MySpace – Dirtier Than You Think
Well, well, well… wouldn’t you know it. MySpace is slimier than thought. And everyone says there is not a problem…
Remember that “50,000” number that was assigned to the estimated number of registered sex offenders on MySpace? Turns out – it’s nearly double that. Over 90,000 registered sex offenders were identified and removed from MySpace. Their account information was given to authorities.
What ticks me off here is that everyone is trying to say there is no problem. Clearly there is. While I admit there are varying degrees of the severity of a “sex offender,” the fact that 90,000 of them (who were identified, nevermind the thousands still on there NOT using real identifiable info) are in the same place hanging out that your kids go to. That means that 1-out-of-every-8 convicted sex offenders has a profile on MySpace.
There is no reason to panic. But there is no excuse for downplaying this very real threat. The 90,000 is just on MySpace… imagine how many are on Facebook.
The bottom line is parents need to know what their kids are doing online. Don’t let your kids play online without know where they go and who they talk to. There is no excuse for not monitoring internet activity of your kids. It’s not hard either. Our PC Pandora computer monitoring software can go a long way in helping you gain the knowledge you need…
Also announced, in somewhat conjunction with the 90,000 number being revealed, John A. Phillips, CEO of Aristotle and member of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (you know, that group that just released a study saying predator fears are overblown), announced today the official launch of www.ChildOnlineProtectionService.com (COPS), a web portal designed to educate parents as to the real risks of online predation. The goal: empower parents to have a voice in this debate and provide a means to hold social networking sites (SNS) — such as MySpace — accountable for failure to adopt appropriate safety protocols and user identification technologies necessary to reduce risks of online predation.
I’ve pasted both stories below.
MySpace has identified and removed 90,000 registered sex offenders from its social networking site over the last two years, the Beverly Hills company confirmed Tuesday, nearly double the number previously acknowledged.
About 50,000 sex offenders had been identified as using the popular site until the new numbers were released Tuesday, the attorneys general for Connecticut and North Carolina said in a statement. The information on the 90,000 sex offenders using MySpace was turned over to Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal’s office in response to a subpoena, the statement said.
A similar subpoena was issued to Facebook, but the company has yet to release any information, the statement said.
“We’ve been working productively with Atty. Gen. Blumenthal’s office for more than three years on these issues,” Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said in a statement.
“They recently let us know that they are planning to send an updated subpoena.”
Blumenthal said the newly released numbers from MySpace showed the need for social networking sites to strengthen security measures. Recent reports lead investigators to believe there are a substantial number of convicted sex offenders using Facebook to find victims, he said.
All of the 90,000 known sex offenders on MySpace have been removed from the site, and the company looks daily for new offenders, said Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam. Each time MySpace identifies a sex offender using the site, that user account is shut down and the company saves the information to hand over to law enforcement, Nigam said.
None of the registered sex offenders found on MySpace have been convicted for actions on the site, Nigam said. Facebook’s statement said no sex offenders had been convicted of wrongdoing on its site either.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — John A. Phillips, CEO of Aristotle, announced today the official launch of www.ChildOnlineProtectionService.com (COPS), a web portal designed to educate parents as to the real risks of online predation. Phillips, an expert in identity verification technologies and Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) member, launched COPS with the goal of empowering parents to have a voice in this debate and provide a means to hold social networking sites (SNS) — such as MySpace — accountable for failure to adopt appropriate safety protocols and user identification technologies necessary to reduce risks of online predation.
“I echo the concerns of our law enforcement and legal communities relating to the Task Force’s Final Report. Parents should not be lulled into a false sense of security. The threats are real. Just this morning, in response to subpoena, MySpace admitted to finding 90,000 convicted sex offenders (CSO) on its site. To put that into perspective, 1-out-of-every-8 convicted sex offenders in the United States had a profile on MySpace – and this only includes those registering using their real names,” said Phillips. “The fact is MySpace has no idea of how many registered sex offenders have infested its site – and still doesn’t. Here’s why. The 90,000 CSO figure – while disturbing – is in no way an accurate estimate of how many sexual predators are trolling for victims online, masquerading under false identities. The number of CSOs could be double or triple – how would they know?”
While purging known sexual offenders from the site is a good first step, nothing prevents these predators from simply signing up again under an alias and picking up where they left off. Unlike some other SNS, MySpace has no process by which the identity of a user is authenticated. Email addresses, ages, genders, and locations – as well as countless other details – can be forged without consequence.
While the initial discovery of convicted sex offenders on MySpace served as the catalyst to form the ISTTF, the 50,000 predator profiles found on MySpace (as of June 2008) which chronicle unlawful activities between CSOs and minors were never requested for analysis by the Task Force leadership. In fact, the Task Force Final Report did not even call for these records to be preserved for study.
“This blatant omission, coupled with today’s announcement, casts the findings of the Final Report into serious doubt. Concerned parents, Attorneys General, and others must wonder how a Task Force with a research group – all supposedly devoted to focusing on social network site safety – could fail to review or – at a minimum – even request such pertinent data,” said Phillips.
Aside from adopting user verification technologies, Aristotle takes the position that community notification statutes (such as Megan’s Law) should be expanded to include social networks like MySpace where adults and minors interact unsupervised. To date, MySpace has not alerted minors (or parents of minors) who were previously contacted by one or more of the tens of thousands predators known to MySpace.
“To this end, we want to provide parents a vehicle to learn if they or their children have been contacted by a convicted sex offender on MySpace,” said Phillips. “I encourage all concerned parents to visit www.childonlineprotectionservice.com and make use of the online tools to learn how to better protect their children. As predators become more adept at finding vulnerable teens online, we must be more vigilant in protecting the innocent from becoming another preventable statistic.”
February 5th, 2009 at 3:24 PM
“Net threat to minors less than feared”
- A long awaited report from the Internet Safety Technical Task Force concludes that children and teens are less vulnerable to sexual predation than many have feared.
The report also questions the efficacy and necessity of some commonly prescribed remedies designed to protect young people.
FULL REPORT pdf:
The task force was formed as a result of a joint agreement between MySpace and 49 state attorneys general.
http://cfcoklahoma.org/New_Site/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=0&func=view&id=628&catid=21#628
February 6th, 2009 at 2:12 PM
I saw the report. I referenced it in the post.
The problem I have with posts like yours is that you are essentially telling parents that “no worries, everything is a-ok” when it isn’t.
Ask any cop.
Just because the crime/victim stats are low, doesn’t mean these guys aren’t out there trying and – in many cases – succeeding without parents or the kids knowing. If you let your guard down, you will get punched.