Slashdot Mirror
Illinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites
AlexDV writes "Library blogger Michael Stephens is reporting that an Illinois state senator, Matt Murphy (R-27, Palatine), has filed a bill that 'Creates the Social Networking Web site Prohibition Act. Provides that each public library must prohibit access to social networking Web sites on all computers made available to the public in the library. Provides that each public school must prohibit access to social networking Web sites on all computers made available to students in the school.' Here is the bill's full text."
This local effort harks back to an attempt last May to get federal legislation banning school and library use of social networking sites (Wikipedia summary here). The DOPA bill passed the House but died in the Senate.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, ... oh nevermind.
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
Yeah. Sure.
Attention craving politicians...
Is there too much money involved if you were to ban, say DRM in all shapes and forms? It'd give you some attention too.
Good for him. Have you been to the library lately? Just try to get some work done on a computer there during the first few hours after school lets out. Every computer is some punk 15 year old on MySpace. Let's get library computers doing what they should be doing: helping people with legitimate research. Not helping emo kids whine about their girlfriends.
By my reckoning, this leaves you with FTP sites that have no upload facility, the few remaining Gopher servers, and maybe the local taxi cab company.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's about controlling free speech and information dissemination. When there are vast networks of information distribution controlled by the people, that raises eyebrows.
okinawa japan
Seriously speaking, what percentage of parents are terrified of social networking sites these days? I remember back in the 90s when everybody thought the internet was out to seduce and corrupt their children, but this is 2007. You can find worse things in google than found on most social networking sites. So how many people are really still afraid of these mysterious-yet-elusive "internet predators"?
I wonder...
I had to look twice to see that Palatine wasn't Palpatine.
Most of the legislators at the state level are those who aren't even smart enough to make it into the US Congress (and considering some of the blithering idiots who have infested that institution, that's saying something.)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Many a /.er treats /. as a social nw site where you might try to build karma, bitch about MS etc etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
what is the difference between "banning" a website and "censoring" website (ie. the www)?
It seems the banning is used to bring about positive connotations while, censoring is used to bring about negative ones, but they are essentially the same.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Lets stop fooling around and do it right!
(Global proposition 999)
People are responsible for the most dangerous and irresponsible acts that can be committed against other people. I propose we ban "people" all together. Stop repeating a history of mistakes and destroy the worlds problems in one fell swoop. End people. They rape, torture, kill without regard for themselves or others. All over the world people are forced to jail people in order to protect themselves, yet the problems continue. They have children, abuse the children, who intern have more children with no end of abuse in site. Their is no way to ensure a person will never mistreat another person unless all people are banned from existence.
So in conclusion, the only way to provide a safe loving environment for the future of our world is... the immediate and complete removal of all people from the face of the earth. Please support proposition 999 for a people free planet. "Get rid of the people, get rid of the problems."
(Yes I've been drinking.)
The headline chosen by kdawson was "llinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites", which is a ludicrous distortion.
Here's my reason for disagreeing with this. If I were in a low income situation and forced to go to the public library for all my computing. I'd be pissed to find that I- as a consenting adult could not go to websites like myspace. If the small amount of money that I make is taxed, paying for roads and other public services.... I'd better be able to check a damn non-adult(read porn) website. Though I can understand (though perhaps have objections to) blocking all adult websites, social networking sites don't fall anywhere near the rubric.
Argue for public safety all you want. People determined to get on myspace will simply use a friends computer. Taxpayer dollars paying for this makes it a tough issue to call, but it seems to me that some sort of median level of acceptability should help define the standard, not exceptions.
then again, the alchohol might be talking.
and yes, I sympathize with the parents out there... but I doubt anyone here will claim that libraries blocking myspace will deter a teen from access. A bit like the DRM situation.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
So I can't use a social networking site at a library... even to network for a JOB?
What about people (for example some small bands) who maintain their websites through services such as MySpace, because they can't get, afford, or know how to do the coding to set up a website of their own?
Or users of services like Facebook, where a school organization or club may be hosted mostly or entirely on the service, because the tools are extremely convenient to use and FREE? All of a sudden, those tools become off limits - neither club officers nor the members can communicate until an alternate (and probably more expensive) method is set up.
