EDITORIAL: Sex Offender Registry in the MySpace World
By The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.
Jul. 28–It’s late at night. Do you know who your kids are talking to on the Internet?
The News Tribune headline this week, “Profiles of more than 29,000 registered sex offenders found on MySpace,” likely sent chills down the spines of parents whose children either have profiles on the popular social networking site or enjoy communicating with others who do.
MySpace has removed the sex offenders’ profiles — which constitute a fraction of its 180 million profiles — but that doesn’t eliminate the problem. Offenders can easily create new profiles using fake names and personal information.
It’s likely that many of the people whose profiles remain on MySpace and other such networking sites have done just that — especially if their intent is to make contact with minors. The profiles MySpace purged were those of convicted sex offenders using their real names, so it was relatively easy to compare them to states’ registries.
One idea that a handful of states have adopted makes it more difficult — or at least more consequential — for sex offenders to contact minors on the Internet. Those states, including Arizona and Virginia, require convicted sex offenders to register any e-mail addresses, instant-messaging addresses or other Internet identifiers along with their physical addresses, which they are already required to provide in Washington state.
Of course, if a sex offender is intent on using the Internet to contact youngsters, he can still use a false name and not register the account with authorities. But just like failing to register his place of residence, it would have consequences should it come to the attention of law enforcement.
Many other states are considering legislation requiring mandatory e-mail registration of sex offenders. Washington isn’t — yet. But given the number of shady characters MySpace was able to identify, extending sex offender registration requirement to cyberspace makes all the sense in the world.
Stay safe in cyberspace
The state Attorney General’s Office offers tips to parents and kids on Internet safety. Go to www.atg.wa.gov and click on Protecting Youth/Kids on the Internet.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.
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