New Louisiana Law Demands Sex Offenders Out Themselves On Facebook

A new law in the state of Louisiana has been passed that requires sex offenders and child predators to state the criminal status on their Facebook profiles. Facebook has removed profiles of convicted sex offenders for a while, but the Louisiana state representative who proposed the law, Jeff Thompson, says that he doesn't want to leave it up to administrators of the social network. The new law will go into effect on August 1 and will expand sex-offender registration requirements within the state.

Louisiana isn't the only state in the union that places conditions and restrictions on sex offenders and social networks. Both the state of Illinois and the state of Texas completely ban sex offenders from using social networks. The new social-networking rules go hand-in-hand with other sex-offender requirements within Louisiana such as notifying immediate neighbors and school districts out of status.

Louisiana law specifically states that convicted offenders "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." Convicted offenders that violate the law could face return to prison with hard labor for between two and 10 years without parole with the second conviction bringing a prison term of between five and 20 years without parole.

[via CNN]