Someone is being paid way too much money to come up with these ridiculous bills.
Is to prevent pedos to gain "anonymous" access to social networking sites when chatting up their perspective victims.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
The bill goes on to define the key terminology it uses: administrative unit, computer, public library, school, and school board.
All well and good? Well, they never define what constitutes a "social networking website"! Which of these do you think would qualify: Slashdot? Reddit? Digg? Evite? Delicious? Blogger? We could debate this to death. (In fact, it probably is being debated at some Web 2.0 conference.) Without a clear definition of the most crucial term in the bill, how are schools supposed to know how to enforce it? How are the rest of us supposed to know what's allowed and what's not?
If a legislator took the effort to become knowledgable about the Internet, understand how it operates, and then proposed some carefully-crafted regulation, I wouldn't get so emotionally angry about it. Instead we get Ted Stevens' rant about tubes, and crap like this, because people don't take the time to understand what they're talking about. We should expect more out of our elected officials. They wield significant power, and it's ridiculous that they choose to use it without thinking.
Ryan
Blocking msn, yahoo and skype is a sysadmin nightmare.... every user wants this on corporate networks... since they're addicted to the stuff at home. Whatever proxy is used; whatever the rules and 'policies'... these things have a nasty way of tunnelling and punching through the firewalls... a week after a new 'policy'.. you see a few guys chatting happily; and worms and botnets start eating the bandwidth.
I'd love for this bill to become law; so we have a simple and effective method to ban such sites. Interesting times ahead indeed.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
No, it's not. Read the text of the bill. It doesn't specify anything about pedophiles or anonymous access. Heck, it doesn't even attempt to specify what exactly constitutes a "social networking." This aspect alone makes this bill virtually impossible to implement in any meaningful way.
Secondly, even if there was a definitive definition of social networking, just how on earth would you be able to block all sites that fit that profile? A gigantic black list? I'm happen to be the network admin for a small Illinois library, so if this becomes law, I'm one of the people who's going to have to deal with the mess. I'd be very interested in knowing exactly how the heck Senator Murphy thinks this would work. My guess is that he really has no idea what he's talking about, but thought that this would play well with the "think of the children" crowd.
This reminds me of an old episode of South Park, where the school councillor is parroting: 'Drugs. Drugs are bad mmmmkay.' Never mind why drugs are bad, or defining *what* drugs actually are.
No, the councillor has been told: 'Drugs are bad!' Just like these chaps have been told: 'Social networking sites are bad!'
So they stupidly go ahead and try to ban something they don't even understand. Any chance of getting someone in charge who understands thems thar Intarweb tubes?!
As the network administrator for an Illinois public library, I agree that this would indeed be a implementation nightmare (and that's not even taking into account the major ethical dilemma that such censorship presents for librarians). Exactly how does Senator Murphy propose that this be implemented if it becomes law? The bill doesn't even give a definition of what should be considered "social networking."
There's probably no sane way to detect "social networking" features based on a pages content, so the only possibly way to block them would be a gigantic black list. Any who exactly is going to maintain that? The state of Illinois? I don't think so. If they try it, I wish them much luck in compiling their list of every social networking site on "that intarweb thingy."
If their main concern is people hogging the computers using these sites, then there is a fix that doesn't require legislation. Give the librarians the power to boot people off of computers if others are waiting and they are doing something frivilous. That is what they did at the computer labs at my university. Seemed to work pretty well.
Monstar L
"Freedom of speech" implies the right to hold/express an opinion not "free computers for spending the whole day instant messaging while people who need to look something up on Google are standing fuming behind you".
If you desperately need to use MySpace then go across the street and pay $1 an hour in the cybercaf like everybody else.
No sig today...
People will bitch and moan about personal freedom, but the public education and extensive library system are given to you for free by the government not because it has to, but because it's in the best interest of the government to do so. Education is critical to the government, because dumb people don't do anything useful. They should have every right to keep you from using their equipment for anything other than its original purpose: learning. If people want to fuck around on MySpace, they can do it on their own.
The founders believed that the states would protect their people against federal tyranny. It's in the Federalist Papers, which are utterly fascinating reading.
