Bill to Ban Social Sites in Schools Moves to Senate, by Barry Levine, is basically a press release which title is self explanitory. The bill, which has already passed through the house, calls for the banning of social networking sights which maintain personal profiles of their users as well as allow direct communication between users (i.e. Myspace, Facebook, Yahoo 360.) The Bill would affect those institutions which gain internet access through a lowered rate plan sponsored by the government. This includes all public schools and nearly two thirds of the public libraries, according to the ADA.
The reasoning behind this bill lies in it's official name, "the Deleting of Online Predators." DOPA was built off of Sen. Michael Fitzpatrick's assertion, that networking Web Sites are prime "hunting grounds" for sexual predators. According to the article, "The FBI has reportedly estimated that 20% of all children in the U.S. using the Internet have been sexually approached online, and that there are as many as 50,000 sexual predators online looking for contacts with children." However these statistics are not properly cited.
Once the bill becomes law, the institutions it affects would have to put a filter in place to restrict access to these social sights. However, the bill is unclear in its definition of social networking sights, therefore the institutions would have to rely on the ruling of the FCC as to what fell under the restrictions of the law and what did not.
An analyst for the Yankee group, Jennifer Simpson, believes that this motion by the government will soon be moot however, due to the recent availability of the internet via mobile and remote devices. "Access will become more pervasive," the article quoted, "with students connected anytime, any place."
This bill could concern more than elementary or high schools however. It is mentioned in the Idaho Technology Initiative Status Report, compiled by Robert Barr and Carolyn Thorsen of Boise State University, (http://csi.boisestate.edu/pdffiles/Idaho%20Technology%20Initiative%20Status%20Report%201994-2002.pdf) that many of Idaho's school districts receive the federal e-rate benefits to improve the amount of technology needed in the classroom. This statement does not exclude or include state funded universities, and though I've looked for information on the subject, I've yet to find a definitive yes or no on federal funding for the use of the internet on state university campuses. If our campuses are state funded, the proposed bill could shut down this branch of digital media for many college students, especially those living on campus. Though small in comparison to the entirety of blog society, entire social networks would perish. This Blog we are using for class discussion could be banned because of this new law and FCC regulations.
Though DOPA was created to help stop criminals, the government is on the edge of restricting freedom of speech. The bill was designed with minors in mind (who apparently don't have common civil rights being that they are minors) but is on the brink of overpowering basic civil liberties.
Frankly this article scares me.
3 comments:
To sum up what I thought about this article... wow! I can't even believe this is an issue. I can understand in K-12 not allowing access in schools, but other than that I don't think the government has any right to do something so crazy.
First of all I believe it is the job of the parents to warn children about such predators and to monitor them. Second, I know that myspace requires all users under 18 to have private profiles (meaning only their friends can view them. So it makes it very difficult for a predator to even get in contact wth them. I understand that the government is trying to protect these children, but I think what they are proposing is going too far.
I also don't understand why it would have anything to do with college students, who are obviously old enough to talk to whoever they want. To have myspace, this blog, and other sites like this possibly taken away from adults it rediculous!
Wouldn't this be the same as banning a book because it gives kids the idea to drink or smoke? Or how about banning kids from the mall since sexual predators hang out there too.
This article scares me too.
I know I have had times in my life where such a filter on a public library computer would have been a serious inconvience. And would these filters be required on computers at state supported universities? Still, I think really the burden here is put on an overburdened and underfunded school system. I mean who is supposed to program these filters and how much will is cost to develop effective ones and install them? And how are schools and libraries going to pay for them? Taxpayer dollars? By all accounts they don't get enough of those as is for their current expenses. Plus isn't there some sort of weird idea that we are protecting kids by keeping creepy adults with no personal internet access of public computers? Because really, it won't stop kids from acessing these site from home or sexual predators from preying on said children from their home internet connection. Personally this sounds like overregulation and the government wanted to cover its butt so no one can blame them when kids get molested. I don't see this bill doing much in the way of practical good.
The statistic that really scared me was the fact that 1 in 5 kids had been solicited for sex online. I didn't realize that the numbers were so high. I don't think that at the university level you could regulate blogs. They are now common in the workplace and newspapers.
In a public domain, it is difficult to draw the line where privacy begins. I odn't think people understand just how public the internet is. That is why people are posting on their blogs from their home computers (a private place) and getting fired (from their public workplace). The interconnectivity of the web as described in the Physics of the Web article (which was very confusing with all the math about mapping, by the way) is difficult to understand for many people, especially when you do something from your personal computer.
See, even the jargon is confusing.
John
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