Illinois Says Sex Offenders Can't Use Social Networks

from the ok,-but... dept

Mark alerts us to the news that Illinois has approved a new law that bans registered sex offenders from social networking sites. Now, I have no sympathy for anyone who uses a social networking site to approach kids for such nefarious purposes, but this seems like a rather broad brush for a variety of reasons. First, considering how many sites have added "social networking" features lately, this could block out a rather large portion of the internet. Hell, just recently Google announced new social features for its iGoogle homepage. Second, the vast majority of registered sex offenders weren't convicted of trying to entice a kid via a social network. Completely blocking all of those people from social networks seems rather pointless. Finally, the whole idea that social networks are some sort of breeding ground for predators is a moral panic made up by the press. Studies have shown that the common story of a predator getting online, pretending to be a kid, and befriending "targets" and "grooming" them is mostly a myth. That's not to say it hasn't happened, but it's quite rare, and the best way to deal with it is simply to educate kids on how to deal with strangers. Most are smart enough to deal with the issue on their own. But, of course, that doesn't make for good headlines for politicians who want to make sure everyone knows they're "protecting the children."

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Facebook Boots Off Almost 5600 Sex Offenders; Don't You Feel Safer Now?

from the now-that-that's-out-of-the-way dept

Facebook says it's cleared about 5600 sex offenders from its userbase, following the big push from a bunch of state attorneys general. The figure's being compared to the 90,000 people that MySpace said it kicked off, leading to some speculation that Facebook isn't trying hard enough; its chief privacy offer says its requirement that people use their real names could deter sex offenders from registering in the first place. If these people Facebook has identified are using the site in violation of their parole or other restrictions, it's good they're being exposed. But the real problem here is that finding sex offenders on social networks and kicking them off is being misconstrued as the ultimate protection for kids. The actual threat posed by sex offenders on web sites is often exaggerated by politicians, and this sort of find-'em-and-ban-'em response causes some actual ways to keep kids safer online to be overlooked, in favor of non-existent magic bullets.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Connecticut AG Upset That MySpace's Sex Offender Tracking (Which He Asked For) Works

from the logic-not-required dept

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has been at the forefront of the crusade to "protect the children" by blaming social networks for exposing them to sexual predators. This has largely entailed strong-arming the networks into doing all sorts of largely ineffective things that make for good political grandstanding. For some time, MySpace has been making moves to appease politicians, presumably thinking that it's better for it to take some action to try and keep them off of its back. It's put in place a system to identify sex offenders that have profiles on the site, using government sex offender databases, to track them down and kick them off. Blumenthal's latest stunt was to demand MySpace and Facebook hand over info on how many sex offenders they'd discovered on their sites; MySpace has obliged, revealing that it's identified 90,000 sex offenders on its site. So, you'd think Blumenthal would be thrilled to have some "proof" that the systems he pushed MySpace to put into place are working, that they'd blocked 90,000 would-be predators from contacting kids through the site. You'd be wrong.

Blumenthal instead says the figure "provides compelling proof" that refutes the study that came out a few weeks back -- the study commissioned by Blumenthal and 48 other state attorneys general -- which downplayed the sexual-predator threat social networks posed to children, like other research before it. So because the system he pushed MySpace to put into place is able to identify registered sex offenders, it supposedly proves that this is a real problem, one that he isn't blowing out of proportion, and that MySpace has "monstrously inadequate counter-measures." While we'd argue that most any counter-measure MySpace uses would be inadequate at stopping sexual abuse (because they're fighting a problem that likely isn't that big), it makes little sense why Blumenthal sees MySpace's success at identifying sex offenders in its system, just like he wanted, as a bad thing. It's really hard for MySpace to fight a problem that isn't there, but that doesn't fit Blumenthal's political version of reality.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Raising Some Questions About Smoking Gun Sex Offender Profiles On MySpace

from the anyone-check-if-it's-actually-real? dept

Last week, there was a story on News.com about how Connecticut's Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, who's been on quite a crusade to "protect the children" from social networks, was demanding MySpace hand over info on sex offenders registered on the site. This seemed a bit odd, because MySpace and other social networks had already agreed to weed out the accounts of various sex offenders. Yet, as the article noted, an investigator (who was involved in a separate legal battle with MySpace) happened to find profiles of registered sex offenders still on MySpace including (gasp!) some who even used their own mug shots as their photos. Yet, as Sean Garrett points out, the whole thing seems pretty questionable. Why would a sex offender trolling the site for kids use their own mugshot -- and equally creepy descriptions that are pretty clear tipoffs. The whole thing seems quite likely that someone found the sex offender page and set up a fake MySpace profile.