That idea did get turned upside down less than a hundred years after the Constitution was ratified.
Surely it should be at the discretion of whoever's paying for the computers.
If that's the feds then they should get to decide.
No sig today...
considering they're doing it the right way and taking care of it on the state level instead of going directly to the federal level first, which is like calling the national guard out to stomp on a spider. The states should practice their rights more often like this.
in my opinion I'd like to see myspace blocked at a public library. My tax dollars are not going into a t3 connection so emogrll3321341 can upload shitty pictures of herself or spread gossip to her classmates she just saw at school. Do it at home or at a net cafe. Waste YOUR money on that shit, not mine.
It would also free up the computers for serious research and school reports.
I'm considering registering an account so I can block kdawson's articles simply due to this horribly misleading headline.
Isn't the WWW by definition a social network? I mean, nearly if not everything I do on the WWW involves in some way content that was created by someone else and then disseminated to the Internet for consumption.
When they say they want to forbid use of social networking, what are they really trying to do? I think some countries have a passion for over-protection and security. Restricting what people can use (or see, or hear, etc) is not a good path. Nothing can replace education. Nothing. By restricting people instead of showing them how to do things and the risks of doing it, people is becoming more and more vulnerable. When I was a kid I was told not to follow or talk with strangers. That applies to real life and to Internet.
Chalmer
If anyone would like to contact Senator Murphy about this, his email is info [at] gomattmurphy.com. I just did.
What I want to know is, who is this 'Illinois Bill' and why does he have so much power?
I'm from the UK, so bear with me. I just don't understand why you let people called "Bill" into politics at all. The only thing I seem to hear about them is the problems they keep causing.
Who are these "Bill" characters, and why do they keep causing trouble?
Library computers shouldn't be used for myspace, but nevertheless this is no place for the law. Have it be library policy, and give the library tools to enforce it, i.e. throwing people out, then banning them, and then trespassing carries hefty enough penalties that I'm sure it will be fine. The desire to fine people or (worse) criminalize them for things that annoy you when far less severe measures are available and effective is just plain wrong. We don't need anymore criminals in this country, and we don't need anymore people thinking that it's ok to fine them a couple hundred dollars for browsing a website when they're not supposed to. It's just a site.
And to the extent that, in good slashdot tradition, I didn't read the article, this statement should be intrepeted as broader than this specific instance. I.e. I don't know what the actual suggested "consequence" of violation would be, so MMMV here.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
It's inevitable: there will be people complaining about how this is an oppressive form of censorship. Let's face it: that argument is why this post was "greenlighted." But there's no censorship here; at least not in this case. The government is in no way telling those sites what to do with their content.
It's NOT the job of the government to give out free internet access as though it were an "inalienable right." If you want to go to those sites, and the library doesn't give you that permission, then go buy a computer and do it on your own.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
Umm what about adults? Dont we as an adult have a right to view what we want ( that is legal, not talking about kiddy porn or something like that here )?
We can debate all day long about letting children have access to this stuff when a parent isnt around, but removing it from adults as well, who pay for the library with their taxes? Ummm something is a miss here.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Thus far this debate, if one were so reductive, has fallen into a binary of matters of precedent (re: accordance with 1st, 14th amendments to the US constitution) vs. matters of practicality (my research into the mating habits of nematodes are more important than your MySpage page update) This revisits the idea that liberty is not convienent to others; a whole other discussion. Rather, what I wish to focus on is the sentiment that adolescents (and general folk) utilizing social netowrking sites (case study: MySpace) is less useful than traditional academic research. In my heart I would rather see a sophmore utilizing a terminal to increase their understanding of Iran's nuclear possibility than whether their associate has Fall Out Boy's new album. However, this American marketplace is one that requires knowledge of pop culture for networking in most fields. The likelihood of someone breaking the ice with a coworker or boss is greater when ideas surrounding fictional narratives (tv shows, top 40 music, flash shorts) are presented; rather than discussion of personal forays into the world of literature, history, and research (tradittional library use required). The more likely one can ingratiate oneself with those who hire (approx.70% of jobs are now in the service industry) The more likely you are to become part of the workforce. In the American economy this is more important than depth and breadth of subjects. The market demands are greater for workers who are capable of facilitating cutomer pleasure than those who can debate whether wittgestein was better before or after he refuted himself. If libraries are designed for public access to knowledge, and the public exists in a free market based economic model, and that public has more votes counted for American Idol than the presidental election; then that young one updating their LiveJournal is as valid as anyone looking for Freudian dissection of Jane Eyre.
