"US House Resolution 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), was passed by a 410 to 15 vote tonight. If the Resolution becomes law social networking sites and chat rooms must be blocked by schools and libraries or those institutions will lose their federal internet subsidies." (See http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/27/us-house-resolution-targeting-myspace-web20-passes-410-15/ )
This seems crazy... I can't believe it passed 410 to 15. Apparently our legislators are afraid that they might be perceived as failing to protect children otherwise? There has got to be a better way. For one thing, it makes no distinction between wide-open sites and those where the site operator provides moderation. And there's a vague notion of "visual depictions that are... harmful to minors." In our zeal to "protect" children, what kind of adults will they end up as? And how are schools and libraries supposed to become aware of, and then block, new social networking sites? What about the sort of distributed social networking systems that are coming (e.g., PeopleAggregator). What is this philosophy that allows Iraqi children to be killed, maimed and starved in the name of freedom while denying American children intellectual freedom in the name of safety? Banning just doesn't work. Never has, never will. I was pleased to see that voting against it were Mike Honda and Zoe Lofgren, who represent Silicon Valley. Nice to see that the locals understand that this is not the way forward. I made my opinions known to them when it first came up in committee. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
