The British Home Office has ordered Facebook to remove the profiles of 30 UK prisoners from its social notworking site. Apparently the government is concerned that prisoners were using the social networking site to organise crime or taunt others.

Facebook has complied with the request, which has angered some users who were concerned about government interference online, although victims' support groups say that the government did not go far enough. Gary Trowdell of Families United, a group founded by relatives of young murder victims said that when someone is convicted of a crime they should lose their cyber-liberty too.

Families United was behind the ban which happened after it met this week with Justice Secretary Jack Straw. He said that the the government would act "to tackle those cases where offenders seek to taunt or harass victims and their families" through web sites. Officially British prisoners are banned from using social networking sites like Facebook, but authorities acknowledge that some have used smuggled mobile phones to update their pages, or have gotten friends on the outside to do it for them.

Straw said Facebook removed the 30 offenders' sites within 48 hours once they had been notified but he was working with the social networking site to act even faster. "What we've got to do is set up a better system with Facebook so that if they get a notice from us that this site is improper then all they have to do is not make a judgement about it but press the delete button."