Social Networking

Look out Friendster and Xanga. The attorneys general of 50 states have banded together to pressure social networking sites into creating policies that would make it more difficult for minors to access these sites.

Led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, the coalition says it has a “strong and urgent interest in tracking down and cracking down on convicted sex offenders with profiles on these social networking sites.”

The coalition is seeking specific reforms such as age and identity verification and parental permission. “Convicted sex offenders with profiles on MySpace have been arrested in Connecticut and other states for violating their parole and probation,” Blumenthal says. “Systemic change to stop the profiles and protect children is absolutely necessary.”

For his state, Cooper has proposed that social networking sites obtain parental permission before children can join. He’s also trying to ban sex offenders from changing their legal names on these sites to avoid detection and strengthen the penalty for adults who meet with minors that they’ve solicited over the Internet.

“Social networking sites are the new playground for predators,” Copper says, adding that since July, MySpace has uncovered more than 29,000 registered sex offenders on its site, four times more than its original estimate. “That number includes just the predators who signed up using their real names.”