MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on its website, more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago.
The figure was released by the attorney general of North Carolina, one of several US states whose officials have been pressing the popular social networking site, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, to provide data on how many registered sex offenders are using it and where they live.

MySpace initially withheld the information citing federal privacy laws, but the company began sharing the information in May after the states filed formal legal requests.

At the time, MySpace said it had already used a database it helped create to remove the profiles of around 7,000 sex offenders out of a total of about 180m profiles on the site.

"I'm absolutely astonished and appalled because the number has grown so exponentially over so short of time with no explanation," said General Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut, who has also pressed the company for sex offender data.

MySpace declined to comment on the figure but its chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in a statement: "We're pleased that we've successfully identified and removed registered sex offenders from our site and hope that other social networking sites follow our lead."

North Carolina is considering bringing in a law that would require children to receive parental permission before creating social networking profiles, and require the websites to verify the parents' identity and age.

A Virginia man pleaded guilty this week to kidnapping and soliciting a 14-year-old girl he met on the site.

Advocates for internet companies and privacy campaigners have testified against the proposed restrictions, saying they would be deemed unconstitutional for prohibiting free speech and impeding interstate commerce.

I wonder how they manage to find them, or decide who is a sex offender

scary... very scary

Gross.

I deleted my account the other day.

cborgman said:

A Virginia man pleaded guilty this week to kidnapping and soliciting a 14-year-old girl he met on the site.


Very

That is very scary. I have younger relatives that are on myspace and it really freaks me out that they may be interacting with a sex offender. I always keep an eye on their pages to see who is there. I know it is nosy, but someone needs to watch out for these kids.

jess555ja said:

I watch very close over my kids anytime they are online period

CarrieLee said:

So it was YOU who lowered my number of friends by 50%?

jess555ja said:

that's not nosy at all, that's proper parenting (even though you arent the parent) and god bless you and mach and all the others who do.
[Edited 7/25/07 7:43am]

29,000? GEEZ!

And my 11 year old daughter gets mad at me because I won't allow her to have a myspace account.

I read this yesterday... truly scary stuff. I've also heard some pretty scary stuff about the various match maker sites too.

cborgman said:

MY kids are the 1st I mailed this report to - then all my friends with kids

more parents need to be aware like you all seem to be..

myspace, facebook even the org are by definition alone adult websites..

personally i believe that we should all have to prove our age with some form of ID before we are allowed to join. it will minimise the amount of children fratenising with adults

it will also make people think twice before they start posting weird shit...

eraclito said:

Make them pay sites with adult verification, like porn sites. Won't eliminate all kids getting on but would certainly bring the numbers down.

JustErin said:

yes exactly..

eraclito said:

no one would pay for myspace.

live4lust said:

Because it's 90% teens and the other 10% sex offenders.

Mach said:

you rock!

damn org glitch

I was saying, you can't put gates everywhere and check everyone wherever they go. It's not freedom. I know, I lived my whole life in a place like that.
It's not life to keep going through places and being checked with metal detectors every place you go.
You have to find a way to still protect while still keeping things accessible for everyone. Freedom is more important than this. It makes the job tougher, but it's worth it. You can't appreciate freedom enough until you've lived without it.

CarrieLee said:

Good for you! I wish more people would do the same. These types of sites are just time wasters. Some of the people that frequent them are only looking for innocent, naive people to hurt and abuse. Or they're so full of shit, you don't know what to make of them.

ArielB said:

i hear you totally, the problem with freedom is that one has to practice reponsiblity and vigilance..

and children are to naive in most cases and most adults are not computer literate or aware enough.

babies are too precious to waste and predators have no mercy.

These were only the idiot offenders who actually used their legal names when signing up...how many of those signed up a minute later using aliases?

seriously though...i applaud myspace for retroactively addressing this issue but it really is up the parents...

this really doesn't surprise me.

ArielB said:

thes are people who are 'registered sex offenders'. that means, they have been convicted and requried by the court to be' registered' as sex offenders in the state where they live

i wonder how many sex offenders on MySpace are not registered, have not yet been caught???

sosgemini said:

totally agree. i am always for better parenting versus censoring. be aware of what your kids are doing, and what they are participating in.

Ya know. . .

SO many sex offenders aren't evil monsters. They're people who, like, banged a 15-year-old when they were 20. They did some dumbass thing one time, did their time, and got branded for life. It's not right.

I would hazard a guess that the majority of people who use myspace in a predatory way are not (yet) registered sex offenders. So, this isn't going to solve anything. It just further stigmatizes people who may or may not really deserve that.

The internet is not safe for unsupervised kids any more than your average city street. And I, for one, don't want it to be. I'm all for solving society's problems, so that the streets AND the net are safer. But in the meantime, I can't support any solution besides parental responsibility.

HereToRockYourWorld said:

The reason stuff like this crops up is because there are a bunch of lazy parents out there who refuse to take care of and teach their kids. If your 14 year old daughter goes out to meet some creep from Myspace, then your 14 year old daughter is a dumbass and you didn't teach her well.

Letting your kids get on the net and not supervising them is like dropping them off in a sketchy part of town and letting them figure it out themselves. Too many lazy parents who shouldn't have kids in the first place.