A MySpace Law? Let's Get Real About Online Communities
29,000 known sex offenders on MySpace. So claims the office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. MySpace says the number isn't accurate, and says it's taking its own steps to keep the baddies off its site.
"We partnered with Sentinel Tech to build technology to remove registered sex offenders from our site, says MySpace's Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam in a statement today. "Through this innovative technology, we're pleased that we've successfully identified and deleted these registered sex offenders and hope that other social networking sites follow our lead."
That's not good enough for Attorney General Cooper, who is preparing to introduce legislation that would ban sex offenders from social networking sites like MySpace, and require minors to get parental permission as a condition of joining such sites. To my knowledge, this would be the first law of its kind in any state, that is, if it somehow makes it into the books.
There are quite a few interesting moral/legal questions around this issue, and I can see both sides. But my gut reaction is that we shouldn't start passing laws banning certain kinds of people from online public spaces like MySpace without some really, really good cause.
Are there really scores of cases where MySpace acted as the main instrument used by a predator to meet then harm a kid? Cooper can point to only one case: Last year, North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation arrested a police officer for the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl he lured using MySpace. (A police officer! A state employee!) OK, fair enough, but if we put a law in the books based on just one or two actual offenses (and the worry that there will be more), we'll end up with a law in search of a crime.
That law might have some bad unintended consequences.
Any person who is a registered sex offender has (hopefully) done the time and paid the fines, but should they lose their First Amendment right of self expression too? Social networking sites are meeting places, but they're also places for self expression.
What would MySpace's obligations be, exactly? Could MySpace be sued by the parents of a child who met a known sex offender on the site and was later harmed? MySpace already ejects anyone who is found to be misrepresenting him- or herself on the site. Would MySpace be legally required to find all known sex offenders (using either their real or an assumed name) on its site and banish them?
I'm saying let's get real about online spaces. The North Carolina Attorney General wants to apply a law to an online community that couldn't reasonably be applied to a meeting place in the real world. If a child meets a dangerous person at an arcade and, God forbid, later comes to harm, will we ban sex offenders from arcades? Can the child's parents reasonably sue the arcade? What about public parks? Why would we demonize a MySpace as being a playground for child molesters (as Attorney General Cooper calls it) more so than we would a public playground in the real world?
One of the reasons MySpace has risen to such popularity with kids is that it's almost completely devoid of adult supervision. Some guy named Tom runs the joint--that's all members know. If the influence of authority starts seeping in, if the site starts feeling like it's being "policed", it might be the beginning of the end for MySpace.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing for the rights of sex offenders here. I'm arguing against the idea that the Internet can be legislated into a completely safe place. It can't.
Do you have kids on MySpace? What do you think?
PC World's Marketplace
PC World's Free Whitepapers
tech news tech blogs community & forums laptop prices software reviews downloads
CAN-SPAM was the legislative solution to the technical spam problem. Spam is an even greater problem now than it was then. Legislative solutions have yet to solve any technological problem. But at the heart of it, it's the behavior of people rather than the technology that is at issue.
The behavior of people can NOT be regulated. It can only be rewarded, punished or ignored. Telling sex offenders they can't use a technology available to them won't stop them from using that technology - just as telling them not to commit sex crimes didn't stop them from doing so.
The world can not be regulated to be 'safe' when it comes to people's behaviors. It would be a better effort to mandate educational classes for people about online safety than trying the typical legislative knee-jerk reaction of banning it. Education saves more lives than trying to ban what people are going to do anyhow.
in my opinion registered sex offenders give up their 1st amendment or any other rights the second they commit the crime. these people negatively impact and in many cases destroy the lives of the people they victimize, and yet, we are worried about their rights to self expression? you honestly think that the jail time or fines that they pay in any way "pays the price" for that?
i think not.
that being said, we absolutely cannot leave the safety of our kids up to legislation. if you are worried about your kids safety online, then WATCH every move they make. simple as that.
>> yet, we are worried about their rights to self expression?
