Popular social networking site, MySpace.com recently announced that it had discovered and deleted profiles of 29,000 convicted sex offenders. The number of profiles deleted four times exceeds the number previously announced.

Recently, MySpace has come under attack after reports of some younger members falling prey to adult sexual predators posing as minors, as well as risqué content posted by some its members.

Though convicted sex offenders are required by law to register with their local authorities, the information is only available regional basis which makes a nationwide verification difficult.

Which begs to question as to whether proposed legislation by some state authorities to ban registered sexual predators from using social networking sites that allow minors will help much in curtailing predatory occurences: certainly hard to implement considering that online sexual predators are able to reach across states, and even countries through the World Wide Web.

Also, it would not be hard for a predator to sign up under a falls identity, which makes the proposed laws difficult to enforce. Smarter online sexual predators have been known stick to private messages, thus making it tricky to catch them.

All the same, every effort spent in making it harder for these monsters to get their next target, as well as putting them behind bars, worthwhile and deserving of praise.

Does this mean that MySpace.com is unsafe? The simple answer is no. What makes it so attractive to sexual predators is its huge membership database composed mainly of younger members. This is too enticing to the predators. Plus, that it’s free means there is really no trail back to the member.

May I add that no amount of laws, rules or regulations will substitute for parental guidance and supervision.

Paid dating services, though not entirely free of predators either, have much fewer occurrences for two main reasons 1) the membership fee keeps most of the warped elements, and 2) a credit card is required, which leaves a trail back to the card-holder.

With over half a million registered sexual offenders in the US alone, you can be pretty sure that we’ve not heard the last of them.

TAGS: Dating Sites, myspace, myspace.com, Online Dating News, online sexual predators, Personals, sexual predators, social networking, social networking sites

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