MyConvict

Wired News (not the magazine) did an interesting test with MySpace.com and convicted sex criminals, trying to link names with others. It's easy to attack the relatively small percentage of people who do evil things on sites from MySpace to eBay. MeTheSheeple hopes parents realize the true nature of the Internet -- which is to say, a way of e-mailing friends and family, or of getting pornography at high speeds, plus some other stuff -- makes it very much the mixed bag for children. NOW is a good time to teach proper online safety.

It's also a good idea to keep in mind the ratio of the bad guys to the normal. You don't want your kid getting picked up by a child molester, no, but in the end MySpace, Facebook and the rest may be safer for any child than hitching a ride home with a Congressman.

All that "keep in perspective" stuff said, it's both amusing and frightening to see what the Wired News folks might have found:

All but one of the offenders Wired News found on MySpace appear to have been convicted of engaging in some kind of sexual activity with a minor. The other, one of the two probable matches, is listed as having raped, penetrated with a foreign object, and engaged in oral sex with an unconscious person.

On MySpace, he's a Christian with a girlfriend and nearly 400 friends.