Out of site...
No one wants a sex offender as a friend, and social not-working sites Facebook and MySpace have taken that to heart, blocking some 3,533 convicted New York state sex offenders from having an account.
The state of New York enacted its Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP) in 2008, with Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, as its main backer. Under the regulations, sex offenders are obliged to register all their emails and online aliases with the state within 10 days.
Armed with this information Facebook reported it had deleted 3,410 profiles linked to 2,782 registered sex offenders whilst Myspace kicked out a further 1,975 accounts linked to 1,796 offenders. Several offenders had accounts with both sites.
On Tuesday, Cuomo praised both sites and called for others to follow their example. "Facebook and MySpace are successfully using e-STOP to help make the Internet safer, and it's time for all social networking sites to do their part to keep others from being senselessly victimised," he said.
Last year when the law was enacted, the AG noted that "the playground of today is not just on the streetcorner . . . the playground of today is cyberspace."