It's amazing what low regard people hold for the founding principles of our country. I guess it is no accident that we end up with people like Bush for President, when the public no longer cares enough to understand the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I understand how you 'feel' aurora75, but the first part of your post is NOT an opinion. What you're expressing is flavored by emotion, not thought. I feel the same as you about sex offenders and would hunt one down if the act was on me or mine.
That being said...
Either a criminal has served enough time, or not. Once a criminal is released, it should be over. The real problem is that sex offenders don't get enough time - for most of them it should be 'until dead'. Most sex offenders will admit that they will recommit. Why let them out if this is the case?
As for the rest of your post, I agree, and this article does too. We cannot rely on laws to raise our kids, too many parents are 'lazy parents' (They don't put as much into raising their kids as our parents did.) and want the government to do their job. There are new technologies that will help us police the internet, and a bunch of laws written by politicians to make themselves look good are not going to help...
Mark, I think you are right on target. First, it's important to realize that there are really a lot of ways to get on the sex offender list (from the mundane to the horrible) and a very small portion of them have anything to do with kids. To say that ALL sex offenders can't be on MySpace because they might molest children is just silly -- and painting a thin line with a huge brush.
Second, and my problems with Megan's Law and the proposed law aside, how the heck are you going to enforce this? The nature of the internet is anonymous (another interesting conversation for another time) and thus this would be easy to get around. If you know your name is on a sex offender list, use an alternate name. Will we have to start submitting government identification and fingerprints just to register for MySpace?
Lastly, the problem here is not the registered offenders or MySpace. The problem is that parents don't understand the technology, and therefore can't teach kids to protect themselves.
Unbelievable! The moral panic screamers just won't give up and face the facts.
In June 2007 MySpace had over 70 MILLION unique visitors. OK, so they removed 29 THOUSAND sex offender profiles. That is 4/100ths of a percent!!! In addition, from my studies of well over 2500 MySpacers, nearly all told me that when faced with a "solicitation" they act appropriately and block the person or report him to Tom. When asked if these episodes are upsetting the vast majority say it does not upset them at all.
I am appalled that people keep focusing on MySpace as a hotbed of sexual predators soliciting teens. It is not. It is all an issue of good parenting. Please visit my website at www.csudh.edu/psych/lrosen.htm for my research and information on my upcoming book Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation.
Thank you for allowing me to post this comment.
Dr. Larry Rosen
umm....i'm afraid i'm stating the obvious here...but how is the law going to protect against offenders...when all you have to do is setup a new email address with a fake name etc and register on Myspace as a different user?
Intellectual people know what this is really about. It's about giving control over every "virtual" meeting place on the internet for the sake of weeding out a few bad apples. So in essence we will all be subject to the rubber glove search and seizure type of legislation that will invade YOUR privacy for the sake of a percentage number. So they can come before congress and request a budget and have a list of everyone, that they control exclusively. Its about MONEY, its not about saving one child from a sexual predator. If you can't parent your child properly don't expect the government to do it for you. What you loose will be your freedom. I would rather brave the danger and the risk than loose my rights.
This is not a discussion about protecting children, this is a discussion about forcing everyone to identify themselves online and keeping that information "somewhere", and appropriating a budget for that. Do you people understand?
And you think airport security is a hassle? HA!
Considering you can be marked as a sex offender simply for going streaking in some places, I find the law would be terrible...We have a punishment system in place, and like this article said, we can't ban these people from everywhere, then they might as well be in jail *which apparently if they're out and about the courts have decided they were OK to be in the real world*
I think what should happen is that when sex offenders sign up for internet service (road runner, aol, netzero, etc.) that a database is flagged with their name as a registered sex offender, and have the internet companies make it mandatory that the sex offenders have a static IP address. Which will then be monitored by the FBI or State to see where and what these sex offenders are doing on a social network site. I thimk this would be a better idea. Coming from a Compuer Guy, this can be done.
John Martinez
For the record, there was a case in New York where Myspace was used as the instrument for a sexual predator to molest a boy. It was not reported because Fox, who is owned by the same company as Myspace, would not report it. Fox reported a social networking site and rather than say Myspace, for obvious reasonss. And how do know this, because I work at Fox in the news department. So yes, I agree with the Attony General.