House Passes Ban on Social Site Access

Krishna Dagli writes to mention a C|Net story covering a House of Representatives vote on restricting access to social sites on public terminals. The bill, which passed the House in a 410-15 vote, would bar users from accessing sites like Amazon, MySpace, or Slashdot from terminals in libraries and schools. Adults would be able to 'ask permission' to access such sites. From the article: "'Social networking sites, best known by the popular examples of MySpace, Friendster and Facebook, have literally exploded in popularity in just a few short years,' said Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican and one of DOPA's original sponsors. Now, he added, those Web sites 'have become a haven for online sexual predators who have made these corners of the Web their own virtual hunting ground.'"

Comments

As Usual, The Write-Up Is Dubious At Best

[Roody Blashes]

The bill only restricts minors from accessing them in public, not everybody. In effect, the worst thing that's going to happen is minors will have to have an adult's permission before using a public terminal to access a poorly-defined type of site.

Nothing really to see here, move along. There's plenty of prior precedent for this, it will not affect teh rights of any adult, and if a parent wishes for a child to be allowed access, they may request access and transfer it to the child.

Re:Yet another way the poor kids get left out

[mapkinase]

I cannot believe that such an acid and emotional remark of the parent gets +5 moderation.

[shaking the head in utter disbelief]