New York City prosecutors on Tuesday endorsed the United States' first proposed law to ban registered sex offenders from social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, officials said.
The district attorneys from all five of the city's boroughs announced their support for New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's proposal, which would ban thousands of the state's sex offenders from communicating with minors online.
The latest of several initiatives taken by Cuomo's office, the law would force sexual predators to register their instant messaging screen names and enable sites like MySpace and Facebook to block their access.
"The playground today is the Internet," Cuomo told a news conference. "The same way where we want to know their addresses, we want to know where they live on cyberspace."
MySpace is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and home to 110 million users globally. It came under state legal scrutiny after some youth members fell prey to adult predators posing as minors.
Last month,
Facebook, a privately held smaller rival, in October
Both firms support the newly proposed restrictions, Cuomo said.
"They want to be able to tell parents, 'Come to this site because it is a safe site'," Cuomo said.
Cuomo's bill--called the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-Stop)--was
According to Cuomo's office, if passed, the law would be the first in a U.S. state that expressly bans convicted sex offenders from contacting minors on social networking sites.
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