It’s almost as if perverts frequent social networking sites because they know it’s the best place to find unsupervised children. From TechCrunch:
MySpace is in the spotlight today because it revealed that 90,000 registered sex offenders have been kicked off its site in the past two years. But where did all of those sex offenders go? Some evidence suggests that a portion of them are now on Facebook.
John Cardillo is a former New York City police officer and the CEO of Sentinel, a security technology firm based in Miami which helps MySpace, Bebo, MyYearbook, WePlay, and other social networks identify sex offenders. He goes so far as to call Facebook a “safe haven†for sex offenders. Needless to say, Facebook is not a client, and MySpace is his biggest one. But he shared some data with me that is hard to overlook.
Sentinel’s technology is the foundation for Sentinel SAFE, the software MySpace uses to identify sex offenders on its site. Sentinel SAFE is a database of more than 700,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S., complete with names, photos, dates of birth, email and IM addresses (when available), and more than a hundred other data points. Cardillo took the 90,000 sex offenders who were removed from MySpace and started looking for them on Facebook.
What do you think the number was? If you’re guessing almost nine thousand already then you win a prize, although I assume it is much much more. TechCrunch was able to positively verify about four thousand, and they have statements from Facebook so the entire article is worth your time.
Social networks are always going to attract perverts, the key is to get parents to understand that these social sites are not really appropriate for children to be on, unless you want them hooking up with a 50-year-old who will get them high then have sex with them. Because that’s what the adults use them for, so what do you think your kids are doing on them?
This doesn’t surprise me because in the two weeks I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve noticed an excessive privacy factor. You cannot view a thing on a person’s page or regarding a person unless you are on their list, and then only if you are in a particular grouping of their friends. I know that if I wanted to do something illegal and need a social networking site to conduct my business, it would be Facebook.
“the key is to get parents to understand that these social sites are not really appropriate for children to be on, unless you want them hooking up with a 50-year-old who will get them high then have sex with them.”
that’s a bit alarmist!!
Myspace, facebook and other social networking/web 2.0 sites can be safe. The best safeguard is making the profile private. I think parents don’t understand or convey to their children how private or public the profiles can be depending on how you set them up. As a parent you should educate yourself – kids are ahead of us alot of the time so tap their knowledge as well. Discuss the profile photo (the only one anyone sees if their profile is private), groups (or other doors to people outside of their friends), also how they shouldn’t invite or accept requests from people they haven’t actually met in person. If you adhere to these guildlines it would be impossible for any sex offender to talk to your child.
Untrue my friend. World Can’t Wait is lousy with pedophiles and even set up meetings where teens cut school to meet adult “activists” and they aren’t the only political group that parents might approve of that pose dangers to children. I’ve seen pedos operating in groups for Teens posing as teens, religious groups, political as I mentioned and many other sub-groups on social sites that parents may not think are unsafe.
I agree with your premise that kids need to be supervised better, but I just don’t see why a 14-year-old girl needs a profile on Vampire Freaks at all. If I had a daughter she’d be forced to socialize the old fashioned way, not the preferred method of shut ins and stalkers.
That being said, did you know you can follow Red Alerts and all my other blogs on MySpace? http://www.MySpace.com/hellfireblogs
As a fact the registered sex offenders typically talked about here have been through therapy, probation and must register as sex offenders. These people many of which are either just doing business or communicating with family and friends. Believe me after the grind sex offenders go through (as should be) the likelihood of re-offense is very rare.
These scare tactics of security companies are self serving and although not illegal I question if they are really there to just guard the community or is it more to line their pockets?
Registered sex offenders have a 50% re-offense rate within 15 years of release from prison in the same study RSOs use to spread the lie your spreading. I hardly call that a low likelihood to re-offend.
I’m not sure why sex offenders, many of who have been arrested previously for trolling social networks for teens, would be on these networks anyway. Alcoholics stay out of bars after all, shouldn’t sex offenders who realy took their “therapy” seriously stay off of social networks?