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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.'"
Strange I didn't hear a thing...
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Why not just kick them in the face while you're at it?
-Eric (former poor kid)
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Obviously this law just screams out to be abused. Who defines when a site is social? Does the Democratic party have a forum? I bet that makes them social enough to be blocked. On the other hand though they are blocking MySpace, so this law does have some redeeming qualities.
Philosophy.
We desperately need the current generation of senior citizens to die off. That, or we need to make voting significantly more accessible to informed people who have shit to do.
These boneheaded politicians have fucked our country in so many ways in the past 6 years alone it's almost inconceivable, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel.
"...would bar users from accessing sites like Amazon, MySpace, or Slashdot.....[which] ....have become a haven for online sexual predators who have made these corners of the Web their own virtual hunting ground."
Of course, because preteen girls are well known for associating themselves with this particular social network.
Argh.
Apparently no bill is too stupid if it's for the sake of the children...
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.'
People might also get together and discuss anything else, including unpopular wars, politics (including bills to viloate privacy, violate basic civil rights and interfer with the 'free market' and communications) or the corporate predators who back them.
i welcome you to the new america. leave your conscience at the door.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Some weird guy (or gal?) who wanted to root my server.
;)
I was so scared
(S)he also said something about a basement, but that's when I went offline
This is the sig that says NI (again)
If slashdot is grouped with MySpace does that mean we are also a haven for online sexual predators?
As many times as goatse has been posted around here, I'd say yes.
This won't survive a court challenge.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
While most admins (including me) will be disgusted at the "protecting us from ourselves" aspect, as well as taking away free choice, this will really help the schools and libraries with their bandwith consumption. Some of the school and Library admins I know say that Myspace.com now accounts for over 50% of their traffic, with its stupid embedded music/videos.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I think a more appropriate quote would be, "They who don't pay attention to what their kids do on the Internet, deserve neither kids nor the Internet."
Why don't they just ban housing. That's where most child abuse takes place.
Seriously, though, the abuse, etc. should be a criminal offense, not something that might be related in some way. For example, guns should be legal; murder should not be. Credit cards should be legal; fraud should not be.
"Social networking sites such as MySpace and chat rooms have allowed sexual predators to sneak into homes and solicit kids,"
Does anyone have any figures for how many kids have actually been solicited compared to those who are molested by family etc?
Your argument is inane and pointless. If you'd bothered to read the bill (what a novel idea, a person becoming informed before shouting about foul play), you'd know that if a case can be made for the educational value of an otherwise blocked site, the site is to be unblocked.
Slashdot would very likely fall under that category, so unlike what the LIES of the reactionary buffoons say, places like Slashdot would very likely not be blocked.
If you haven't foed me yet, what are you waiting for?
They'd achieve far more if they instead spent some money on awareness campaigns to teach people the most common signs of abuse, and to make people aware that strangers isn't the greatest risk to their children.
Doesn't this kind of interfere with the whole freedom of association thing?
And, banning Amazon is kinda silly -- so many things on the web link to Amazon for information about books and the like. Why include Amazon in this?
Are they even going to be able to enforce this? What about as people add new social sites, are libraries going to be required to know all of the things they should be censoring, or will someone give them a list?
I'm kinda hoping the librarians fight them on this and get it shot down as unconstitutional. To me, this sounds about as insane as barring Baptists or some other group from meeting in any number than two in a public area -- it's both insane and unenforceable.
It scares me how much they are willing to curtail everyone else's liberties in order to suport this witch hunt which allegedly is supposed to help the children. Very scary indeed. I'm just waiting until US authorities start arresting people who run sites in foreign countries because they accepted logins from Americans.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
How is trying to block access to the 'social' internet as part of law NOT in very important ways a roadblock to free speech? If I add a Wiki or a chat function to a website, is it then a danger to children because anyone can access the site, and communicate freely to children using that tool?
That's a default system of banning speech in public, on a scale far worse than any indecency bill. It's akin to banning phone calls to private residences on public phones, in order to protect children from free communication.
What kind of idiotic message does this send to children anyway? The majority of our legislatures in the house seem to think that free communication is too dangerous a thing for children to do now. "Don't talk with strangers" is perhaps a way to get children to think defensively about the messages they get... but speaking with strangers is the only way to learn about the world outside your own little bubble. Sure - the boogey man of the Internet child predator has some reality to it, but the Internet is still one of the safest place for children to learn about the opinions of the rest of humanity outside their small environment. Banning such access in public libraries is telling children that they can't be trusted with even the possibility of such communication. I aknowledge that children can't be trusted with all the rights of adults, but our public infrastructure seems to be producing another generation of sheltered dropouts, each less qualified to enter college than the last.
This is an immoral bill, in my mind, and one I hope is found unconstitutional.
Ryan Fenton
Here's how it works: News program has time to fill and ratings to keep up, produces a piece about pedophiles stalking children on MySpace. Grannie, who votes religiously like a real patriot, watches news.
Congressman running for office, addressing an audience with grannie in attendance, says, "And to protect the children of America, which are our future, I have introduced legislation to ban access to web sites frequented by predators and pedophiles in our public schools and libraries."
