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House to Consider Social Networking BillRep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) reintroduced February 16 the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which was passed once before by the House 410–15 in July 2006 before dying in the Senate. The bill (H.R. 1120) withholds federal e-rate funding from libraries and schools that do not restrict the use of social networking websites by minors. DOPA follows the January 6 Senate introduction by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) of the similar Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act (S. 49).Both bills are reactions to instances where convicted sex offenders have used social networking sites like MySpace to contact minors. Though DOPA states that it intends to police “trendy chat rooms and social networking websites,” opponents such as the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union claim that the bill’s definition may be broad enough to include a wide variety of websites such as Amazon.com and Yahoo. “Limiting access to social networking sites in schools and libraries will have little impact on the overall problem, since young people access these collaborative sites from many locations over a period of time,” Illinois Library Association Executive Director Robert P. Doyle said on the February 28 ALA TechSource blog. “If children are going to get into trouble online, chances are it won’t be at school or at the library.” Doyle is also tracking Illinois Sen. Matt Murphy’s (R-Palatine) Social Networking Website Prohibition Act (S.B. 1682), a law proposed February 9 that would require all Illinois public libraries and public schools to ban networking websites from their computers. Any library or school failing to obey could be subject to a lawsuit from a private citizen or the Illinois attorney general. “Murphy . . . hosted an online chat at Blogspot to discuss the issue. Of course, it is the height of irony that he was using a social networking site to discuss the issue, since he wants those sites banned from public and school libraries,” said Doyle. “If people were better informed about social networking sites and knew and used basic internet safety tips, the cloud of fear may decline.” Bills restricting access to social networking websites have also been drafted in Georgia (S.B. 59) and North Carolina (S.B. 132). Posted March 2, 2007. |
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