Social Networking Site Bans Anyone Over Age 36 To (Sorta) Deal With Sex Offender Law

from the say-what-now? dept

Fri, May 23rd 2008 11:56am — Mike Masnick

We've pointed out the ridiculousness of various laws (and proposed laws) to require all sex offenders to register their usernames and emails -- and to have social networking sites match up their userlist to that list to ban users -- but this latest story is even more ridiculous. Apparently, the UK has put in place a law that could eventually require the Secretary of State to set up a system where sex offenders will be required to register their email addresses. This isn't the law yet, however, and may never be put in place. Yet, one social network is apparently reacting anyway, and has deleted all profiles of people over the age of 36, claiming that since it doesn't require a valid email address to register for the site, it has no way to compare its registered base with the still non-existent registered offender list. Why age 36? No one seems to have any clue. Basically, the reasoning makes almost no sense at all. The law isn't really in place yet. The 36 year old age cut off has nothing to do with the law -- or with actually blocking sex offenders, many of whom are well below the age of 36. This doesn't even make the point about how ridiculous some of these laws are. It just shows a totally nonsensical reaction to a non-law.

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Filed Under: bans, sex offenders, social networks

41 Comments

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Ima Fish, 23 May 2008 @ 12:08pm

Dude, you can't trust anyone over 35. Apparently.
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Dave, 23 May 2008 @ 12:22pm

Well, that certainly helps.
Cuz, after all, if some paedophile is trolling for kids, they're of course going to list their real age.

I think they should ban all males too, as males are far more likely to offend than women.
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Mike, 23 May 2008 @ 12:58pm

Re: Well, that certainly helps.
I think they should ban everyone who isn't already dead, because the living are much more apt to offend sexually.
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zcat, 23 May 2008 @ 1:05pm

funny
Just the other day I joked that I'd tried to sign up for bebo and was banned for being too old..
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some old guy, 23 May 2008 @ 1:06pm

isnt it safer and easier
isn't it safer and easier to just ban anyone with no pubes?
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Tortel, 23 May 2008 @ 1:18pm

Just Helping!
It just makes it easier for them to find their younger-than-36 targets.
They just want to help those poor offenders!
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Kobberholm, 23 May 2008 @ 1:22pm

Re: isnt it safer and easier
LOL yeah.
In the signup form, make a CAPTCHA with a twist. It's a file upload field for a pic of your pubes.
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www.custompcmax.com, 23 May 2008 @ 1:23pm

I am scared...
What happens to a person when they turn 36? Do you hit that age and then turn into some huge pervert? I don't get it at all. I can understand having an under 18 / over 18 separation. Even that is impossible to control, as they have no way of really knowing your age. But, 36 is just such a random number.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2008 @ 1:28pm

I was one of the few people from USA on that site but since I'm 38, I got booted. I made a couple local friends from there but it got a TON of Russian ladies looking for husbands. I started a fake account on there to troll the spammers and that one is still valid, but my real account got yanked.
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David Canton, 23 May 2008 @ 1:50pm

For an explanation of this see "Canton's recipe for disastrous laws" (OK - its not a law - but the same theory applies) http://canton.elegal.ca/archives/2008/04/#a001349
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Boost, 23 May 2008 @ 2:05pm

Re: I am scared...
Oh, man, they better lower the age limit then. I think I hit that age of pervertedness at 13.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2008 @ 2:08pm

Geez.. let's just have 55 different social networking sites - one for each age from 10 to 65... every year you are stuck with people your own age.

rolls eyes..
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anonymous coward, 23 May 2008 @ 2:15pm

CEO set the age...
The CEO is probably 31 and wanted to buy himself 5 more years of opportunity.
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joe, 23 May 2008 @ 2:15pm

go to the source
Actually, in order to stop the pedophiles, they should ban anyone YOUNGER than 36. No pedos = no philes.
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john sumock, 23 May 2008 @ 2:26pm

pedophiles news
The site is run by BOZO...
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Rickster, 23 May 2008 @ 2:38pm

Does that make me a perv because of my age?
OMG..... I must be a sex offender since I am 39!!!
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Department of Child Safety and Such, 23 May 2008 @ 2:43pm

For The Health And Safety Of The Children we have decided to ban everyone but children from teh intarwebs. This action will allow a safe child friendly place to allow young people to interact without the fear of criminals and other undesirables.

Thank you for your understanding and consideration.
DoCSaS
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2008 @ 2:53pm

Police order?
"Having discussed the use of our website with the home office and the police, and further some pretty serious crimes caused by older users, we were left with no option but to terminate a huge amount of accounts, and without notice, immediately,"

So, they're claiming the authorities required this action.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2008 @ 3:03pm

I'm a sex offender in the making 3 more years and I graduate!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2008 @ 3:17pm

They must not have watched the "To Catch a Predator" shows. A good bit of the guys busted were 20ish.
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Blatant Coward, 23 May 2008 @ 3:17pm

We can just have all people wanting to use an internet site require a surgically embedded fob to be able to get on the net, when your fob turns black on Last Day at age 36, you can no longer get on the intertubes.

