No. She is not associated with the offender in any official records.
(I love how you just use "blah, blah, blah", too, as if that invalidates my factually correct argument, which you just said was wrong, and now you're changing what the "concern" is, which is also wrong.)
The most of any kind of "record" she is in is MySpace's own internal mechanism for doing the matches against the sex offender databases, which is the result of an obviously broad comparison search their contractor is doing. E.g., deliberately choosing to allow a birth month match, neighboring state, etc., probably specifically chosen to cast the widest dragnet to meet the customer's (e.g., MySpace's) requirements.
The fact that the lists of people it purged are provided to states' attorneys general also does not magically make her a sex offender, or associate her with ANYTHING, on any official list of any kind. The lists are provided so that the AG can see that MySpace is doing something. It is the state and other agencies that maintain the actual registries, criminal records, and so on. The MySpace results DO NOT add to those records; the MySpace results are supposed to show that MySpace is "taking action" by removing people, and instead of saying "we removed X people", the AGs want to know WHO MySpace removed. However, that does not associate this person with anything, and does not associate her with this person in any official databases or lists, or any profile that anyone could search or check (other than MySpace's own system, which I think is stupid anyway, as I've said numerous times on other posts).
But your refusal to understand what MySpace is doing, no matter how dumb it is, and the fact that this doesn't somehow "associate" her with being a sex offender, in any way, is amusing to say the least.
No. It is factually incorrect that she could be added to sex offender databases because of what MySpace is doing. You MUST have been convicted of a crime which classifies you as a sex offender to be, or be required to be, in a sex offender registry. That is a factual statement and is in no way "unverified"; that is how sex offender registries work and their very purpose. You cannot be added to a sex offender registry for any other reason or in any other way. You need to have been convicted of a crime by a court of law that classifies you as a sex offender.
Further, the whole purpose of MySpace's matching is to take existing, legitimate sex offender databases, and match them against its own users, in what will always be in imperfect fashion. The very intent of this is to use an existing database for this, and I trust you see what's wrong with thinking that incorrect matching my MySpace somehow would contribute BACK to a sex offender database, when the only way a person can even BE in a sex offender database is via the mechanism I described above.
I know you'll still want to believe that somehow what MySpace is doing is building sex offender databases somewhere, when it's doing essentially the exact opposite, which is using government-administered sex offender databases with known, convicted sex offenders in an attempt to match those persons with persons in MySpace, using an intentionally overly broad process. This is unrelated to whether or not what MySpace is doing is a good idea, which I don't believe it is.
No, No Fly lists are created so that airlines and airports have a semi-protected list of names, both from a privacy and national security perspective, to match against their own databases of persons purchasing tickets and checking in. To protect privacy, the lists given to airlines/airports for use are name and limited information only. If there is a hit, it goes up the chain, to TSA/DHS, or other reporting agencies as needed, to confirm that this is (or is not) the person that is actually on the list. That's why it's such a hassle, and why some people can't figure out why they're "on" a list, and why they can't get "off": it's because "they" are not "on" any list. Their NAME ONLY is on a list, and EVERY TIME, it will be confirmed by the responsible agency (usually TSA at that airport) that they are not the person. Whether or not No Fly lists are a good idea, would we prefer that all terrorist watch lists, in their entirety, with all personally identifiable information, were provided to all airlines? To say nothing about the technical nightmare to integrate that into every airlines' disparate systems, keep it updated, and so on. This is why we tried to create CAPPS II, which was discontinued in 2004 and replaced by Secure Flight. So we are still stuck with the old, limited system (which was created not by Bush or in response to 9/11, but during the Clinton administration, for what it's worth). The other alternative is to never attempt to stop anyone from flying, at all, including people who are known terrorists (regardless of whether or not they "could" use false credentials), and all problems aside, that is simply not an alternative for most people. The fact is that air travel has a significant effect on our economy; it's not just about lives potentially lost due to terrorism, but about the billions and billions lost from the economy. And, in large part, the economic factors are about people feeling safe.
And what "profile" are you talking about? There isn't some kind of secret "credit report sort of list" that tracks people in this way. I know, I know, it's "secret", so we don't know about it right? Wrong. There are criminal records, court records, police records, legal records, registered sex offender databases, and other public records. There are terrorist watch lists from various agencies (State, CIA, DHS, FBI, and so on). There are No Fly lists which are compendium of terrorist watchlists for persons barred from flying. But there are some kind of secret profile which persons who get matched by MySpace to existing, legitimate lists, on which someone will now be improperly associated with being a sex offender.
It's not naive; that's just the truth. I know you want to believe there are such secret lists and profiles that the "powerful" (e.g., government, large employers) get to use and somehow keep secret from the public (and no, I'm not talking about terrorist watch lists, which, while their contents may variously be secret, the existence of the lists themselves is not), but that's simply not the case. The burden of proof to show that such a "profile" exists is on you, not the reverse (i.e., for me to "prove" it doesn't exist).
She may not be put on an official list, but, I'd bet that she is now on other lists for being 'flagged' as an offender.
What other lists, though? That's not even the purpose of this. MySpace's matching is using the ONLY legitimate lists there are for sex offenders, which are the ones the government (usually the states) maintains. She's not getting "added" to other "lists" because of this. I know that your reaction will be to say, "prove it," or, "how do you know she isn't getting added to lists right now," but to me, that would be like saying, "how do you know the Sun isn't going nova right now?"
Down the line...that could have an effect on her, even if false. If a search comes up, and somehow gets that unofficial record that she was flagged at one point by some system....well, c'mon you know as well as I in todays world, it only takes being accused of a sex crime to mark you for the rest of your life.
But flagged by what, in what system, and for what reason? MySpace's searching isn't intended to create "new" lists; it's to use legitimate lists that already exist in an attempt to see if its own users match. Nothing more. And yes, it is being (intentionally) overly broad.
Not to mention that not all databases out there between the states talk to each other. If you show up on the MySpace list sent to the state agencies...they might wonder "Hmm...why is she not showing up on our list? Maybe we need to look into this."
Yeah. And then they'll immediately find out that she isn't on any sex offender list because she's not a sex offender, and hasn't been convicted of a crime, and doesn't have any criminal record (related to this, anyway). Sex offender lists aren't some arbitrary, nebulous thing you can just suddenly "show up" on. You have to have been convicted of a crime that requires you to register as a sex offender, and you actually have to be that person. States "look into" this sort of thing every day when people don't register as they're required to. If you're a sex offender, you'll get dinged for it and added to the database for that state/locale. If you're not, well, you're not. You act as if criminal records and convictions will suddenly appear from thin air.
At the very least...a false positive flagging as a sex offender could have serious repercussions, because in today's society in the US at least...the mere raising of the question about a person can tag them as 'guilty' when it comes to social and employment possibilities.