Not only is this law insane, it's horribly written. They define something like "school board", a fairly common concept that the common person should be able to understand and yet fail to define what a "social networking site" actually is. All laws, whether the intention is perceived as being good or bad need to be written in a clear and unambiguous way. Under this lack of a definition a person could interpret social networking sites to mean everything from MySpace and Facebook to CareerBuilder, Slashdot, or Blogger.
That's right, viewing of socialist websites should be banned from public places.
Get more PCs for the libraries. Seems like money well-spent even if students spend their time on MySpace.
Not helping emo kids whine about their girlfriends.
Emo kids, whining, and girl friends is mostly what literature (i.e., the stuff that belongs in libraries) is mostly all about. Think of MySpace as interactive, participatory fiction.
I am sure Mr. Obama would have something to say about that...
Obama's Social Network
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That title is really misleading. Personally I was expecting it to pertain to libraries and schools, but that wasn't noted in the sensationalist headline.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Illinois Bill - Minnesota Fats' little-known brother with the less catchy name.
It sounds like the intent of these types of legislation is to simply ban MySpace.com from public access in schools and libraries. Unfortunately, they can't target a specific site, so they have to generalize the legislation which has the side effect of affecting countless other "legit" sites.
I'm not going to judge the social or moral "worth" of a site like MySpace.com, but I will give the opinion that there is a place for access to such sites, and schools or libraries may not be that place. Providing free access to the Internet doesn't necessarily imply unrestricted access.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Another (more famous) Illinois senator, Barack Obama, has his own social networking site. I wonder how he feels about the ban. Obama's Site.
This bill is not about restricting free speech, it's about making sure that resources intended for eduacation are used for education. On a similar note, when I was getting my Master's, DOOM was real big. Every time I went to the computer lab, the vast majority of the machines were people playing DOOM...some of these a-holes wouldn't even shut the sound off - which was all bleeps and blips on the computer lab machines.
I have to belive sites like MySpace are far worse. Oh, and here's a thought, when these kids move into the workforce, they'll likely find they can't access sites like MySpace from there either.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
This actually provides a credible explanation for the Senator's proposal. Care about a few library users inconvenienced by school kids using social sites? Library users probably don't vote Republican. Care about library users with time on their hands contributing to a Democrat candidate's blog? Yes indeed, Sir.
Pining for the fjords
gotta love people who advertise websites in the form of comments
Any librarians out there?
I can come up with a number of answers to the question "What is the mandate of a 21st century library?". But I'm not a librarian, so that leaves me as just another opinion on /.
Are computers in libraries a straight support mechanism for traditional school library activities - i.e. do they simply augment the act of research in a library?
Or perhaps we should focus on the entertainment aspect - every library I've been in has a fiction section, and unless you're researching something *about* fiction, then fiction is for entertainment and perhaps personal growth.
This bill appears to support the 'libraries are for research' approach. But public libraries are about *more* than research - they're about entertainment, they're about equity of access to information, and it's not so clear to me that that doesn't include social networking in this day and age.
I also appreciate that providing a mechanism for somebody's kid to get around restrictions at home on IM - 'I'm going to the library to study, Mom!' - may not be the goal.
Suggestions about reserving seats for different uses appear to make the most sense to me.
However, I know a public librarian who would like to throw Internet access out the door of the public library she works at - from her perspective, it's where all the hassles originate, degrading the library goer's experience. Kids arguing over computers, creeps going to porn sites, etc.
What do librarians say? What is a vision for a library today?
