Sex offenders and social networking

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - It is one more reason for parents to watch closely what their kids do on the internet.

More specifically who their Facebook friends are and what pictures and personal information they post.

Facebook bans sex offenders, but enforcing the ban is another story.

Facebook's terms clearly state sex offenders are not allowed to use the site, but News 10 found convicted sex offenders on Facebook in Illinois and Indiana.

The Illinois Attorney General's office says it works with these sites to keep convicted sex offenders off.

"We have plenty of sex offenders in Illinois who are under no form of supervision," said Cara Smith of the Illinois Attorney General's office. "We communicate multiple times a week with Facebook and MySpace when we learn that there are sex offenders that are on their Web sites and they remove them."

News 10 also did a search of sex offenders in Terre Haute and found some of them had Facebook profiles. But there's no law in Indiana to keep sex offenders from using these sites or to assist Facebook in policing it's site.