Category Archive for : ‘INTERNET SAFETY’

Daily News/Kenneth Lovett

In a major crackdown on Internet predators, more than 3,500 convicted New York sex offendershave been kicked off Facebook and MySpace, two online social networking sites.  This is thefirst sweep of registered sex offenders under the Electronic Security and Targeting of OnlinePredators Act (e-STOP), a 2008 law Attorney General Andrew Cuomo aggressively pushed.  LauraAhearn, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law and the Crime Victims Center, said the factthousands of offenders were dumped proves the law is working.  Before e-STOP sexual predatorsfreely lurked in social networking sites

About 90,000 sex offenders have been identified and removed from the social networking web siteMySpace.  The number was nearly double what MySpace officials estimated last year. MySpace and Facebook implemented dozens of safeguards, including limiting the ability of olderusers to search members younger than 18.

(Raleigh, North Carolina)

Newsday/Juliann Vachon

Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook can now trace and expel potentialsexual predators under a new law requiring sex offenders to submit all identifying Internetinformation along with home address.  Under the law, signed yesterday by President George W.Bush, registered sex offenders must submit all email addresses, instant messenger names or otheronline identifiers for inclusion into the National Sex Offender Registry.
(Washington)

The 25,000 sex offenders registered in New York now will have to report their online identities to the state, in a new effort to safeguard children using social networking sites.  A law signed yesterday by Governor David Peterson targets sexual predators using the Internet, by including their online personas in information the are required to report.

(New York)

Stephanie Good became determined to stop sexual predators from preying on children.  When her son was young, he was approached by a religious education teacher.  The child wasn’t molested, but after the teacher’s arrest in 1993 for endangering the welfare of a child, Good found out he had been accused of molesting other children.  He was able to plead guilty to get a more lenient sentence, spending 15 days in jail and evading the sexual predator registry.  Infuriated, Good, a grandmother in her 50s adopted the persona of a young

MySpace, the world’s most popular online hangout, promised yesterday to take steps to protect youngsters from sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to verify users’ ages.  Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, MySpace promised to create a task force to watch over its operations.  Parry Aftab, executive director of Wiredsafety.org, a children’s Internet safety group, estimates that 20 percent of teens have met someone online that they had never met in person, and there are numerous examples of sexual abuse arising from MySpace encounters.