Headline: Congress Targets Social Network Sites
So here we go…let’s REALLY get around this messy job of educating our kids by just legislating away school access to not only MySpace but to any
…commercial Web sites that let users create public “Web pages or profiles” and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.
Including blogs, wikis, online gaming…
No joke. This is a bill offered up by a group of Republicans whose polling shows that now is the time to capitalize on the hysteria that a slew of fright-filled articles about social networking sites has wrought.
This is disturbing on so many levels that we hardly know where to begin. But let’s start with the name of this bill: the “Deleting Online Predators Act” or DOPA. (Too bad the last word isn’t “Edict” or something, huh?) Please…is there anyone out there who thinks that blocking access to these sites at school is going to do anything to “delete” online predators? That’s laughable on its face. Can we then also “delete” the magazine advertisers who regularly turn overly skinny girls into sexual objects by legislating away those pictures from our libraries? What happens when our kids go home and turn on the tv and see those same “models” of beauty selling everything from beer to bedroom clothes by blatant seduction? You want to really make a difference in our kids’ lives, legislate that.
Second, read the bill. Read the part where it says we need to do this to prohibit access to “a commercial social networking website or chatroom through which minors…may easily be subject to unlawful sexual advances, unlawful requests for sexual favors or repeated offensive comments of a sexual nature from adults.” We have two kids, and we can promise you the only way they will easily be subject to any of this is if we (or the school) haven’t educated them beforehand to know what to look for and to know what to do if it happens. And if we haven’t done that, then our kids will not be safe no matter what we block and filter. The “potential danger of commercial social networking websites and chat rooms” comes not from the technology but from the way we and our kids use it. Are we too embarrassed to teach them to use it safely?
Third, the broader implications on speech and expression are really, literally, “chilling.” Just like all of the blog banning going on, there is a very slippery slope here that, thankfully, others are trying to combat. The time to mount up is nearing.
Finally, here’s the money quote from the article (assuming of course, we can believe C-Net’s interpretation, which we would tend to…):
“The group, which is calling itself the ‘Suburban Caucus,’ convened a press conference on Wednesday to announce new legislation it hopes will rally conservative supporters–and prevent the Democrats from retaking the House of Representatives during the November mid-term election.”
Aye, there’s the rub. It’s not safety. It’s politics. It’s a hot button issue. It’s fear mongering. It’s power, or the potential loss of it.
It’s got to stop.
We’ve got two days left in the public school system, so we can still feel insulted. Insulted that we’re not trusted to make good decisions about the technology. Insulted that we’re not trusted to teach our students what they need to know to be safe. Insulted that our school space is being trotted out as a place where kids are running amok online all for the sake of political gain.
Talk about dangerous…
(Thanks to Renee Buker for the tip.)
About the author
Weblogg-ed Team — The Weblogg-ed Team is the collective byline behind our editorial coverage. We write about teaching, learning, and the institutions around them as technology and students keep moving faster than the systems built to serve them. Our work covers classroom practice, edtech and AI tools, online learning, homeschooling, digital literacy, and higher education, written for teachers, school leaders, parents, and lifelong learners who want clearer thinking than the press releases provide.
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