You also get to beat up Farrah Fawcett majors on that day before someone dressed in black spandex shoots you.
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Micheal Redfort Green, 23 May 2008 @ 3:34pm

Well
I'll bet someone just screwed up, and is lamely attempting to justify a technical error with a useful scapegoat
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Thom, 23 May 2008 @ 3:36pm

Simple mistake
It was a simple programming mistake. They told their outsourced progammers to boot everyone over 18 and the programmers attempted just that. Unfortunately the programmers mistakenly called the pounds to dollars conversion subroutine on the age before passing it to the boot perverts function.
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not a perv, or am I?, 23 May 2008 @ 6:45pm

Reason young adults get busted
Reasons why To Catch A Predator busts young adults more than other ages:
1) Teens under 16 don't drive to sting houses
2) Pervs who made it past 25 and didn't get caught see through the stings. Except the stupid ones of course.
3) The 20 year old who likes hot 14-year-old flesh becomes hte 30-year-old who likes hot 24-year-old LEGAL flesh.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 May 2008 @ 7:17am

Re:
Welcome to Carousel.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 May 2008 @ 9:57am

Re: Carousel
"Welcome to Carousel"

RUNNER!
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John Duncan Yoyo, 24 May 2008 @ 2:22pm

Next comes the age discrimination law suit
Next in the news should be the prosecution on age discrimination. After that the class action lawsuit by all of the injured parties. IE the old coots like us.
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Television Spy, 24 May 2008 @ 3:27pm

ughh
To all social networks - what's detrimental to your social site is not members who don't fit your key demographic, but members who are out to game or manipulate it.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 May 2008 @ 5:42pm

Well done. I have always said you can't trust anyone under 30 for a long time. But 36 works equally well for me.

I consider it both thoughtful and well intentioned to segregate people under 36 from the rest of us. It means we can have cyber sex in peace without having trolling bored housewives trying to entrap us in underage sex scams. WELL DONE ! :-))))))
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Turtle Butt, 24 May 2008 @ 5:52pm

Is this a joke?
I read the source article, and the company is quoted as saying they were "invaded by a gang of pervs." A gang? Pervs are forming gangs now? Is membership in the Gang of Pervs limited to those over the age of 36?

And as to the name of the site, FaceParty? Who the hell would want to be part of a group called FaceParty?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 May 2008 @ 9:18am

Liked the references to the movie of Logan's Run.
"Welcome to Carousel."

In the book, the age of the mandatory visit to a sleepshop was 21. There was no visit to Carousel or the promise of reincarnation. These conceptual changes were added to the movie with an arbitrary age increase to 30.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_%281976_film%29

So like the transition of the book to the movie, we can now live another 6 years on our social networks. Then life is over. Oh, that is at 40 ... sorry.
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Paula Bannerman, 26 May 2008 @ 1:49pm

Stupid
That is so incredibly short-sighted. Does it not occur to them that it also serves as an excellent way to ensure sex offenders will be interested as they can be fairly guaranteed the average age is in their 'snack bracket'. Stupid idiots.
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Lucretious, 26 May 2008 @ 7:10pm

evidently the site staff is an amalgam of upper middle-class twenty-something females whose reaction to anyone over the age of 35 is a long disgusted "ewwwwww".

Makes me feel so wanted at forty-something :(
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Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2008 @ 7:08am

If any of you knew anythnig about Face Party you would find the banning of 36 year olds much more amusing.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/specials/rich_list/article3800664.ece

So much for the bozo theory.

Half the posts on this site revolve around Journalists taking stories at face value but all readers are quick to to take Micheal Masnicks paragraph at face value, not to mention Masnick himself basing his piece on a piece in the register.
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denise, 27 May 2008 @ 4:58pm

i tried to log in today to find that at the prehistoric age of 42 ive also been banned.thats enough of an insult in itself but to imagine that i could be a potential threat to kids just takes the piss ,im just a hardworking loving single mum who just enjoys chatting with friends online of an evening . i had noticed tho that in the profiles theres a lot of sexy young girls had topless suggestive pics who where in reality botts adverising pay as you go sex chatlines ,their all under 35 so their fake profiles will be allowed to stay , i however being 6 years out of date will just have to settle for slippers and cocoa ha ,its all too crazy for words
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paolo francis, 7 Jun 2008 @ 5:18pm

faceparty booted over 36 year olds cartoon
Face party have terminated thousands of accounts from it's website without notice. Many are paid members and have not received a refund.The Face party site implies that if you are over 36 years of age you are more likely to be a paedophile.
They also state that they are following government and police guidelines. CHECK OUT MY CARTOON ON www.partipeeps.com website
which is a protest to faceparty and look up madartist.
kind regards
Paolo
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VisitTheBest, 19 Jun 2008 @ 10:33pm

Best Travel Websites Guide
Gathered the news on Visitthebest.it was interesting and shared the contents to my teacher too.
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chantal, 28 Jun 2008 @ 6:37pm

I'm sorry can you repeat that?
Okay so... they think getting old means we all turn into sex offenders? Really? What a load of garbage. Sex offenders are of all ages and colors and sexes. Either you have a predilection for it or your don't. The reason for removal might be other than they claim, using the issue as a reason for eliminating what is probably a smaller percentage of their users.
Ridiculous.
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Anonymous, 12 Oct 2008 @ 10:35pm

Faceparty
Faceparty have kept a lot of the older guys on who have been paying for adult pics and they have also set up a lot of fake accounts asking for people to text them on the number given on their site to receive adult material, but if you look at the number given you will find it is the number they give you on the top of your profile to be added to their shoutouts for the cost of £1.50, now doesn't this come under obtaining money through fraud and deception.
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Anonymous, 12 Oct 2008 @ 10:37pm

Faceparty
Faceparty have kept a lot of the older guys on who have been paying for adult pics and they have also set up a lot of fake accounts asking for people to text them on the number given on their site to receive adult material, but if you look at the number given you will find it is the number they give you on the top of your profile to be added to their shoutouts for the cost of £1.50, now doesn't this come under obtaining money through fraud and deception.
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big, 17 Jan 2009 @ 5:31am

I got deleted from faceparty for being over the age of 36, plus i had paid for cooltools which they say they could check up on paying members on the sex offenders register. So now i am taking action agains't faceparty for age discrimination, fraud and for saying i must be a sex offender.
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