NE- Sex offenders removed from MySpace

A few points need to be made: 1) Notice the RSOs did nothing wrong criminally, only one has todate; 2) Is MySpace a place just for minors, no, it is a place for millions of adults, which all are strangers to the minors they may meet; 3) Notice the comment of 146 this year and 247 last year. Well, obviously MySpace is not PREVENTING RSOs from signing up, but every so often (Yearly according to this report) they run a program to list them and give it to the state AG. Does that really protect minors or is their real aim something else? Think about it!

8-16-2008 Nebraska:

The social networking Web site MySpace has removed 146 profiles that have been determined to be registered Nebraska sex offenders, said Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said.

The profiles belonged to approximately 112 convicted sex offenders. Some had created more than one MySpace profile, said Leah Bucco-White, Bruning's spokeswoman.

MySpace removed the profiles during the first six months of 2008; last year, the site deleted 247 Nebraska sex offenders' profiles.

The profiles were removed as part of a nationwide purge.

Iowa numbers were not available Friday, said Bob Brammer, a spokesman for Tom Miller, the state's attorney general.

In 2007, MySpace, owned by media conglomerate News Corp., made an agreement with attorneys general from across the U.S., including Nebraska and Iowa, to step up its efforts in sharing information about registered sex offenders. The site receives sex offender registries and compares the lists to users on its site. If there is a match, the user is deleted.

"A lot of these social sites are doing more to protect their users," Bucco-White said. "The predators go there for the kids."

MySpace representatives could not be reached for comment.

The News Corp. Web site says many of the 70 million users to log on per month are teenagers.

Bruning's office said he plans to introduce legislation next year that would make it illegal for registered sex offenders to use social networking sites

"Working with MySpace is part of our ongoing effort to help protect children on the Internet," Bucco-White said. "Keeping sex offenders off social sites is critical to keeping our kids safe online." ..News Source.. by MAGGIE O'BRIEN