New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said today that more than 3,500 registered state sex offenders have been removed for social networking sites Facebook and MySpace.

Under New York's e-STOP law, which was written by Cuomo, Facebook was able to identify and disable accounts linked to 2,782 registered New York sex offenders, and MySpace was able to identify and shutdown accounts linked to 1,796 sex offenders.

Some registered sex offenders had profiles on both sites, leaving a total of 3,533 individuals removed from Facebook and MySpace. New York State has more than 8,100 sex offenders who registered emails with the state. That means over 43 percent of those sex offenders have identified accounts linked to Facebook or MySpace.

Andrew Cuomo

"We created e-STOP to help put an end to sexual predators using the Internet as a tool to prey on the innocent," said Attorney General Cuomo.

"Facebook and MySpace are successfully using e-STOP to help make the Internet safer, and it's time for all social networking sites to do their part to keep others from being senselessly victimized."

Under the e-STOP law many sexual predators are banned from using social networking sites on the Internet while on probation or parole.  Also convicted sex offenders must register all of their email addresses, screen names, and other Internet identifiers with the state. That information is then shared with social networking sites so they can remove potential predators from their properties.
 

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