I understand the point you're making. But that happens when someone floats out a false story to libel or slander someone, not when a company like MySpace is doing internal checks using a data warehouse contractor to attempt to loosely match lists of sex offenders with its users because of political and media pressure. Employers do background checks that get false positives all the time, such as showing that you're a deadbeat dad in some county or that you have a civil judgment against you in some proceeding. You can simply and easily show that you're not that person, and that's the end of it. I know it's easy to imagine all these nightmare scenarios where somehow MySpace's information gets used in some kind of a search somewhere, but that is totally misunderstanding the purpose of what MySpace is doing, or attempting to do, no matter how ridiculous and wrongheaded it is: it's not making a new list, or even to be effective or useful for that purpose. Its only purpose is to use existing, real lists to try to match against its own users. This will always be imperfect. I could probably try to register with the name, city, and DOB of a real sex offender right now, and get denied, or removed at some point in the future. Does that make me a sex offender? No. Conversely, if someone with my name, similar date of birth, and living in a neighboring county or state suddenly gets me flagged in MySpace's mechanism and gets my account deleted, does that make me a sex offender? No. Not in any way, lega
I know the idea here is to really stretch the logic and see what it might be possible to occur. And no, I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.
But I'm sorry, even in Asshat County, they have the same mechanisms for checking for criminal records, outstanding warrants, and so on. Even if there were a newspaper story about this, it would be about how she was wrongly identified as a sex offender by MySpace, not that she actually is one. She won't be added to any sex offender or other law enforcement databases. She won't have a criminal record. She hasn't been convicted of a related crime.
And even if she WAS a registered sex offender, she wouldn't be thrown in jail at a traffic stop. Getting into the whole "well, if they knew she was a registered sex offender, they might harass her" area is shaky ground. Just because you THINK they might or because cops sometimes do the wrong thing isn't really relevant or meaningful to this situation.
But that's beside the point, because she isn't a registered sex offender, and won't be added to any list or database that any police agency - even in Asshat County - searches. And let's take this situation in particular. Let's just say for some reason that this story is in Bodunk Times-Ledger in Asshat County. This whole thing about how this woman was incorrectly identified as a sex offender via MySpace. For one thing, the only reason it's public is because she chose to make it public. And second, the whole story is that she is improperly identified as a sex offender because she shares a name and a similar birthdate and lives in a neighboring state, not that she actually is a sex offender.
Look, I know you're trying to imagine the slipperiest slope possible. That MySpace's "list" could somehow become public, and might somehow be misused. But the criminal and judicial systems and databases in this country are pretty damned accurate. If you do have the misfortune of sharing the same exact name, birthdate, and even city/state as a real criminal, there are even ways out of that. But the legal/criminal standard is much, much, much higher than the crap, purposely inexact matching MySpace is using. People don't just randomly get criminal records, warrants, or added to state-maintained sex offender databases just because of what MySpace is doing, and that's not even the purpose of this; in fact, it's the exact opposite: MySpace is contracting with a database company to try to match its users against existing, legitimate sex offender databases. No matter how poorly of a job it does, it isn't making the information public, and the information isn't intended to say that someone is a sex offender, just that they think a particular profile may match someone who already has legitimately been identified as a sex offender by the legal and judicial systems.
But no one is going to get tossed in jail in Asshat County because of what MySpace is doing. Not unless Asshat County wants to spend its entire year's highway budget on the inevitable settlement payout. And not only that, Asshat County will never find out, because that person will never be in any legitimate criminal database, nor can be legitimately considered to be a target of investigation, because MySpace's matching mechanism isn't coming from thin air; it's coming from legitimate databases that already exist, and aren't designed to be some sort of "new" list, and aren't even intended to be public, much less remotely to be used for any law enforcement purpose.
By your logic, nobody should be held accoutable for libel and slander towards another person, because that person doing the libel and slander isn't the government.
No.
First, libel and slander applies only when someone does it publicly.
Second, the summary implies that this person is somehow being added to sex offender databases, being labeled as a sex offender from a legal or law enforcement perspective, or publicly identified as a sex offender. None are true.
Yes. And that isn't public, overt identification, to anyone. That's MySpace's contractor for this activity, which, effectively, is MySpace itself. See here and here and a number of my other posts today which explains the situation quite clearly.
Apparently, MySpace DOES share information about profiles they remove as sex offenders with law enforcement. While she may not have a right to a MySpace profile, she DOES have a right to not be falsely accused and turned in to the police and THAT trumps MySpace's business interests.
She is not "falsely accused" of anything, in any legal, judicial, or law enforcement sense, and she is not "turned in" to the police. MySpace is using information that OBTAINS from governmental entities ("the police", if you wish), and attempts to match with its registered users. It then provides names of people it deletes based on this information to show it is taking action. It does NOT somehow magically identify these people as sex offenders. That is the mistake everyone seems to be making: they think that MySpace is "identifying" sex offenders and "turning them in", and that these people are somehow being added to criminal or sex offender databases somewhere. No. MySpace is using existing, real sex offender databases, and attempting to find matches with a purposely inexact algorithm that is part automated, and part human (and in the hands of a firm with whom they contracted to handle this). The act of giving names to the states' attorneys general is, to repeat myself, to show that they are "doing something"; NOT to somehow "add" these people to databases or say that they are sex offenders. Do you understand that? No one who is not a sex offender is getting added to any governmentally-maintained databases, or getting "turned in" to police, or suspected by any legal or law enforcement entity of being a sex offender. The legal system has already made that determination about other people.
This may cause MySpace to re-think things a bit. If that database was publically exposed for any reason, they might face huge liabilities to anyone who was mistakingly added. Mistakes like that can get innocent people killed.
Well, considering all legitimate sex offender databases are already public, and those are the ones you have to actually have been convicted of a crime to be in...
It's unlikely that MySpace itself is even maintaining a "database", per se, but more likely a mechanism for matching against a list it has built of registered sex offenders' information from the actual government-maintained lists. If you're "too close" to someone on the list, they may assume you are or could be that person, and are deleted or denied access. It's a stupid idea and a far from perfect system. But it doesn't make you a sex offender. And since you already can view lists of registered sex offenders, I fail to see how anything MySpace maintains with its ridiculous system - which, remember, is designed to match people against lists - would get anyone "killed". Trust me, I understand the point you are trying to make. But you totally misunderstand what MySpace is doing (no matter how stupid it is): it's not adding people to databases or turning anyone in. They're using OTHER, legitimate, government-controlled databases to make their judgments.
The reason the "nerd" label is hurtful is because you've been labeled that, publicly, by a group of people, and are usually ridiculed because of it.
This woman was told privately by MySpace that MySpace believes her to be a sex offender, but MySpace isn't telling anyone else[1], and she knows herself to not be a sex offender and for this private "label" to thus be in error. Whether she is shocked/hurt/sad/upset/etc. is irrelevant to whether she has been effectively "labeled" as something in any meaningful (e.g., public) way. She isn't even labeled as such within the bounds of MySpace from any publicly discoverable point of view. The only reason this is public is because she chose to make the issue public.
Let me make it clear that I think that what MySpace is doing is stupid. It does nothing, and any sex offender can register at any time with bogus information (which most probably do anyway). But, what MySpace is doing, pragmatic and PR-driven as it is, does NOT "label" someone a sex offender. At most it will boot you from MySpace and disallow you from registering with whatever information it believes matches a profile of an existing sex offender (I don't know if they also attempt to block IP ranges you have used from registration as well; that would be interesting). However, many private companies (such as mortgage banks) do due diligence searches that come up with false positives for people who owe back child support or have public judgments against them. You then have to "prove" that you're not that person (which is usually just a matter of showing an ID or showing you didn't live in a particular place, etc.). Just because MySpace isn't (currently) accepting "proof" that you're not that person doesn't suddenly or magically mean you're "labeled" or "branded" as something, when no one knows except some ridiculous database company contracted by MySpace.
