Congratulations Facebook! You've Made It… To The Point Where Politicians Want To Blame You For Stuff (original) (raw)

from the it's-a-big-milestone dept

There’s been a lot of buzz lately that Facebook has surpassed MySpace as the hot social network du jour — and it looks like Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has confirmed it by saying he’s looking into the social networking site to determine its liability for letting sexual predators use the site. This comes just months after similar claims from Blumenthal about MySpace. All in all, it still looks a bit like a witch hunt, blaming the service provider for the types of people who use it. Does Blumenthal blame public libraries for letting sex offenders enter the premises? Of course not, because it’s not the library’s responsibility. Hopefully, Facebook will follow MySpace’s path in identifying potential predators and getting rid of them, but it hardly seems like an issue that should involve liability for the company. Does Blumenthal want to sue AOL for letting sexual predators get online in the first place? It’s good that people want to stop sexual predators and it’s no secret that stopping sexual predators is a very complex problem — but blaming social networks (or any tool) isn’t the answer.

Filed Under: blame game, blumenthal, sex offenders
Companies: facebook