers 90,000 nonces"

Come on reg, that's a naughty title considering you might incite the Sun-reading, paedo-round-every-corner mob!

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple solution...

Ban kids from MySpace!

[EvilGav]

What ?

"For every one of them, there could be hundreds more."

Lets take a look at that, lets assume for every one there is exactly one hundred more, thats 9 million.

Now MySpace only seem concerned about US sex offenders (or at least thats the slant of the article), so this judge assumes that *at least* 3% of the USA are sex offenders (assuming around 300 million Americans).

The Judge is an ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmph

Doesn't take much to be a sex-offender in the US - peeing in the street, selling vibrators/dildos in some states, etc. Fail.

[Martin]

Finally bicycles will be safe online

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/26/bike_incident/

[J]

@EvilGav

"The Judge is an ass."

No, the Judge is an optimist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom

Nice to know that if you're a sex offender (and that does cover quite a broad spectrum of offences) you can't even friggin' well sign up to a music site and contact friends now.

Land of the free...

[Andy Bright]

Privacy

It's not about kids, nonces or porn. It's about the world's esteemed leadership not liking the fact you can get on the internet and with the right tools surf and chat anonymously.

Obviously people shouldn't have the right to privacy from the government, that would mean they can't check on what we're all doing. And isn't checking on what we're doing the reason we pay them so much? Next you'll be telling me that these politicians are supposed to give us some sort of service, represent our wishes if you will, and focus their efforts on things that matter to the electorate rather than the lobbyists and contributors. That's as ridiculous as suggesting taxes taken from the public shouldn't be paid to investment bank CEOs in the form of multi-million dollar bonuses for all the crackerjack work they've done over the last few years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damned if you do...

[Myspace doesn't delete accounts] [FOAM GRAGHL ARGH THPPT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!!!]

[Myspace deletes accounts] [FOAM GRAHGL ARGH SPTMMBT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!!!]

Where's the 'eyes rolling' icon when we need it?

[Paul]

Stupid

There's so much wrong with this, I'm not sure where to start.

The number is too high, and probably includes many innocent people with similar names.

Even those who were sex offenders probably weren't hurting anybody, other online studies indicate online stalking, etc, is rare.

They only caught the *honest* sex offenders, i.e. the least likely to be planning some kind of trouble.

In short it was a total waste of time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta laugh...

...watching all these corporates falling over themselves to jump on the 'We're safe for kids!' bandwagon, only to be shouted down by another bunch of suits shouting 'No, we're SAFER for kids!'. It's quite surreal. I'm not sure any one of them actually has any idea what the real dangers might be (if any), but - by god - they'll all rush to catch the zeigiest and declare their 'child friendly' credentials if it kills them.

Of course, all any of them ever do is to play right into the agendas of self-serving policitians who have even less grasp of the issues involved, 'advised' as they are by advocates with a very narrow and spiteful remit. In the end, the Paedogeddon impoverishes us all - but isn't that way of every moral panic, every inquisition?

Paris - because she can spot a clown a mile off.

[Anthony Mark]

Hmmm...

They removed *likely* matches... Probably means a fair few innocents have been unfairly labelled paedophiles. What about sex-offenders who aren't paedophiles? What about teeneagers who have sex with their girlfriends who are one year younger than themselves and happen to be underage? What about people who piss in public?

In any case, surely it's up to the parents to ensure that their kids aren't chatting to paedophiles online?

And to be honest, if a paedophile is on myspace using his genuine name and age, then if kids are talking to him then there is something seriously wrong with them in the first place.

Genuine predators are likely to pose as children themselves, and it doesn't sound as if those are the sorts of profiles being deleted.

[lazee_boy]

irony watch

"the final US Internet Safety Technical Task Force report which found adult sexual harrassment of children was a minor problem"

A "minor" problem? D'Oh! Pure comedy gold :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

9 Million sex ofenders using MySpace

Perhaps it's about time it was legalized since it's obviously quite a normal thing.

For every one we find there are hundreds we don't find. 90,0000 x 100 = 9 million.

What if hundreds was 700?

63 million sex offenders? That's probably every person on MySpace.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Define "sex offender"

In UK now "sex offender" is becoming increasingly widely drawn. Couple of years ago I read about a case where a student walking through a student bar tapped a girl on the rear saying "nice bum" as he walked past. Clearly not the best of behaviour but as a complaint was made and the police were called he found himself charged with "non-consensual sexual contact" (apparantely thats a real new offence from 3 or 4 years legislation). He was very apologetic, acknowledged he was in the wrong and pleaded guilty ... but due to way legisilation worked he got an automatic 5 year stint on the sex-offenders register.

[Malcolm Boura, British Naturism]

Flawed and dangerous thinking

The politician is bringing child protection into disrepute but then when did some politicians ever let honest evaluation of facts get in the way of a bit of hysterical rabble rousing. Unless there is evidence to show what proportion of the registered offenders were using Facebook to further the abuse of children and unless there is evidence to show that that proportion is higher than for the population in general his statement is at best valueless and at worst positively harmful.

Did you know that 60% of people with characteristic X will go on to commit crime Y? Rabble rouser's answer - put them in gaol immediately! The public must be protected.

Now add another fact, 65% of the general population will go on to commit crime Y. Same conclusion? Unfortunately a lot of public policy is driven by sloppy thinking which owes more to emotion and prejudice than it does to facts .

Common sense cab be especially dangerous/ For example in the UK about 10 babies a week were being killed by the common sense advice to lay babies on their front so that if they vomited it would drain out.. Eventually somebody actually did the research, the advice was changed and cot death rates plummeted.