MySpace To Share Sex Offender Profiles

MySpace is a public website that allows users to register and then share their photo and video files, send messages to the other users and view each others profiles. The site is open to everyone who wants to register and it is not easy to find out if the registered person is a sex offender or not.

"For the vast majority of sex offenders, there is no legal prohibition to becoming a member of MySpace," said John Caher, a spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

5000 of the 25000 registered sex offenders are on parole or probation. The rest 20000 are free in their computer activities and registrations. This allows offenders to register in social networking sites such as MySpace and share criminal sex videos or photos, send inappropriate messages to other users.

MySpace is now using software to uncover registered sex offenders and block their access to the website. It has already canceled 7,000 registered profiles out of 180 million on the site. But this still doesn't completely solve the problem.

MySpace offers strong parental control for the users, because the forbidden videos, photos or messages are more harmful for children's mental health. So parents must be watchful to their kids. Besides, the website will work on age verification process, to ensure that the registering user is a grownup or is under strong parental control.

Also MySpace offered legal bodies to have appropriate legislation to register sentenced sex offenders' e-mail addresses, to make it easier for social networking site to block them.

Now MySpace has prepared the sex offenders' data and is waiting for requests from other states to share the data. Proper cooperation between legal bodies and social sites will help protect users from inappropriate content.

"We hope to get requests from every state," said MySpace general counsel Mike Angus. "From day one, we have preserved all the information in the hopes of getting these requests."

By Ruzan Harutyunyan for HULIQ