[1] The fact that MySpace is providing lists of people who it deactivated to states' attorneys general, etc., (to show that it is acting) still does not make these people sex offenders, nor does it add them to any databases, nor does it publicly identify anyone as a "sex offender" who is not one. It simply says Person X with these identifying characteristics got deleted; if that person is in reality not a sex offender, this does not make them one, much less to anyone who personally knows you (nerd example), in any legal way, to any employer, etc.
But even on MySpace she wasn't (visibly) labeled a "sex offender"; there's no one to even judge her. (And someone at some random database contractor knowing a person named Joe Blow was removed from MySpace for possibly being a "sex offender" doesn't concern me in the least.) The lists that are given to various states' attorneys general show a person's account was removed (to show that MySpace is "doing something", but don't make her a sex offender or add her information to any databases. MySpace is pulling data and attempting to make matches; they're not creating data to add to databases.
And I think my last paragraph speaks to your broader point.
Try explaining how she will be considered a sex offender by anyone except the current state of MySpace's bogus matching process. Thanks.
(Hint: MySpace providing the names they have removed to state attorneys general or any other government entity does not add people to sex offender databases, give them criminals, add them to any law enforcement databases or watchlists, or anything similar.) See here, here, and here. Hopefully that will make it clear for you.
The thing I would wonder about...what all other 'databases' are now being filled with information from MySpace? I'd bet you 10 to nothing this lady now turns up as a sex offender on other systems....other systems that may NOT get their data corrected.
No. She cannot and will not be added to any sex offender lists or any other governmentally maintained lists because of this. She is not a sex offender.
Isn't that nice? It would be a shame for this inacurate information to catch up to her in the future, denying her a job, a clearance, a loan...raise her insurance rates...all those nice things that bad data can do to you these days.
Except it won't, because she is not a sex offender. And you know what? Some searches for things like mortgages, background checks, due diligence legal searches, and so on, are (intentionally) overly broad and do get "false positives". But the difference is they don't just assume you're that person; if you're not that person, you're simply not, and you are given the opporunity to show it. This is routine and happens thousands of times a day for employment, divorce proceedings, security clerance investigations, credit checks, and so on. MySpace doesn't really care, apparently, if it purges a few people who aren't really sex offenders. But it's not the reverse that's happening
I guarantee you...the info pulled off MySpace indentifying predators...it also being distributed to at least a few police, state and fed systems. Of course you have nothing to fear if you are innocent? Try telling that to her in the future..when she gets mis-identified again due to data from this data pull....hell, she might not even know she's been turned down for something due to this...no one says they have to tell you why.
Um...huh? You actually believe that police records and sex offender lists and government databases are going to be changed on the basis of MySpace's garbage matching...using sex offender lists in the first place? (Not only will this not happen, at all, do you see the error in your logic here? MySpace isn't "identifying" sex offenders. They're letting the people who pressured them know that they removed people who they THINK to be sex offenders based on its processes, to show that it is doing something; not that these people ARE sex offenders.) She CANNOT and WILL NOT have ANY negative entries in any databases or law enforcement records, because she HAS NOT committed any crime, and IS NOT a sex offender, no matter what MySpace says or does. Why does no one here understand that, and why are they all getting modded up? Repeat: MySpace has NO POWER to suddenly make people appear as sex offenders or criminals in ANY database, ANYWHERE.
That doesn't mean what MySpace is doing is right or even productive. But it also doesn't change the accuracy of anything I said above.
Thanks for the advice! Amazingly, some people aren't required to work during any particular set times, and yet still complete all of the work they are obligated to do in the timeframes expected. We can't all be like France, I guess!
No, this woman is infact being branded. She's being associated with some very heinous criminal activity solely based on identity matching technology which is KNOWN to be crap. This is slander and this slander is being passed onto law enforcement where official harrassment by the state is likely to ensue.
No. She is provably not a sex offender, and nothing MySpace says or does makes her one, and cannot add her to any governmentally-maintained sex offender registries (the only kind there are), or result in "harassment" by law enforcement. MySpace is supposed to be showing lists of people it's removing to show it is taking action; this doesn't magically make these people sex offenders, nor will it get them added to sex offender registries you have to have committed a crime to be added to. The justice system isn't some nebulous thing where it's difficult to tell whether someone might or might not be a sex offender. You either are or aren't, and nothing MySpace's loose matching mechanism does changes that in any public way, or any way that would affect a person from an employment, governmental, or law enforcement perspective.
Her friends may not believe she is a sex offender, but potential future employers may not be so charitable. I have zero confidence that lists such as this will not enter the public domain.
Sex offender registries are governmentally maintained and public. You either are a sex offender, or you aren't. What MySpace's loose internal processes think are irrelevant. I'm not sure what kinds of databases people think this might get into (because it's certainly NOT sex offender registries, as you have to, well, actually be a sex offender to be on one), but no employer is going to find out that she might be a sex offender. She isn't going to have a criminal record, nothing (about her, specifically) will be in any sex offender databases, and she is provably not a sex offender from any meaningful employment or statutory viewpoint.
I'm not even defending MySpace here, because I think what they are doing is 1.) ineffective, 2.) easily circumvented by people who use even small amounts of bogus information, and 3.) a bad idea because they're voluntarily taking on enforcement responsibility for what should essentially be a common carrier.
But MySpace has not branded anyone anything, even if the fact that her account was removed was provided to various states' attorneys general. That still doesn't make her a sex offender. Even if, in this particular case, employers run across the current stories by Googling, etc., they'll hopefully understand in about two seconds that they are stories about how this woman was improperly flagged by MySpace as a sex offender. And even if you say, "Yeah, but some people might prefer someone who shows up in no searches as opposed to a flurry of stories about being wrongly labeled a sex offender, so there is still that stigma," I'd respond that, 1.) I wouldn't want to work for a place like that, 2.) she was the one who chose to air this publicly, and 3.) to me, this speaks more clearly about being involved in shit like MySpace, including giving hordes of your real, personal information to it.
As TFA points out, MySpace provides list of users whose accounts it deletes for such reasons to law enforcement. It's very unlikely that the Colorado AG's office had Ms. Davis listed as a sex offender since the offenses were committed by a different person in other states; now, quite possibly now it does.
No. She is provably not a sex offender. Period.
She cannot be added to governmentally-maintained sex offender registries when she is not a sex offender.
What is more amusing is that you have not bothered to read TFA, which says:
No, I did read it, thanks.
"But what if MySpace falsely labeled you as sex offender, had your profile and your page taken down, had your name and information included in the database of sex offenders, and which was distributed to several Attorney Generals? I hope what happened to Jessica Davis will never happen to you."
That's the problem with Witch Hunts: You end up burning the wrong people.
Except that she is provably not a sex offender, and MySpace factually saying that she is one of the people they removed doesn't make her one in any jurisdiction or under any condition. It doesn't add her to any sex offender registries, doesn't add her to any databases, won't change what happens on any background check, and doesn't harm her in any way, other than currently being in a state where the matching system MySpace is currently using flags her, incorrectly, as a sex offender, based on their loose matching.
