MySpace hands over known sex offenders; how many unknown?

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 23 May 2007 20:46

Opinion and Analysis

Parents, children and all decent people can breathe a sigh of relief that at least 7000 known sex offenders in the US have been weeded out and barred from using popular social networking site MySpace. They can also feel more comfortable knowing that the offenders's details have been handed over to authorities in accordance with US laws. However, a number of questions have yet to be asked and, thus, remain unanswered.

MySpace, with 180 million registered profiles and still growing, is possibly the world's largest social networking phenomenon. The US with a population approaching 300 million has an estimated 600,000 registered sex offenders and quite possibly some multiple of that who are unknown and unregistered. This then begs the question of how many unregistered sex offenders and potential would be predators still have profiles on the MySpace site.

MySpace has done an admirable job of weeding out known undesirables. However, it is arguably the unknown that poses the biggest threat to the safety of our young and defenseless.

And what of the growing number of young MySpace members from outside the US? What protections have been put in place for members not covered by US laws?

In most places, there are more criminals at large than in jails. If MySpace truly is a virtual representation of the physical world, then it stands to reason that wiping the profiles of 7,000 known sex criminals may well be just lopping off the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully, that is not the case.

However, the fact that MySpace has without too much trouble collared 7,000 known criminals should give parents and young MySpace users cause for concern rather than relief. It also vindicates the efforts of US legislators who want to ban MySpace from schools and public libraries.

A well known theory states that there are just six degrees of separation between every human being on this planet. In the case of social networks, whether MySpace or a business network like LinkedIn, once you get past the first or, at most, the second degree, in a social sense you're virtually flying blind and, when you fly blind, there is always the possibility of a crash.