Doesn’t conformity just give you goosebumps?
A Pennsylvania congressman has introduced legislation that would ban minors from accessing social networking websites such as MySpace, and forbid libraries from making such access available. The bill, known as the “Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006,” was introduced Wednesday in the House by Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-Penn).
H.R. 5319 forms part of the Republican Surburban Agenda, part of a multi-bill initiative supported by the Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL).
The bill would bar minors from accessing a social networking site, defined as one that “allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger.”
The “Deleting Online Predators Act” would also require the FCC to publish a sort of annual blacklist of “commercial social networking websites and chat rooms that have been shown to allow sexual predators easy access to personal information of, and contact with, children.”
The bill would require the government to set up a web site warning of the dangers of social networking.
Good thing this crowd wasn’t around when the courage and integrity required to pass the Bill of Rights was needed. Wouldn’t have had a chance.
I consider myself a Republican, and I don’t particulary like MySpace (Even though all my freinds do), but this is way to extreme. And from the way it is worded, this sounds like they would be banning the internet, because anyone can buy a godaddy domain and make a webpage that gives away personal info.
Out of curriosity though, would this apply to AIM?
You have to wonder now adays how there could possibly be people out in the world that still don’t have a clue as to how the Internet works.
Yet again, here’s a congressman who has no idea what he’s talking about. None…zip…zilch.
Also, how scary is the “Republican Suburban Agenda”? I have to ask, is there any country around now that’s free? As in free the way America is suppose to be? A stable economy, not a police state, provides health-care, doesn’t crack down on it’s citizens and actually treats them as human beings? Oh, and a country that isn’t controlled by religious morons who want to push their morality on me? Is there one out there like that? Can I come there instead? I’m fed up and given up on this place….so if you can provide me with a place so I can do some research (while I still can) on the Internet and perhaps start the immigration process to that country. I want to get out now before it’s too late, before they tell us we can’t leave.
Yes, I actually believe that the US will start being one of those places where people flee….where loads of people will launch themselves on boats and rafts to another country to become refugees. Give it another 10 or 20 years.
This is yet another example of those making the laws not having a clue about what the law will do in the real world. I’m quite sure there are plenty of religious websites that this bill would ban from library and school access.
But the headline reads “Republicans…” I see one Republican “A Pennsylvania congressman …”
That said, why should my tax dollars be spent so a kid can go to myspace.com at school or in the library?
Figures.. just when i come up with a goldmine marketing skeem they want to shut it down…
Gee maybe we should just do away with the internet all together, not only would our kids be safe but identity theft would be a lot more difficult.
1000’s of people a year every year die… “die” because of automobiles. Why aren’t they outlawed yet? Of course it will be too expensive for the average person to drive in the U.S. before long. I guess the bright side is only the rich will die in car accidents except for those using public transportation. I guess our need to get from place to place outweighs the value we put on peoples lives.
#3 Blank.. if you find any place good let me know.
Paul wrote:
“Neither party has a lock on stupidity.”
That is the biggest understatement I think I have heard this year!
It isn’t Republican vs Democrat, its “Stupid A” vs “Stupid B”. As long as people behave like mindless sheep and blindly vote-in members of their own “tribe” each election, we are all doomed.
#6 Steve, I think Paul is suggesting the stupidity is an equal opportunity affliction. It is not required to be a politician, only to be elected.
It seems reasonable to restrict adult material from children so perhaps MySpace should be segmented into an “adults-only” and “family-friendly” zones. I’ve been to the site and there seems to be no restriction on posting explicit photos on user pages (I believe that MySpace is now policing this but I’m not 100% sure.) Users who violate the policies should be banned from MySpace or equivalent social networking zones. Time was that people used USENET and there was less ability to restrict access to individual content so MySpace is actually a step TOWARDS restricting objectionable content. I, for one, won’t let my kids onto MySpace until there are better restrictions in place to keep them from straying into adult zones. However, there is little to prevent the bad guys from trolling for kids (or posing as kids) so the only thing I can do it maintain (as best as I can) a dialogue with my kids to let them know to not reveal intimate details on line (this should be as obvious as not riding in cars with strangers.) MySpace isn’t the problem any more than GM is the problem for creating cars but it shouldn’t be so easy to stray into adult content on MySpace.
