On Facebook, a rising concern over predators

SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook, the online social network, has stolen some of MySpace's momentum with users and the news media. Now, it is being subjected to the same accusations that it does not do enough to keep sexual predators off its site.

Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general, said investigators in his state were looking into "three or more" cases of convicted sex offenders who had registered on Facebook and had "also found inappropriate images and content" on the service. The inquiry continues, he said, and state officials have contacted Facebook and asked it to remove the profiles.

"There is no question that Facebook is encountering some of the same problems that MySpace has posed," Blumenthal said. "They should be held accountable, and we intend to do so."

MySpace has been implicated in dozens of cases around the country in which predators used the service to contact and arrange improper meetings with minors. Some of these encounters have led to criminal charges against the offenders, and civil suits against MySpace.

Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, said he was not familiar with the Connecticut investigation but that the company has received "a number" of such reports and usually takes down such profiles within 72 hours.

"We want to be a good partner to the states in attempting to address this societal problem," Kelly said. "We've worked with them for quite some time now, and we look forward to continuing our fruitful partnership."

Facebook, founded in 2004 and based in Palo Alto, Calif., has positioned itself as the safe social-networking alternative. It has generally gone to greater lengths than rivals to keep adults and underage users apart, at first allowing only college and high school students to join the service, and then largely restricting online communication to users at the same school.

Last year, the site opened to the general public, but it still maintains various restrictions. For example, a user's full profile is not accessible to the general online public, and the full profile of an under-18 Facebook member is not viewable by a user who is over 18, unless the two are confirmed friends on the service. But in some cases, Facebook's younger users are vulnerable to sexual solicitations from older users, as was demonstrated last week to The New York Times by an anonymous person who described himself or herself in an e-mail message as "a concerned parent."

In early July, this person opened a fake account on the site, posing as a 15-year-old girl named Jerri Gelson from North Carolina. The photograph on the fake profile page is of an under-age girl whose hair conceals her face. On the profile page, Gelson -- whom the "concerned parent" said was not a real person -- is described as looking for "random play" and "whatever I can get."

This person then signed up for three dozen sexually themed groups -- forums of users organized around a particular topic.

When the Jerri Gelson profile was linked to these groups, her name and profile photo became visible to the group's other users, and adult men began sexually propositioning her with e-mail messages over Facebook.

Kelly said, "We want to, by default, protect people, but if there's a situation where younger users are reaching out, there's only so much we can do."