I'm not saying what MySpace is doing is even ultimately useful, which hopefully you can glean from my original post. But the people who think this somehow "labels" her as a sex offender to ANYONE except MySpace's own current internal process are completely incorrect. And yes, I can imagine scenarios as other people noted where a do-gooder - even if they're not supposed to - might "inform" all of a person's MySpace friends that the person is a "sex offender", irreparably harming that person, even though they're really not a sex offender. I'm sure we can come up with all sorts of other possibilities that haven't occurred, yet, either. The point is that MySpace disabling a profile under whatever mechanism they are using does not magically make or label the person as a sex offender, even if their names are provided as persons whose access was terminated to states' attorneys general.
What about future employers that do a back ground check? now that MySpace has reported her to the authorities she will not get passed a background check.
Wrong. She's not a sex offender, and not even suspected of being one, by any governmental entity at any level. So yeah, she'll get past every background check just fine. And, frankly, probably easier due to NOT having a MySpace profile...
no, not surprising, but wrong. Just as wrong as false hits on any terrorist list needs a way for removal....wait, that never works. Maybe someone needs to be..oh I don't know..tried before a judge and their peers before being branded guilty of a crime? I just thinking off the wall here...
Uh, she hasn't been branded guilty of anything by anyone that has such power. Sorry.
No court, governmental entity or agency, police agency, or anything else related to government thinks she is guilty of anything, either officially or unofficially.
Yes, she has been branded. To every government agency that looks at her back ground. English major. Probably looking at a teaching career. Well, she can kiss that good bye.
No, she has not. You are 100% incorrect. She is NOT a sex offender. That was true then, and is true now. It does not matter that the firm that MySpace contracted to identify sex offenders mistakenly identified her as one and deleted her MySpace profile.
Just where do you think this "background check" is going to come from? NO database, ANYWHERE, lists *her* a sex offender. She will show on no background checks, for any reason, for any circumstances, as a sex offender. Get it?
And if a potential employer uses means similar to MySpace - which is UNRELATED to what MySpace has done here, mind you - to check into her background, and they get a "hit" because of similar name, etc., it's extremely easy to verify she is not that person. This is extremely common, and happens hundreds of times a day in all types of background checks, due diligence checks for mortgages, and so on. The difference here is that MySpace has no real interest in whether or not a single individual gets a profile ever again, on balance with its "commitment" to remove sex offenders.
But to be clear, MySpace has not "branded" her has ANYTHING. NO background check will see her as a sex offender because of what MySpace has done. Do you understand that? (It seems not.)
No, it doesn't. The fact that you want to make money does not mean you can go around making false statements about people without repercussions. No matter WHO told them to do so.
They didn't make "false statements" to anyone except her.
With more of these black lists, the more people who will be falsly labels a criminal.
By someone who isn't the government and doesn't report that information to anyone but itself?
*Yawn.*
This total circumnavigates the criminal system, in that people are being punished for crimes they haven't been tried for. Remember, this goes beyond myspace.
No, it doesn't. It stops at MySpace. This doesn't "label" her as anything, to anyone, and doesn't punish her for any crime. And on top of all of that, the only reason any of this is public at all is because she wanted it to be. And still, she is not listed in any database (except MySpace, based on a loose name/DOB/location match) as any kind of sex offender, and no one considers HER to be one, outside of MySpace itself, which only does because she coincidentally is "close enough" in personal information to someone else. But do you understand that MySpace can't "label" someone as anything? The only thing they can do is the exact opposite: take people who already are legitimately labeled by the justice system as a sex offender and attempt to match with people in their system. That's it. It's not as if anyone who they misidentify gets labeled as a sex offender.
...that MySpace isn't the government, and this woman is still "innocent", and is, in fact, not a sex offender, regardless of whether MySpace's own internal processes "identified" her as one.
It's amusing to me that the summary tosses around words like "wrongly brand", when MySpace hasn't "branded" - which implies a public, overt identification - anyone as anything. And even if the woman's friends ask why her profile is gone, it's not as if they're going to accidentally and arbitrarily believe she really is a sex offender.
Since the only mechanism via which MySpace can identify possible sex offenders registered on the site is comparison of items such as name, locale, DOB (for which many public lists, even of sex offenders, only use the month), etc., is this surprising? That someone with the same name, same birth month (which might have been all the matching information they had), and same location, which is pretty much all the information they have, could be seen as a match?
Is it further surprising that MySpace doesn't yet have a reasonable mechanism to deal with improper identifications as yet? Sure, maybe they should, but from their perspective, it's more important for them to respond to the requests to get people who are obviously sex offenders registered with their real information off the site. Since MySpace isn't a court or the government, the whole "better to let a hundred guilty men free than jail one innocent man" doesn't apply in the least. (Unless, of course, you think having MySpace removed from your life is a significant "punishment".)
No one has a right to a MySpace profile, MySpace isn't the government, and hasn't identified, much less "branded", the woman in any public fashion as a sex offender.
This of course ignores that sex offenders/pedophiles/etc. can clearly register under bogus names, addresses, and so on. On the other hand, is it a good idea to let registered sex offenders (arguments about an 18 year old with his 16 year old high school sweetheart getting tagged as a "registered sex offender" aside) who are registered with their real information remain on a site like MySpace? And just because "they can come back and register with false information," is that any reason to let persons who have registered with their real information stay? Sure, the mechanism for identifying such people may be imperfect, but again, repeat after me: MySpace is NOT the government, even if it was acting under pressure from various states/municipalities/etc.
But people do need to recognize that all a sex offender has to do is register with a false name and nothing more, and MySpace will not be able to identify them at all. However, MySpace can still say it has still done all it can reasonably do in response to the various demands to "remove" sex offenders from the site. MySpace's own business interests in this arena trump an exceedingly small number of individuals from possibly getting improperly flagged.
RTFM. This allows apps with custom HTML, etc., within Facebook pages. I'm not quite clear on who/what/when/how people can develop for this, though. E.g., will it just be a collection of approved and vetted third party components people can select from to put/use, in among other places, on their profile pages? Or will anyone effectively able to develop and deploy custom modules, but where/how they are deployed is a tightly controlled and distinctly separate environment?
...the sign in their window says "FREE WI-FI (Customers only)", aside from issues of whether the access point should be open or not, and aside from arguments about whether a person using such an access point could under all circumstances be expected to know where it's coming from. (And yes, I realize that could have been added later, but this is in response to people who seemed to think there was no indication.)
There is an open access point here at a local coffee shop entitled "[Name of shop] - NOT FREE", and the reason why the owner chooses to leave it open is because of problems the occasional customer has with various security mechanisms/passwords that customers simply don't have when he leaves it open. So, he's made his choice, and I doubt whether he'd really care if someone else used it, but at the same time, it is intended for customer use only.
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No. She is not associated with the offender in any official records.
(I love how you just use "blah, blah, blah", too, as if that invalidates my factually correct argument, which you just said was wrong, and now you're changing what the "concern" is, which is also wrong.)
The most of any kind of "record" she is in is MySpace's own internal mechanism for doing the matches against the sex offender databases, which is the result of an obviously broad comparison search their contractor is doing. E.g., deliberately choosing to allow a birth month match, neighboring state, etc., probably specifically chosen to cast the widest dragnet to meet the customer's (e.g., MySpace's) requirements.
