MySpace purges 90,000 sex offenders
April 13th, 2009 | by Jen |MySpace has identified and barred some 90,000 registered sex offenders from using the site over the last two years, the online networking site revealed to a US investigative task force on Tuesday.
The “shocking” number was 40,000 more than MySpace had previously acknowledged, according to Connecticut Attorney-General Richard Blumenthal, a co-chairman of the task force of state attorneys-general looking into sex offenders’ use of social networking.
MySpace disclosed the figures to the task force in response to a subpoena.
“This shocking revelation, resulting from our subpoena, provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain rife with sexual predators,” Mr Blumenthal said in a statement.
Mr Blumenthal’s office said it was awaiting a response to a similar subpoena issued to Facebook, another popular social networking site that his office said also might host “substantial numbers of convicted offenders.”
Facebook’s chief privacy officer Chris Kelly said in a statement it was working with Mr Blumenthal’s office, but said the site had “not yet had to handle a case of a registered sex offender meeting a minor through Facebook.”
“Unlike MySpace or other social networking sites, Facebook has always enforced a real name culture and has developed and deployed social verification and powerful privacy rules that allow people to interact in a safer and more trusted environment,” the statement said.