My $0.02 worth,
Fred van West
Maybe this explains why Rupert Murdoch [who now owns MySpace.com] is getting ready to do a fundraiser for Hillary?
He expects her part of the radical middle to support free speech for his part of cyberspace.
If you want to stay a political player you have to play to the electorates fears and seem proactive to the cause. It’s the nature of a democratic Republic, and had been practiced since the days of the Roman Republic. Why does it continue to amaze people? The average person wants security, to be taken care of and protected by a powerful government. Average people makes up the majority of voters.
Myspace has always had a policy regarding indicent material, and have always been policing it. The problem is they have also always been incredibly understaffed. There are millions upon millions of pages on myspace, do you have any idea how hard it is to check that many pages? And how impossible it is to have an automated system for checking images? Text sure, you can have flags that make pages more probable offenders but that will still only narrow it down to say 5 million pages that need to be checked by hand. And the people that ran myspace in the first place weren’t the most competent bunch. A while back a small time hacker crashed the whole thing with a prank to get more friends.
http://namb.la/popular/
And there is no way this could ever be enforced. Congressmen should really ask themselves “Is there any possble way now or ever to enforce this law?” Hell, they should even ask if they’ve read the bill they just voted for… *sigh* I’m depressing myself again.
Murphy Brown, baby. Murphy Brown.
This will not pass. They don’t even really hope it’ll pass, probably. It’s just posturing! Sometimes you have to pander, and so pander you do.
Ultimately the only reason a power-seeker or power-holder panders is because he believes it will work, and he is often correct. In this kind of situation they are whoring, sure, but we are all johns sometimes.
Paul, I liked the goosestepping photo, as well. I thought it better represented the mindless conformity that made aberrations like Nazism possible — along with patriotism, ethnic hatred, mediocre football teams, etc.. But, reflecting upon it for a few minutes, I decided it would offer too many easy OT diatribes from Bush apologists — getting away from the topic of the post.
You know — like your boilerplate digressions.
and forbid libraries from making such access available.
They can only vaguely define which sites should be banned, and propose “a sort of annual blacklist” for Libraries to be kept informed as new sites appear – “sort of”??? – yet intend to make it a Federal offense if access is “available” at any future date?
Bullsh*t!!
Next they’ll tell all the companies with WiFi hotspots that they must verify age – without specifying how, of course – or else be charged with “enabling” pedophiles. š
And the FCC will be developing the list of “blacklisted” sites and chatrooms?? The FCC?? When did they get buget $$ for oversight of the Net?? – or is that one of the other bills in the RSA = Really Stupid Agenda.
Hah!
Was the goosebumps subtitle a comment on the twins’ titties?
Reading it again just makes me angrier!
The āDeleting Online Predators Actā would also require the FCC to publish a sort of annual blacklist of ācommercial social networking websites and chat rooms that have been shown to allow sexual predators easy access to personal information of, and contact with, children.ā
So, when a commercial site is shown to allow predators easy access to children, that site will be added to next year’s annual blacklist???
Blank has it exactly right, in #3:
“You have to wonder nowadays how there could possibly be people out in the world that still donāt have a clue as to how the Internet works.
Yet again, hereās a congressman who has no idea what heās talking about. Noneā¦zipā¦zilch.”
Let’s ban shopping malls too.
Typical knee jerk reaction that I have come to expect from congress. They have no clue, as usual. Parents should enforcing this, not the government.
Who is Congress to tell me how to raise my children and tell me what they can and can not see?
They are MY children and it is MY job to make sure what they are doing on-line and what information they can give out. It is MY job to make sure they know how to live in cyberspace safely and if they are not mature enough to live there then they won’t. If they make a webspace it will be with ME sitting next to them making sure it is appropriate for them and does not include information that can be used against them in some sinister way.
They problem with the United States today is there is no parenting anymore my mother knew everything i did even though she worked 2 jobs and went to night school to further herself. I knew what was right and wrong, and what the concenquences were when i did something wrong, an A$$ beating and the 1 hour lecture of why it was wrong.