The fact that the lists of people it purged are provided to states' attorneys general also does not magically make her a sex offender, or associate her with ANYTHING, on any official list of any kind. The lists are provided so that the AG can see that MySpace is doing something. It is the state and other agencies that maintain the actual registries, criminal records, and so on. The MySpace results DO NOT add to those records; the MySpace results are supposed to show that MySpace is "taking action" by removing people, and instead of saying "we removed X people", the AGs want to know WHO MySpace removed. However, that does not associate this person with anything, and does not associate her with this person in any official databases or lists, or any profile that anyone could search or check (other than MySpace's own system, which I think is stupid anyway, as I've said numerous times on other posts).
But your refusal to understand what MySpace is doing, no matter how dumb it is, and the fact that this doesn't somehow "associate" her with being a sex offender, in any way, is amusing to say the least.
No. It is factually incorrect that she could be added to sex offender databases because of what MySpace is doing. You MUST have been convicted of a crime which classifies you as a sex offender to be, or be required to be, in a sex offender registry. That is a factual statement and is in no way "unverified"; that is how sex offender registries work and their very purpose. You cannot be added to a sex offender registry for any other reason or in any other way. You need to have been convicted of a crime by a court of law that classifies you as a sex offender.
Further, the whole purpose of MySpace's matching is to take existing, legitimate sex offender databases, and match them against its own users, in what will always be in imperfect fashion. The very intent of this is to use an existing database for this, and I trust you see what's wrong with thinking that incorrect matching my MySpace somehow would contribute BACK to a sex offender database, when the only way a person can even BE in a sex offender database is via the mechanism I described above.
I know you'll still want to believe that somehow what MySpace is doing is building sex offender databases somewhere, when it's doing essentially the exact opposite, which is using government-administered sex offender databases with known, convicted sex offenders in an attempt to match those persons with persons in MySpace, using an intentionally overly broad process. This is unrelated to whether or not what MySpace is doing is a good idea, which I don't believe it is.
No, No Fly lists are created so that airlines and airports have a semi-protected list of names, both from a privacy and national security perspective, to match against their own databases of persons purchasing tickets and checking in. To protect privacy, the lists given to airlines/airports for use are name and limited information only. If there is a hit, it goes up the chain, to TSA/DHS, or other reporting agencies as needed, to confirm that this is (or is not) the person that is actually on the list. That's why it's such a hassle, and why some people can't figure out why they're "on" a list, and why they can't get "off": it's because "they" are not "on" any list. Their NAME ONLY is on a list, and EVERY TIME, it will be confirmed by the responsible agency (usually TSA at that airport) that they are not the person. Whether or not No Fly lists are a good idea, would we prefer that all terrorist watch lists, in their entirety, with all personally identifiable information, were provided to all airlines? To say nothing about the technical nightmare to integrate that into every airlines' disparate systems, keep it updated, and so on. This is why we tried to create CAPPS II, which was discontinued in 2004 and replaced by Secure Flight. So we are still stuck with the old, limited system (which was created not by Bush or in response to 9/11, but during the Clinton administration, for what it's worth). The other alternative is to never attempt to stop anyone from flying, at all, including people who are known terrorists (regardless of whether or not they "could" use false credentials), and all problems aside, that is simply not an alternative for most people. The fact is that air travel has a significant effect on our economy; it's not just about lives potentially lost due to terrorism, but about the billions and billions lost from the economy. And, in large part, the economic factors are about people feeling safe.
And what "profile" are you talking about? There isn't some kind of secret "credit report sort of list" that tracks people in this way. I know, I know, it's "secret", so we don't know about it right? Wrong. There are criminal records, court records, police records, legal records, registered sex offender databases, and other public records. There are terrorist watch lists from various agencies (State, CIA, DHS, FBI, and so on). There are No Fly lists which are compendium of terrorist watchlists for persons barred from flying. But there are some kind of secret profile which persons who get matched by MySpace to existing, legitimate lists, on which someone will now be improperly associated with being a sex offender.
It's not naive; that's just the truth. I know you want to believe there are such secret lists and profiles that the "powerful" (e.g., government, large employers) get to use and somehow keep secret from the public (and no, I'm not talking about terrorist watch lists, which, while their contents may variously be secret, the existence of the lists themselves is not), but that's simply not the case. The burden of proof to show that such a "profile" exists is on you, not the reverse (i.e., for me to "prove" it doesn't exist).
She may not be put on an official list, but, I'd bet that she is now on other lists for being 'flagged' as an offender.
What other lists, though? That's not even the purpose of this. MySpace's matching is using the ONLY legitimate lists there are for sex offenders, which are the ones the government (usually the states) maintains. She's not getting "added" to other "lists" because of this. I know that your reaction will be to say, "prove it," or, "how do you know she isn't getting added to lists right now," but to me, that would be like saying, "how do you know the Sun isn't going nova right now?"
Down the line...that could have an effect on her, even if false. If a search comes up, and somehow gets that unofficial record that she was flagged at one point by some system....well, c'mon you know as well as I in todays world, it only takes being accused of a sex crime to mark you for the rest of your life.
But flagged by what, in what system, and for what reason? MySpace's searching isn't intended to create "new" lists; it's to use legitimate lists that already exist in an attempt to see if its own users match. Nothing more. And yes, it is being (intentionally) overly broad.
Not to mention that not all databases out there between the states talk to each other. If you show up on the MySpace list sent to the state agencies...they might wonder "Hmm...why is she not showing up on our list? Maybe we need to look into this."
Yeah. And then they'll immediately find out that she isn't on any sex offender list because she's not a sex offender, and hasn't been convicted of a crime, and doesn't have any criminal record (related to this, anyway). Sex offender lists aren't some arbitrary, nebulous thing you can just suddenly "show up" on. You have to have been convicted of a crime that requires you to register as a sex offender, and you actually have to be that person. States "look into" this sort of thing every day when people don't register as they're required to. If you're a sex offender, you'll get dinged for it and added to the database for that state/locale. If you're not, well, you're not. You act as if criminal records and convictions will suddenly appear from thin air.
At the very least...a false positive flagging as a sex offender could have serious repercussions, because in today's society in the US at least...the mere raising of the question about a person can tag them as 'guilty' when it comes to social and employment possibilities.
I understand the point you're making. But that happens when someone floats out a false story to libel or slander someone, not when a company like MySpace is doing internal checks using a data warehouse contractor to attempt to loosely match lists of sex offenders with its users because of political and media pressure. Employers do background checks that get false positives all the time, such as showing that you're a deadbeat dad in some county or that you have a civil judgment against you in some proceeding. You can simply and easily show that you're not that person, and that's the end of it. I know it's easy to imagine all these nightmare scenarios where somehow MySpace's information gets used in some kind of a search somewhere, but that is totally misunderstanding the purpose of what MySpace is doing, or attempting to do, no matter how ridiculous and wrongheaded it is: it's not making a new list, or even to be effective or useful for that purpose. Its only purpose is to use existing, real lists to try to match against its own users. This will always be imperfect. I could probably try to register with the name, city, and DOB of a real sex offender right now, and get denied, or removed at some point in the future. Does that make me a sex offender? No. Conversely, if someone with my name, similar date of birth, and living in a neighboring county or state suddenly gets me flagged in MySpace's mechanism and gets my account deleted, does that make me a sex offender? No. Not in any way, lega
I know the idea here is to really stretch the logic and see what it might be possible to occur. And no, I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.
