MySpace hands over known sex offenders; how many unknown?:
One of the problems I’ve had with all the blustering from state attorneys general about MySpace is what are the AGs doing about the predators that haven’t been caught yet? I never see anyone in the American media asking that question yet the Australian media has no problem seeing the same problems that I do.
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.
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.
Yet we still don’t hear what the AGs are doing to keep sex offenders off the streets. Personally, I just hear them pointing the finger at MySpace. Maybe they should clean up their own “house” first before worrying about MySpace.