My friends parents also taught their children what was right and wrong and had no problem giving me a kick in the A$$ when i did something wrong as my mother did with my friends and no one had a problem with this. You may have noticed i am only mentioning my mother in this because my father left when i was an infant and she raised me alone, so i don’t take ” this one left me that’s why i’m messed up” as an escuse. We all complain about the government taking our rights away but what we need to do is show them they have no right or NEED to tell us how to raise our families !! Until we all become BETTER parents( and i don’t care who you are or how good a parent you think you are you need to be better at it ) people need to wake up and see the things being done by todays Bush adminastration were brough to light is the Bush adminastration 12 years ago, and we have only proven that they were right and we have no family values. so until we step up and take back our children and teach them what live is all about we are doomed to becoming nothing more then the machine they are making for us.
Sorry to rant but i am sick and tired of everyone pointing fingers at this one and that one when WE are to blame !!!
Hey, I have an idea. Why not make the parents responsible for making sure their kids aren’t accessing inappropriate content! I know it sounds kinda crazy. I mean, making a parent be responsible for his/her kid is pretty unusual. But it’s a wild idea that just might work!
I don’t mind libraries blocking sites as long as it is that individual library that chooses to block the site. I don’t want the federal government telling my library what to block.
Heinlein said it first: Anybody that seeks elective office should be taken out and shot.
Sorry to rant but i am sick and tired of everyone pointing fingers at this one and that one when WE are to blame !!!
And I’m sick and tired of people ranting while their brains are turned off.
Regardless of how old you are, the world we live in today is not the same world you were brought up in. Even 12 years ago, few families has a computer in the house. Today, many families have several. Then most families had one telephone with maybe a couple of extensions. Now most of us have a cordless telephone in several rooms plus cell phones for ourselves and our kids.
Just those two paradigms have created a whole different world out there. Information is not only at our fingertips 24/7, but we expect it. We demand instant communication with everyone. The issue isn’t how we are bringing up our children, but what impact society is having on an influential period in their lives. We use to worry about teens hanging around a street corner. The street corner is now inside servers at MySpace and other internet meeting places.
Today the worry is whatever āwhite liesā we tell our kids, they will know the truth even before we tell them. Hillery Clinton got a lot of flack when she suggested that it takes a village to raise a child. That has expanded to the Global Village is raising our children whether we like it or not.
I’m 14 years old, so I guess that law would stop me from going on dvorak.org!
Now, let me tell you adults a little secret: we teenagers have discovered that as soon as we get online, we instantly, miraculously become twenty years older. Something the government might suspect, but could never prove.
“Hi! My name is James! I’m 34 years old!”
Curiously the 34-year-olds become 14
I bet this would never happen if I and my peers could vote!!!
Mobilize.org is launching a new campaign in response to Congressā attempt to censor the communication of our generation. We have created the action alert below and built a website, http://www.mobilize.org/SOS. We are hoping to get as much grassroots action as possible around this important issue, especially from the online community.
Breaking News:
Legislation introduced this week will ban social networking, even sites used for educational and professional opportunities. Whatās next? HR5319 will censor the communication of our generation and tell us who we can talk to, when and how. Tell Congress that social networking is a movement that we built, a movement that we are going to fight for.
Visit http://www.mobilize.org/SOS, take action, tell your friends and get mad.
—
The bill blocks the use of these sites in public libraries, which is for many, the only access that they have to a computer. Our hope is to be able to amend the bill to take these facts into consideration. We agree that there need to be safeguards put in place for “sexual predators” and any of other crimes that might occur because of the accessibility of information on these sites, but to ban them in schools (including using school computers afterschool) and public libraries, is for many – banning social networking.
Hmm… this seems quite impossible. To post a comment on this site, we are giving our name and email. Isn’t that enough for a sexual predator to start talking to us?
I think the authority today is focusing a lot on the websites themselves.
This should not be done. I know that Myspace gives you countless saftey features that would protect you against unwanted visitors.
They don’t even think to consider that the child needs to be the focus. Obviously they should be taught not to talk to strangers and then just meet them!
Oh well, this law will never pass anyway. There are too many websites that give information to public and these people were not very specific.
thanks,