Lather, rinse, repeat and watch all our freedoms slowly spin down the drain.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
My own sites tend to have text boxes for reader comments and guestbooks and things, does this make them havens for sexual predators? Because it'd be terribly unfair if underage kids could somehow get a date through my web presence while I still can't.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
...is an outright lie. Because it claims that the bill was primarily backed and created by Republicans. And Republicans are for LESS government, not more dammit!!!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Write and call your senators letting them know exactly why this is a bad idea. If enough people
make their opposition clear, we may still have a chance of getting it stopped there.
I can't imagine people are coming here to find people to have sex with... isn't this the haven for people society has determined nobody wants to have sex with you? ;)
p.s. I'll show you my Commander, if you show me your Taco...
Oh, and to add to this...
c.1821 Heinrich Heine wrote "Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings."
Where they sensor social networking sites, they will end in silencing the people. - russ1337
Dear People of the World,
It has come to our attantion that it is a LOT more difficult to keep you all under our control when you are well educateed and well connected. As such, we, the corrupt career politicials (that really have only our own interests at heart), all 410 of us, have decided to stop letting you connect with each other so easily.
We've decided that it would be best if the big corporations decide how much people should pay to have access over the shared global computer networks. We've decided that public services that offer Internet connections should restrict sites that allow people to connect and share information. You see, when all you "people" (plebs) out there keep sharing information and educating each other (for free) about what we're doing -- it makes us look REALLY bad. It erodes our ability to craft the message we want you to hear. It prevents us from keeping the food locked up and you worried about how to survive, so that you'll work real hard.
We're not going to stop this pattern. Each time it looks like the people have too much freedom, understand the world too well, or have too much information about how the state operates, we are going to pass more laws that try to keep ourselves in power. We're not even going to consider rational debate on how we should be paid, or really who we work for - we work for our own self interest!
Sincerely Yours,
The Senators and Representatives, leaders and crooks, cronies and career jackashers who have the world by the balls and have no interest in letting go...
With all the assorted bitching on here about this bill, people need to realize something....
The Senate IS NOT going to bother with this bill.
The Senate takes alot longer to do things. _maybe_ 10% of what the House passes is ever brought up on the floor. Add to that the short time Congress is in session before they all go home to campaign and the real purpose becomes clear.
1. the Senate too slow to take time with frivolous legislation.
2. there are only a few days left of the session before everyone goes home to campaign.
3. therefore the House is free to pass any kind of retarded crap it wants, knowing it will die on the way down the hall.
4. therefore House members are totally free to vote for blatantly unconstitutional AND retarded bills so they can say they support protecting our children from the boogeyman.
5. tout said dumb bill in campaign commercials
6. win
7. ??? (think duke cunningham)
8. profit!
"Dude, it was so funny I literally shit my pants!"
"Well, what did you do?"
"What do you mean, dude? I was laughing..."
"I mean, what did you do with your shitty pants?"
"No, dude, I didn't REALLY shit my pants, I LITERALLY shit my pants!"
Cheers,
Ari
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Clearly you have fallen hard from your turnip truck and struck your head quite forcefully. I see you as a complete apologist for those who are happy to legislate our freedoms into oblivion. Perhaps when they take away something you treasure you might at least grunt coherently before rolling over anyway. Not I.
The concept of fighting these sorts of violations of basic rights in court, rather then defeating in in committee or vote before house and/or senate is far more desireable as it eliminates the period of suppression prior to overturning, futher it eliminates any artifacts which may remain in place (as this will affect programmings, filtering and structure of information access) after subsequent overturn by a court. In these cases an ounce of prevention is truly worth more than a pound of cure.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oh, I see. They're going to give the internet a tubal ligation!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
There was a rash of news stories a few months back up here in the Great White North. Some poor kid got abducted and as it was a slow news day (WWIII hadn't broken out yet), the media was awash with abduction stories.
Apparenly last year in Canada there were something like 30,000 cases of child abduction. Might not be the exact number, but it was in the tens of thousdands. OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!! The news stories focussed on what laws we need, how we can save the children, how the Internet is a bad place, don't let your chilren do anything in public without you, blah blah blah.
In only ONE of the news stories did ANYONE talk about just who was doing the abducting. Of course, it was pretty much always the parents or some other family member. This story had a very short summary of how many kids in Canada last year were abducted by complete strangers:
5.
That's right, FIVE. We're about to re-write our laws, do some stupid reactionary crap, demonize the Internet, lock our kids in protective bubbles, because 5 kids got abducted. Never mind the 29,995 taken by their parents, we don't have to worry about those!
Incidentally, we just had our first Amber Alert(TM) here in Calgary. The city used the Emergency Broadcast System for this. Considering we've had several tornado warnings lately, it scared the hell out of me to hear that blaring from the TV.
Turns out, the kid was abducted by her mother, and as almost always happens in these cases, was returned safely. *sigh* I remember the days when the EBS was used for things like incoming nukes or earthquakes.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
...think "I wonder what liberties will be gone today?" when they first awake?
This doesn't really affect me - yet - but who knows how far this will go. Is this the beginning of a system where the would-be victim is punished for the would-be crime?