Of course, it's possible the page was actually put together by the sex offender in question, but it doesn't look like anyone actually bothered to confirm that it's real. Instead, it's being used as a political prop by politicians and reporters of the horrible type of people found on MySpace. As Jim Harper notes, will Richard Blumenthal be investigating the reincarnation of Elvis Presley on Facebook next?

No one's trying to downplay the serious issue of sexual predators, but study after study after study has shown that the issue has been blown way out of proportion by politicians and the press who seem to love creating moral panics so they can claim they're "protecting the children." It's as if they stop thinking and all skepticism goes out the window the second anyone claims that sexual predators might be on social networks -- despite the fact that studies have shown the best way to combat the rare cases when children are approached by such miscreants is better education. Children who are educated on the risks are quite good at avoiding such contact. Yet, that doesn't make for such great headlines and probably doesn't help Attorneys General when it comes to re-election time.

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Social Networking Site Bans Anyone Over Age 36 To (Sorta) Deal With Sex Offender Law

from the say-what-now? dept

We've pointed out the ridiculousness of various laws (and proposed laws) to require all sex offenders to register their usernames and emails -- and to have social networking sites match up their userlist to that list to ban users -- but this latest story is even more ridiculous. Apparently, the UK has put in place a law that could eventually require the Secretary of State to set up a system where sex offenders will be required to register their email addresses. This isn't the law yet, however, and may never be put in place. Yet, one social network is apparently reacting anyway, and has deleted all profiles of people over the age of 36, claiming that since it doesn't require a valid email address to register for the site, it has no way to compare its registered base with the still non-existent registered offender list. Why age 36? No one seems to have any clue. Basically, the reasoning makes almost no sense at all. The law isn't really in place yet. The 36 year old age cut off has nothing to do with the law -- or with actually blocking sex offenders, many of whom are well below the age of 36. This doesn't even make the point about how ridiculous some of these laws are. It just shows a totally nonsensical reaction to a non-law.

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NY State Demands Email Addresses/Usernames Of Sex Offenders

from the grandstanding-to-protect-the-children dept

Chris writes in to let us know about a new law passed in NY State that requires any sex offender to register any email addresses and screennames with the government. Any time a sex offender registers a new name or email address, he needs to alert the state within 10 days. While you can understand the grandstanding reasoning behind this ("protect the children!"), this really does seem fairly pointless. It's similar to a federal proposal, and all it really does is create a huge bureaucracy. Despite what the mainstream media has portrayed, the vast majority of sex offenders are not online stalking people. Most involve people known to the offender (all too often family members). In fact, recent research has shown that the whole "internet threat" thing is totally overblown. This isn't to absolve sex offenders of their crimes -- but to question the reasoning behind this sort of law. Those who are really out to stalk kids online will simply ignore this law -- and all NY State gets is a big bureaucratic mess tracking usernames and emails.

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Is Banning Internet Usage For Sex Offenders Reasonable Or Practical?