But I'm sorry, even in Asshat County, they have the same mechanisms for checking for criminal records, outstanding warrants, and so on. Even if there were a newspaper story about this, it would be about how she was wrongly identified as a sex offender by MySpace, not that she actually is one. She won't be added to any sex offender or other law enforcement databases. She won't have a criminal record. She hasn't been convicted of a related crime.
And even if she WAS a registered sex offender, she wouldn't be thrown in jail at a traffic stop. Getting into the whole "well, if they knew she was a registered sex offender, they might harass her" area is shaky ground. Just because you THINK they might or because cops sometimes do the wrong thing isn't really relevant or meaningful to this situation.
But that's beside the point, because she isn't a registered sex offender, and won't be added to any list or database that any police agency - even in Asshat County - searches. And let's take this situation in particular. Let's just say for some reason that this story is in Bodunk Times-Ledger in Asshat County. This whole thing about how this woman was incorrectly identified as a sex offender via MySpace. For one thing, the only reason it's public is because she chose to make it public. And second, the whole story is that she is improperly identified as a sex offender because she shares a name and a similar birthdate and lives in a neighboring state, not that she actually is a sex offender.
Look, I know you're trying to imagine the slipperiest slope possible. That MySpace's "list" could somehow become public, and might somehow be misused. But the criminal and judicial systems and databases in this country are pretty damned accurate. If you do have the misfortune of sharing the same exact name, birthdate, and even city/state as a real criminal, there are even ways out of that. But the legal/criminal standard is much, much, much higher than the crap, purposely inexact matching MySpace is using. People don't just randomly get criminal records, warrants, or added to state-maintained sex offender databases just because of what MySpace is doing, and that's not even the purpose of this; in fact, it's the exact opposite: MySpace is contracting with a database company to try to match its users against existing, legitimate sex offender databases. No matter how poorly of a job it does, it isn't making the information public, and the information isn't intended to say that someone is a sex offender, just that they think a particular profile may match someone who already has legitimately been identified as a sex offender by the legal and judicial systems.
But no one is going to get tossed in jail in Asshat County because of what MySpace is doing. Not unless Asshat County wants to spend its entire year's highway budget on the inevitable settlement payout. And not only that, Asshat County will never find out, because that person will never be in any legitimate criminal database, nor can be legitimately considered to be a target of investigation, because MySpace's matching mechanism isn't coming from thin air; it's coming from legitimate databases that already exist, and aren't designed to be some sort of "new" list, and aren't even intended to be public, much less remotely to be used for any law enforcement purpose.
By your logic, nobody should be held accoutable for libel and slander towards another person, because that person doing the libel and slander isn't the government.
No.
First, libel and slander applies only when someone does it publicly.
Second, the summary implies that this person is somehow being added to sex offender databases, being labeled as a sex offender from a legal or law enforcement perspective, or publicly identified as a sex offender. None are true.
Yes. And that isn't public, overt identification, to anyone. That's MySpace's contractor for this activity, which, effectively, is MySpace itself. See here and here and a number of my other posts today which explains the situation quite clearly.
Apparently, MySpace DOES share information about profiles they remove as sex offenders with law enforcement. While she may not have a right to a MySpace profile, she DOES have a right to not be falsely accused and turned in to the police and THAT trumps MySpace's business interests.
She is not "falsely accused" of anything, in any legal, judicial, or law enforcement sense, and she is not "turned in" to the police. MySpace is using information that OBTAINS from governmental entities ("the police", if you wish), and attempts to match with its registered users. It then provides names of people it deletes based on this information to show it is taking action. It does NOT somehow magically identify these people as sex offenders. That is the mistake everyone seems to be making: they think that MySpace is "identifying" sex offenders and "turning them in", and that these people are somehow being added to criminal or sex offender databases somewhere. No. MySpace is using existing, real sex offender databases, and attempting to find matches with a purposely inexact algorithm that is part automated, and part human (and in the hands of a firm with whom they contracted to handle this). The act of giving names to the states' attorneys general is, to repeat myself, to show that they are "doing something"; NOT to somehow "add" these people to databases or say that they are sex offenders. Do you understand that? No one who is not a sex offender is getting added to any governmentally-maintained databases, or getting "turned in" to police, or suspected by any legal or law enforcement entity of being a sex offender. The legal system has already made that determination about other people.
This may cause MySpace to re-think things a bit. If that database was publically exposed for any reason, they might face huge liabilities to anyone who was mistakingly added. Mistakes like that can get innocent people killed.
Well, considering all legitimate sex offender databases are already public, and those are the ones you have to actually have been convicted of a crime to be in...
It's unlikely that MySpace itself is even maintaining a "database", per se, but more likely a mechanism for matching against a list it has built of registered sex offenders' information from the actual government-maintained lists. If you're "too close" to someone on the list, they may assume you are or could be that person, and are deleted or denied access. It's a stupid idea and a far from perfect system. But it doesn't make you a sex offender. And since you already can view lists of registered sex offenders, I fail to see how anything MySpace maintains with its ridiculous system - which, remember, is designed to match people against lists - would get anyone "killed". Trust me, I understand the point you are trying to make. But you totally misunderstand what MySpace is doing (no matter how stupid it is): it's not adding people to databases or turning anyone in. They're using OTHER, legitimate, government-controlled databases to make their judgments.
*Sigh*.
Even the analogy you chose isn't right.
The reason the "nerd" label is hurtful is because you've been labeled that, publicly, by a group of people, and are usually ridiculed because of it.
This woman was told privately by MySpace that MySpace believes her to be a sex offender, but MySpace isn't telling anyone else[1], and she knows herself to not be a sex offender and for this private "label" to thus be in error. Whether she is shocked/hurt/sad/upset/etc. is irrelevant to whether she has been effectively "labeled" as something in any meaningful (e.g., public) way. She isn't even labeled as such within the bounds of MySpace from any publicly discoverable point of view. The only reason this is public is because she chose to make the issue public.
Let me make it clear that I think that what MySpace is doing is stupid. It does nothing, and any sex offender can register at any time with bogus information (which most probably do anyway). But, what MySpace is doing, pragmatic and PR-driven as it is, does NOT "label" someone a sex offender. At most it will boot you from MySpace and disallow you from registering with whatever information it believes matches a profile of an existing sex offender (I don't know if they also attempt to block IP ranges you have used from registration as well; that would be interesting). However, many private companies (such as mortgage banks) do due diligence searches that come up with false positives for people who owe back child support or have public judgments against them. You then have to "prove" that you're not that person (which is usually just a matter of showing an ID or showing you didn't live in a particular place, etc.). Just because MySpace isn't (currently) accepting "proof" that you're not that person doesn't suddenly or magically mean you're "labeled" or "branded" as something, when no one knows except some ridiculous database company contracted by MySpace.
