February 20, 2009 5:57 AM PST

Report: 5,585 sex offenders purged from Facebook

by Caroline McCarthy

Facebook has removed 5,585 registered sex offenders from its service since May, the Associated Press reported late Thursday.

The tally comes from a joint announcement of two state attorneys general who have made online safety a priority, North Carolina's Roy Cooper and Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal.

This follows several years of back and forth between major social networks and state authorities who have insisted the sites aren't doing enough to keep sex offenders out of their ranks. It's a significant issue, considering social networks' popularity with anyone who's hit adolescence.

Earlier this month, the News Corp.-owned social network MySpace announced that it had removed 90,000 sex offenders' profiles since 2007. Considering Facebook is now bigger than MySpace, the 5,585 seems a little low. But Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, told the AP that the social network's requirement that members use a real name rather than a nickname may have deterred sex offenders from membership in the first place.

Facebook offered a statement from Kelly later on Friday: "We have been working productively with General Blumenthal and other attorneys general to keep sex offenders off Facebook, and to assure that those who attempt use our site in violation of their parole or other restrictions are brought to justice. This is one of many measures that we continue to take to make Facebook a safer and more trusted online environment."

This post was updated at 9 a.m. PST with comment from Facebook.

Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 12 comments
by Archus February 20, 2009 6:39 AM PST
Yes, please, lets make sure to purge all of the registered sex offenders. this way everyone can feel safe in their homes, since, as we all know, sex offenders come with tags and gps so we can track them every minute. Let's forget about the people who make a mistake once in their lives - we'll treat them like lepers, and let's ignore the fact that most sex offenses are committed by people who have never been convicted of a sex offense before.

I agree that there are people who deserve to be outcast. Those who prey on children - actual pedophiles - and those who have shown a consistent pattern of behaviors need better restrictions, and better help. The problem is that we label so many people as sex offenders today that it's hard to see past the mob mentality. I agree that one is to many, but where is the same standard for murderers, arsonist, etc?

Isn't it time we figured out what is really wrong with our system? Isn't it time we stopped trying to prosecute everyone we think is a threat and start paying more attention to what are children are doing in the first place?

Just some facts here:
Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense ?? 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders.
Most sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim or the victim's family, regardless
of whether the victim is a child or an adult.

So really, can we stop the hype and get back to reality?
Note: this is not in response to Cnet, more focused toward Myspace, Facebook, and the senators who thought this was the reasonable response to this problem. It's not.
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by gsmiller88 February 20, 2009 7:21 AM PST
While I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm afraid it's not going to do very much good.

Remember when there were actual chat rooms? Then apparently one day sex offenders and predators got the better of the likes of AOL and Yahoo and they closed all their chat rooms down.

Problem solved, right?

Not quite. By that time social networks had nearly taken the spot light from chat rooms anyway so those who hadn't already just moved over to MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and Meebo.
Reply to this comment
by Harrison912 February 20, 2009 10:12 AM PST
As a web site owner of safety and security products, I'm typically on FaceBook to socially market my web site as well as raise awarness for its product through discussion with my friends. Peditors are every where and getting known preditors off social sites is just one step toward increasing safety. They are, however, still in our neighborhoods, so having some form of non-lethal protection available at all times just makes sense.
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by J. Brandon Loberg February 20, 2009 11:28 AM PST
i say we re-arrange your creative spelling of 'preditor'...i'm thinking 'iPredtor' is far more appropriate...maybe even trendy!
by michael77878 February 24, 2009 10:27 AM PST
this is complete ignorance. really these supposed sex offenders are no more dangerous than any other citizen out there. once you have served the time the punishment is suposed to end. you do ( but shouldn't) give people virtual life sentences for one mistake in their life.
by scottthesculptor February 20, 2009 11:04 AM PST
lets register all individuals convicted of spam and fraud

and remove them from the social networking sites
Reply to this comment
by TV James February 20, 2009 11:09 AM PST
That was a really stupid move. During the cold war, the CIA and KGB had an uneasy but solid foundation of not killing each other once they uncovered one of their enemies in the spy business. Because it was much easier to watch a known entity.

Before these purges, we had the ability to track, follow and watch the actions and interactions of 95,585 sex offenders.

Now, by deleting their accounts, we'd tipped them off that we were on to them. So they'll be even more careful when they immediately create new accounts to resume their attempts to do bad things to our children.

Yeah, I'm fear-mongering, but I think I have a point. We've not shined a light on sexual predators, we'd turned the lights out on ourselves while a few politicians get to stand up and say "Look how great we are!"
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by anthony f wood February 23, 2009 1:00 AM PST
And it doesn't matter which country your from, the problem is the same... with both sexual predators & polititians.
by Smiley5 February 20, 2009 11:30 AM PST
The thing is that the authorities are labeling anyone who has been accused and done nothing wrong but who couldn't find the money to defind themselves fully as sex offenders. Pretty soon everyone will be labeled that way and then we can just point at each other and say "Hey, I saw your picture on line". The system has gone overboard. Real sex offenders, people who rape and prey on others, should be marked but the average person on the lists didn't do anything wrong. Get the predators off the streets and we will all be safer.
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by AnneEasterling February 20, 2009 12:54 PM PST
Rhetoric aside, I appreciate that Facebook is releasing this information. It helps to know that they are concerned about safeguarding the site.
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by HyraxX February 20, 2009 7:42 PM PST
Sex offeder laws were passed because sexual crimes were falling, but media coverage increased by 800%.
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by raven1974 February 22, 2009 8:13 AM PST
how about facebook shut down some of its groups that are bad such as ones about Jade Goody saying they are glad shes going to die.i find this abit nasty.facebook are to busy making new stuff 2fill up everyones pages with and not working on keeping the groups clean
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