It's Like Facebook Stalking, Except By The FBI

USA Today reported Thursday that Facebook has been given a deadline (albeit a vague one) to demonstrate its willingness to "protect kids from sexual predators." This ultimatum follows  an announcement from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo earlier this week that his investigators, posing as teens with Facebook profiles, "received sexual advances from adults" and were able to access "pornographic images."

This is pretty vague language, given the medium. Everybody uses Google, through whose image search you can access pornographic images simply by typing in "pornographic images." Or virtually anything else, for that matter, like "motorcycle" or "Russian." Go ahead. Try it.

"Sexual advances from adults" is another problematic phrase. For all we know, any gawky teenager biting some chick with the Zombies application counted as a malicious predatory overture. Imagine a confused G-man, posing as 16-year-old Jessi, confronted with that scenario. He pockets his sunglasses, stares quizzically at the screen, and deliberately places another tick mark under "Sexual Assaults" in his notepad.

Deleting the profiles of registered sex offenders is one thing. Expecting a porn-free internet is something else entirely.