[1] The fact that MySpace is providing lists of people who it deactivated to states' attorneys general, etc., (to show that it is acting) still does not make these people sex offenders, nor does it add them to any databases, nor does it publicly identify anyone as a "sex offender" who is not one. It simply says Person X with these identifying characteristics got deleted; if that person is in reality not a sex offender, this does not make them one, much less to anyone who personally knows you (nerd example), in any legal way, to any employer, etc.
But even on MySpace she wasn't (visibly) labeled a "sex offender"; there's no one to even judge her. (And someone at some random database contractor knowing a person named Joe Blow was removed from MySpace for possibly being a "sex offender" doesn't concern me in the least.) The lists that are given to various states' attorneys general show a person's account was removed (to show that MySpace is "doing something", but don't make her a sex offender or add her information to any databases. MySpace is pulling data and attempting to make matches; they're not creating data to add to databases.
And I think my last paragraph speaks to your broader point.
Then try understanding it too, please.
Great comment.
Try explaining how she will be considered a sex offender by anyone except the current state of MySpace's bogus matching process. Thanks.
(Hint: MySpace providing the names they have removed to state attorneys general or any other government entity does not add people to sex offender databases, give them criminals, add them to any law enforcement databases or watchlists, or anything similar.) See here, here, and here. Hopefully that will make it clear for you.
The thing I would wonder about...what all other 'databases' are now being filled with information from MySpace? I'd bet you 10 to nothing this lady now turns up as a sex offender on other systems....other systems that may NOT get their data corrected.
...the info pulled off MySpace indentifying predators...it also being distributed to at least a few police, state and fed systems. Of course you have nothing to fear if you are innocent? Try telling that to her in the future..when she gets mis-identified again due to data from this data pull....hell, she might not even know she's been turned down for something due to this...no one says they have to tell you why.
No. She cannot and will not be added to any sex offender lists or any other governmentally maintained lists because of this. She is not a sex offender.
Isn't that nice? It would be a shame for this inacurate information to catch up to her in the future, denying her a job, a clearance, a loan...raise her insurance rates...all those nice things that bad data can do to you these days.
Except it won't, because she is not a sex offender. And you know what? Some searches for things like mortgages, background checks, due diligence legal searches, and so on, are (intentionally) overly broad and do get "false positives". But the difference is they don't just assume you're that person; if you're not that person, you're simply not, and you are given the opporunity to show it. This is routine and happens thousands of times a day for employment, divorce proceedings, security clerance investigations, credit checks, and so on. MySpace doesn't really care, apparently, if it purges a few people who aren't really sex offenders. But it's not the reverse that's happening
I guarantee you
Um...huh? You actually believe that police records and sex offender lists and government databases are going to be changed on the basis of MySpace's garbage matching...using sex offender lists in the first place? (Not only will this not happen, at all, do you see the error in your logic here? MySpace isn't "identifying" sex offenders. They're letting the people who pressured them know that they removed people who they THINK to be sex offenders based on its processes, to show that it is doing something; not that these people ARE sex offenders.) She CANNOT and WILL NOT have ANY negative entries in any databases or law enforcement records, because she HAS NOT committed any crime, and IS NOT a sex offender, no matter what MySpace says or does. Why does no one here understand that, and why are they all getting modded up? Repeat: MySpace has NO POWER to suddenly make people appear as sex offenders or criminals in ANY database, ANYWHERE.
That doesn't mean what MySpace is doing is right or even productive. But it also doesn't change the accuracy of anything I said above.
...
Thanks for the advice! Amazingly, some people aren't required to work during any particular set times, and yet still complete all of the work they are obligated to do in the timeframes expected. We can't all be like France, I guess!
No, this woman is infact being branded. She's being associated with some very heinous criminal activity solely based on identity matching technology which is KNOWN to be crap. This is slander and this slander is being passed onto law enforcement where official harrassment by the state is likely to ensue.
No. She is provably not a sex offender, and nothing MySpace says or does makes her one, and cannot add her to any governmentally-maintained sex offender registries (the only kind there are), or result in "harassment" by law enforcement. MySpace is supposed to be showing lists of people it's removing to show it is taking action; this doesn't magically make these people sex offenders, nor will it get them added to sex offender registries you have to have committed a crime to be added to. The justice system isn't some nebulous thing where it's difficult to tell whether someone might or might not be a sex offender. You either are or aren't, and nothing MySpace's loose matching mechanism does changes that in any public way, or any way that would affect a person from an employment, governmental, or law enforcement perspective.
Her friends may not believe she is a sex offender, but potential future employers may not be so charitable. I have zero confidence that lists such as this will not enter the public domain.
Sex offender registries are governmentally maintained and public. You either are a sex offender, or you aren't. What MySpace's loose internal processes think are irrelevant. I'm not sure what kinds of databases people think this might get into (because it's certainly NOT sex offender registries, as you have to, well, actually be a sex offender to be on one), but no employer is going to find out that she might be a sex offender. She isn't going to have a criminal record, nothing (about her, specifically) will be in any sex offender databases, and she is provably not a sex offender from any meaningful employment or statutory viewpoint.
I'm not even defending MySpace here, because I think what they are doing is 1.) ineffective, 2.) easily circumvented by people who use even small amounts of bogus information, and 3.) a bad idea because they're voluntarily taking on enforcement responsibility for what should essentially be a common carrier.
But MySpace has not branded anyone anything, even if the fact that her account was removed was provided to various states' attorneys general. That still doesn't make her a sex offender. Even if, in this particular case, employers run across the current stories by Googling, etc., they'll hopefully understand in about two seconds that they are stories about how this woman was improperly flagged by MySpace as a sex offender. And even if you say, "Yeah, but some people might prefer someone who shows up in no searches as opposed to a flurry of stories about being wrongly labeled a sex offender, so there is still that stigma," I'd respond that, 1.) I wouldn't want to work for a place like that, 2.) she was the one who chose to air this publicly, and 3.) to me, this speaks more clearly about being involved in shit like MySpace, including giving hordes of your real, personal information to it.
As TFA points out, MySpace provides list of users whose accounts it deletes for such reasons to law enforcement. It's very unlikely that the Colorado AG's office had Ms. Davis listed as a sex offender since the offenses were committed by a different person in other states; now, quite possibly now it does.
No. She is provably not a sex offender. Period.
She cannot be added to governmentally-maintained sex offender registries when she is not a sex offender.
What is more amusing is that you have not bothered to read TFA, which says:
No, I did read it, thanks.
"But what if MySpace falsely labeled you as sex offender, had your profile and your page taken down, had your name and information included in the database of sex offenders, and which was distributed to several Attorney Generals? I hope what happened to Jessica Davis will never happen to you."
That's the problem with Witch Hunts: You end up burning the wrong people.
Except that she is provably not a sex offender, and MySpace factually saying that she is one of the people they removed doesn't make her one in any jurisdiction or under any condition. It doesn't add her to any sex offender registries, doesn't add her to any databases, won't change what happens on any background check, and doesn't harm her in any way, other than currently being in a state where the matching system MySpace is currently using flags her, incorrectly, as a sex offender, based on their loose matching.
