HARRISBURG – Attorney General Tom Corbett Monday joined attorneys general from seven other states in demanding that MySpace immediately provide law enforcement with the names of convicted sex offenders that the company has identified on its popular social networking Web site.
Corbett said the attorneys general believe there are potentially thousands of registered sex offenders with profiles on MySpace, and that the company has a responsibility to keep these predators away from unsuspecting members of the MySpace community.
“Social networking sites like MySpace are supposed to be safe places for teens and young adults to connect with friends, share their thoughts and meet new people,” Corbett said. “Convicted sex offenders have no business in that kind of an environment.”
Corbett said that it is believed that data from Sentinel Tech Holdings, a company working with MySpace, indicates that thousands of known sex offenders may have been confirmed as MySpace members. In a letter sent to MySpace, the attorneys general asked the company to provide the names and states of all registered sex offenders with profiles on its social networking site.
Corbett said that the letter requests that MySpace tell the attorneys general by May 29 how many registered sex offenders have been found on its site and what steps the company has taken to remove them from the site.
Additionally, the letter asks MySpace to provide details on what it has done to alert other MySpace users who have communicated with these offenders, and to also alert law enforcement about these offenders.
Corbett said that attorneys general nationwide have been pushing MySpace to do a better job protecting children from dangers on its site, ranging from inappropriate content to online sexual predators. In 2006 alone, the media reported almost 100 criminal incidents across the country involving adults who used MySpace to prey or attempt to prey on children.
Corbett noted that in October, the Attorney General’s Child Predator Unit charged a 21-year-old Pittsburgh area man with using MySpace to sexually proposition a 14-year-old girl. At the time of the MySpace incident, the suspect, Dustin Pawlicki, of Baldwin Township, Allegheny County, was awaiting trial after being arrested during an earlier undercover “Internet sex sting” by the Child Predator Unit.
Monday’s letter was signed by attorneys general from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio.