Sex offenders must out themselves online

A Louisiana law going into effect in August 1, says sex offenders need to disclose their presence and location of their crimes, if they use social media. Local state Rep. Jeff Thompson sponsored the law so that convicted offenders couldn’t find any loopholes in current social network security policies. CNN reports:

The law states that sex offenders and child predators “shall include in his profile for the networking website an indication that he is a sex offender or child predator and shall include notice of the crime for which he was convicted, the jurisdiction of conviction, a description of his physical characteristics… and his residential address.”

Last year Louisiana tried to get convicted sex offenders banned from going online altogether, but that bill was struck down by the courts for being too broad. Facebook officially bans convicted sexual offenders from joining the site as part of its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. According to Venture Beat, “There’s no equivalent clause in the Terms of Service for Twitter and Pinterest, though.”