I'm not saying what MySpace is doing is even ultimately useful, which hopefully you can glean from my original post. But the people who think this somehow "labels" her as a sex offender to ANYONE except MySpace's own current internal process are completely incorrect. And yes, I can imagine scenarios as other people noted where a do-gooder - even if they're not supposed to - might "inform" all of a person's MySpace friends that the person is a "sex offender", irreparably harming that person, even though they're really not a sex offender. I'm sure we can come up with all sorts of other possibilities that haven't occurred, yet, either. The point is that MySpace disabling a profile under whatever mechanism they are using does not magically make or label the person as a sex offender, even if their names are provided as persons whose access was terminated to states' attorneys general.
What about future employers that do a back ground check? now that MySpace has reported her to the authorities she will not get passed a background check.
Wrong. She's not a sex offender, and not even suspected of being one, by any governmental entity at any level. So yeah, she'll get past every background check just fine. And, frankly, probably easier due to NOT having a MySpace profile...
no, not surprising, but wrong. Just as wrong as false hits on any terrorist list needs a way for removal....wait, that never works. Maybe someone needs to be..oh I don't know..tried before a judge and their peers before being branded guilty of a crime? I just thinking off the wall here...
Uh, she hasn't been branded guilty of anything by anyone that has such power. Sorry.
No court, governmental entity or agency, police agency, or anything else related to government thinks she is guilty of anything, either officially or unofficially.
Yes, she has been branded. To every government agency that looks at her back ground. English major. Probably looking at a teaching career. Well, she can kiss that good bye.
No, she has not. You are 100% incorrect. She is NOT a sex offender. That was true then, and is true now. It does not matter that the firm that MySpace contracted to identify sex offenders mistakenly identified her as one and deleted her MySpace profile.
Just where do you think this "background check" is going to come from? NO database, ANYWHERE, lists *her* a sex offender. She will show on no background checks, for any reason, for any circumstances, as a sex offender. Get it?
And if a potential employer uses means similar to MySpace - which is UNRELATED to what MySpace has done here, mind you - to check into her background, and they get a "hit" because of similar name, etc., it's extremely easy to verify she is not that person. This is extremely common, and happens hundreds of times a day in all types of background checks, due diligence checks for mortgages, and so on. The difference here is that MySpace has no real interest in whether or not a single individual gets a profile ever again, on balance with its "commitment" to remove sex offenders.
But to be clear, MySpace has not "branded" her has ANYTHING. NO background check will see her as a sex offender because of what MySpace has done. Do you understand that? (It seems not.)
No, it doesn't. The fact that you want to make money does not mean you can go around making false statements about people without repercussions. No matter WHO told them to do so.
They didn't make "false statements" to anyone except her.
With more of these black lists, the more people who will be falsly labels a criminal.
By someone who isn't the government and doesn't report that information to anyone but itself?
*Yawn.*
This total circumnavigates the criminal system, in that people are being punished for crimes they haven't been tried for. Remember, this goes beyond myspace.
No, it doesn't. It stops at MySpace. This doesn't "label" her as anything, to anyone, and doesn't punish her for any crime. And on top of all of that, the only reason any of this is public at all is because she wanted it to be. And still, she is not listed in any database (except MySpace, based on a loose name/DOB/location match) as any kind of sex offender, and no one considers HER to be one, outside of MySpace itself, which only does because she coincidentally is "close enough" in personal information to someone else. But do you understand that MySpace can't "label" someone as anything? The only thing they can do is the exact opposite: take people who already are legitimately labeled by the justice system as a sex offender and attempt to match with people in their system. That's it. It's not as if anyone who they misidentify gets labeled as a sex offender.
Did you RTFA before spouting off? Oh wait /., I forgot where i was.
/., I forgot where i was.
Yes, I did.
The matching system is imperfect, no matter the level automation or humans are involved.
Colorado was viewed as close enough to Utah.
The responsibility of the firm was to make a best guess about whether a person could be a match.
Someone erred.
Doesn't change anything I said in my post.
Did you think about the situation a bit before spouting off? Oh wait
Well, the only reason MySpace finally did this was because of pressure from various states' attorneys general, etc., making such demands:
r s
http://news.google.com/news?q=myspace+sex+offende
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace#Child_safety
...that MySpace isn't the government, and this woman is still "innocent", and is, in fact, not a sex offender, regardless of whether MySpace's own internal processes "identified" her as one.
It's amusing to me that the summary tosses around words like "wrongly brand", when MySpace hasn't "branded" - which implies a public, overt identification - anyone as anything. And even if the woman's friends ask why her profile is gone, it's not as if they're going to accidentally and arbitrarily believe she really is a sex offender.
Since the only mechanism via which MySpace can identify possible sex offenders registered on the site is comparison of items such as name, locale, DOB (for which many public lists, even of sex offenders, only use the month), etc., is this surprising? That someone with the same name, same birth month (which might have been all the matching information they had), and same location, which is pretty much all the information they have, could be seen as a match?
Is it further surprising that MySpace doesn't yet have a reasonable mechanism to deal with improper identifications as yet? Sure, maybe they should, but from their perspective, it's more important for them to respond to the requests to get people who are obviously sex offenders registered with their real information off the site. Since MySpace isn't a court or the government, the whole "better to let a hundred guilty men free than jail one innocent man" doesn't apply in the least. (Unless, of course, you think having MySpace removed from your life is a significant "punishment".)
No one has a right to a MySpace profile, MySpace isn't the government, and hasn't identified, much less "branded", the woman in any public fashion as a sex offender.
This of course ignores that sex offenders/pedophiles/etc. can clearly register under bogus names, addresses, and so on. On the other hand, is it a good idea to let registered sex offenders (arguments about an 18 year old with his 16 year old high school sweetheart getting tagged as a "registered sex offender" aside) who are registered with their real information remain on a site like MySpace? And just because "they can come back and register with false information," is that any reason to let persons who have registered with their real information stay? Sure, the mechanism for identifying such people may be imperfect, but again, repeat after me: MySpace is NOT the government, even if it was acting under pressure from various states/municipalities/etc.
But people do need to recognize that all a sex offender has to do is register with a false name and nothing more, and MySpace will not be able to identify them at all. However, MySpace can still say it has still done all it can reasonably do in response to the various demands to "remove" sex offenders from the site. MySpace's own business interests in this arena trump an exceedingly small number of individuals from possibly getting improperly flagged.
RTFM. This allows apps with custom HTML, etc., within Facebook pages. I'm not quite clear on who/what/when/how people can develop for this, though. E.g., will it just be a collection of approved and vetted third party components people can select from to put/use, in among other places, on their profile pages? Or will anyone effectively able to develop and deploy custom modules, but where/how they are deployed is a tightly controlled and distinctly separate environment?
See: http://developers.facebook.com/
Apps, including custom HTML, will be able to integrate into Profile pages. But you're right...it won't be the abomination that is MySpace.
Ugh.
...the sign in their window says "FREE WI-FI (Customers only)", aside from issues of whether the access point should be open or not, and aside from arguments about whether a person using such an access point could under all circumstances be expected to know where it's coming from. (And yes, I realize that could have been added later, but this is in response to people who seemed to think there was no indication.)
6 628229428
More info in a video story here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=332971257
There is an open access point here at a local coffee shop entitled "[Name of shop] - NOT FREE", and the reason why the owner chooses to leave it open is because of problems the occasional customer has with various security mechanisms/passwords that customers simply don't have when he leaves it open. So, he's made his choice, and I doubt whether he'd really care if someone else used it, but at the same time, it is intended for customer use only.