Facebook faces more legal trouble

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Social networking site Facebook has been ordered to turn over information on whether registered sex offenders have set up profiles on its site. The Attorney General's office of New Jersey has supoenaed the popular social network, along with 11 other social networking sites, ordering them to release the information.

Facebook was sent a list of registered sex offenders in the state in September, and any matching profiles were removed, although the company will not divulge an exact number. However, Anne Milgram, the attorney general in New Jersey, is seeking names and email addresses of those the site identified. The return date for the subpoena is 12 October. Only a few weeks ago Facebook had fallen foul of New York state officials over its claims that younger users are more protected from sexual predators on Facebook than on other websites. State investigators who registered on the site posing as 12 to 14-year-olds claimed they had been solicited for sex.

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News source: The Reg

#1 ntbnnt on 05 Oct 2007 - 10:45

Well, what can you expect?

Sex offenders ownd.

#2 Samboini on 05 Oct 2007 - 12:04

They will just create another account with a different email address and presumably a different name?

(3 replies) #3 SilentMage on 05 Oct 2007 - 13:49

This wouldn't be an issue if they kept Facebook open only to college students.... >_<

~SilentMage

#3.1 Unplugged on 05 Oct 2007 - 13:57

Yes Yes because students cant ever be Sex Offenders

Its not rearlly an issue full stop your going to getr Scum online regardless and sites are always getting bitched at over one thing or another. I dont see why a state Depaterment would need to goto Facebook to obtain a list of registered Sex Offenders.... unless of course they wenr allowed the information publically

#3.2 Diaboli on 05 Oct 2007 - 14:53

Quote - (SilentMage said @ #3)

its facebooks fault sex offenders go there?
Is it googles fault sex offenders can so searches
seriously, if parents are so afraid..get their kids off the site and take some responsibility
parents are so lazy they wanna blame the internet for their kids being messed up

#3.3 SilentMage on 05 Oct 2007 - 21:07

Before Facebook opened up to everyone, practically everyone who used it was at least 18 (minus those that were 17, going on 18 and minus the small minority who are under 17, but are gifted students and were able to enter college at a much younger age than normal). The issue of sex offenders wasn't present back then because everyone was of the age of consent and the population of Facebook users that were under 18 was so small that sex offenders never saw the site as an "attractive base of operations", whereas today Facebook allows EVERYONE, including those 12 to 14 year-olds that those sex offenders usually target on social networking sites like this.

Please find me an article written about Facebook before they threw open the doors to high schoolers (and eventually everyone else shortly following that) that spoke about the Feds demanding to see detailed information of Facebook users because of the possibility of some of them using Facebook to coax college students to have sex with them.

~SilentMage

#4 QuarterSwede on 05 Oct 2007 - 15:21

Just a thought: I love how this society pushes sex, sex, sex all the time and then expects people to behave themselves.

What happened to doing the time for the crime. Apparently that isn't enough for society anymore. If you sin, now we damn you to hell.

Wake up people! Our society is screwed up because no one wants to parent their children anymore; their careers come first.

#5 balupton on 05 Oct 2007 - 17:22

This is stupid, the sex offenders did their time.

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