aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Thursday, July 26, 2007

29,000 reasons to doubt MySpace sex-offender action

Stephanie Booth reacts to MySpace removing the profiles of 29,000 convicted sex offenders. Her post is an amazing compilation of important facts that must be read in full and kept as a reference:

I think that MySpace’s announcement is more of a PR stunt than anything. This kind of action is the result of the ambient paranoia around sexual predators online, but it also fuels it. If MySpace are doing that, it must mean that we are right to be afraid, doesn’t it? I think it is a great pity that the media systematically jump on the fear-mongering bandwagon. We need more sane voices in the mainstream press.

Here is a collection of links related to this issue. Some I have mentioned in the body of the post, some I have not.

• MySpace bars 29,000 sex offenders
• Could You End Up on a Sex Offender Registry?
• MySpace and the Sex Offenders
• Megan’s Flaws?
• Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization: Researchers Present the Facts and Debunk Myths (see danah’s post for YouTube video)
• Video: BBC Interview (Teenagers, Facebook)
• Adolescents, MySpace, internet: citations de danah boyd et Henry Jenkins (quotes are in English)
• De la “prévention internet”

Via danah boyd, “the Attorneys General have far better PR machines than MySpace. What you are seeing in the press is what the AGs have spun out in their ongoing efforts to force legislation to ban youth from social sites. This is about throwing out numbers that will make people feel afraid; it is not about trying to paint an accurate portrayal of what’s happening.”