from the no-internet-for-you! dept

Over the years, there's been plenty of talk about banning internet usage for criminals who used the internet in the commission of a crime. This has always seemed both excessive and totally impractical as the internet became a bigger and bigger part of our every day lives. Would it mean you couldn't use a VoIP phone service, for example? Would it mean you couldn't book an airplane flight if the only way to book was online? Luckily, courts have been tossing out these lifetime internet bans as unconstitutional. However, New Jersey has now instituted a new law that would ban some sex offenders from using the web. It does seem much more limited than a complete ban. First, it only applies to those sex offenders who used the web to prey on their victims -- and it does appear to allow some exceptions, such as if you need to use the internet for work. However, given how much the internet has become a part of people's lives these days, it still seems a bit extreme to ban all other uses outside of work. As more entertainment options move online, will this law mean you can't download (legally) movies and music? I certainly have little sympathy for those who used the internet to prey on victims, but it still seems a bit excessive to pass laws that involve such widespread blanket bans on internet usage. If they're allowed in this case, they may start to be allowed for other cases involving crimes where the internet was used as a tool. It's always easy for politicians to pass laws "to protect the children" against sex offenders -- because no one wants to vote against such a thing. However, when those laws potentially could lead to excessive punishments for both those offenders and eventually to others, they should be carefully scrutinized.

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Ohio State Senator Interested In Using 'Sex Offender Radar' To Alert People If Sex Offenders Are Nearby

from the civil-liberties-in-the-age-of-technology dept

For years, people have talked about the idea of a device (or mobile application) that could be useful for meeting available members of the appropriate sex. You could program in your likes and dislikes, and if you happen to be walking near a "match," it would alert both of you. It appears that some are looking to take that concept and use it in a very different way: to help worried parents know if convicted sex offenders are nearby -- and the idea is so intriguing that an Ohio state senator is considering regulating that certain sex offenders need to use the device. Basically, some convicted sex offenders would be required to wear a special bracelet. Then, anyone who was concerned could carry around a special device that would vibrate if one of those bracelets came within a certain distance. Of course, there wouldn't be any indication of who the person was or even where he was -- just that he was nearby. For obvious reasons, this has some folks questioning whether this violates various civil liberties. It also is hard to see how it does much good, especially since you still would have no idea who was wearing the bracelet. If anything, it would just make already worried parents more paranoid.

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Group Behind 'To Catch A Predator' Claims Wikipedia Is A Corporate Sex Offender

from the might-be-a-bit-personal dept

We've seen all sorts of criticisms of Wikipedia over the years, but this might be a first. Apparently the group "Perverted Justice," the controversial online vigilante group that tries to lure online pedophiles out into the open (and is the group that is used by NBC Dateline's equally controversial "To Catch A Predator" show) is now claiming that Wikipedia is "a corporate sex offender." Apparently, if you follow the links from Wikipedia to Perverted Justice's site, it has a screed against Wikipedia -- claiming "each article on Wikipedia that deals with any issue relating to pedophiles or internet predators has been heavily targeted and edited by the online pedophile activist movement." Of course, there's a bit more to the story. Apparently, Perverted Justice's founder was recently barred from editing Wikipedia after people felt that he was flaming other users, deleting any negative reference to his organization, accusing others of being pedophiles without substantiation and when asked about it, replying "with invective." This suggests the anger at Wikipedia is a bit more about the guy being barred than any sort of official Wikipedia issue. If anything, it seems like yet another case where Wikipedia's neutral point of view has resulted in confusion. There's no doubt that Perverted Justice's reason for being is good -- but calling Wikipedia a sex offender seems quite extreme and unreasonable.

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Congratulations Facebook! You've Made It... To The Point Where Politicians Want To Blame You For Stuff

from the it's-a-big-milestone dept

There's been a lot of buzz lately that Facebook has surpassed MySpace as the hot social network du jour -- and it looks like Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has confirmed it by saying he's looking into the social networking site to determine its liability for letting sexual predators use the site. This comes just months after similar claims from Blumenthal about MySpace. All in all, it still looks a bit like a witch hunt, blaming the service provider for the types of people who use it. Does Blumenthal blame public libraries for letting sex offenders enter the premises? Of course not, because it's not the library's responsibility. Hopefully, Facebook will follow MySpace's path in identifying potential predators and getting rid of them, but it hardly seems like an issue that should involve liability for the company. Does Blumenthal want to sue AOL for letting sexual predators get online in the first place? It's good that people want to stop sexual predators and it's no secret that stopping sexual predators is a very complex problem -- but blaming social networks (or any tool) isn't the answer.

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