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
This state legislator is merely a troll. He is trying to be known as the person who protects your child from pedophiles. This bill will not pass the Illinois state senate, will not even go to the state house for consideration, and sure as hell will never be signed by the governor. Why? 1. It's unconstitutional, blatantly so. 2. It's a poorly written piece of crap: the thing it's attempting to restrict, "social networking" sites, isn't even defined. 3. The type of people that attempt to pass legislation like this rarely ever pass any substantive legislation. Furthermore, if it does pass, the bill only applies to Illinois! I think a lot of people have a fuzzy conception of political boundaries. As soon as it was passed, all the other states would sue Illinois for violating the commerce clause of the bill of rights, or a federal court would find Illinois guilty of violating it, and overturn the state law. This state senator is powerless, inept and not terribly bright, and us talking about his piece of crap bit of legislation is only encouraging him.
Hey, lets ban the playground.
We have to protect the children and the playground gives perverts the perfect opportunity to contact children.
We must ban the playground!!!
Logically, nothing can be categorized as inherently "evil", according to human nature, except coercion (meaning an actual initiation of force: theft, fraud, physical force or threat thereof). Everything else is subjective by human nature. Recreational drug use, for example. Is it inherently evil? Human nature doesn't say anything about it, no matter how much government tries to drill it into your brain. It's a matter of opinion, not a fact of human nature.
We know that coercion is wrong and unjust because of human nature, not because of what other human beings (including the ones who control government) tell us. Even an infant recognizes an act of physical force as unjust; even a toddler recognizes an act of theft as unjust. This is instinct, a product of evolution. If you look a little closer, you will realize that (surprise) every single evil act, every instance of unjustice that has ever occurred between human beings in the history of the world, was derived from coercion and entirely dependent on that principe. That's a fact of human nature, not an opinion.
Where am I going with this exercise in the obvious, you might ask?
Let's stop fooling around and do it right: if we really want to do away with coercion (the true root of all evil), then government itself -- the self-nominated "protector" against coercion -- should be banned. Government is, after all, the organization holding the unique "right" to employ coercion as its means over a given territory. (That is the only objective, unambiguous, universal definition of government that applies to all governments, past, present, and future.)
they're destroying the one last chance that librarians have to actually get a life!
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before. - Thorstein
I just have to write this: Can't you just take out and shot the people behind this bill? It seems be the most humane thing to do.
Compare this to Russia. There Putin is almost totally controlling the TV, but you can easily go online and discuss what-ever you want and you don't have the big powerful regime putting money into controlling what you think and read on the Internet. In USA the regime controls the TV in a more subtle way (huge fines on showing a breast, for example), but using all the public computers in a try to control the population?!?
That's the problem. What is it? MySpace? Sure. Yahoo? Maybe. LinkedIn? Technically. Classifieds? The web IS about social networking at some level. It's a lost battle that can't even be defined, let alone enforced.
Just ban the goddamn kids from the Internet and be done with it.
Why is it that legislators think the Internet is some sort of kid-safe version of television?
Whenever some congressperson starts talking this way, read it as "I neither use, nor understand, The Internet."
Either that, or ban Americans from the internet and Nationalize AOL...
-- My Weblog.
Why would we ban socializing over the internet, but not socializing over telephone or email or in person? I never understand when a law is proposed that bans X over the internet, but X is perfectly legal when it isn't on the internet. It is legal for people to go into the quiet room in the library and chat, share pictures, photos, and play footsie under the table. But doing the same thing via a computer is illegal? I'm confused.
Is anyone else getting tired of sensationalist headlines? Granted, this is a bad thing. But this isn't banning social networking sites from Illinois, it is banning social networking sites from LIBRARIES in Illinois... Come on. /. does not need to pull the same shit as my 5PM news stations.
Development notes at http://devscribbles.blogspot.com
We *are* talking about public library machines here, so why exactly would we want to consider children as having the inalienable right to socialise online w/o parental oversight?
In a time and place where we have many real losses of liberty to combat this isn't even proper news people!
Caveat Utilitor
I mean, if we had longer headline text, headlines like "Illinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites [from public library terminals]" wouldn't have to be truncated to such blatently dramatic alternatives.
The librarian could write a "15 minute limit, when people are waiting" sign above the terminals, but you, Mr. Rationalizer, would rather have national legislation to do this.
Asshole.
I hate your kind with a furious passion.
Yeah, carve out a slice of our freedoms so some weenie can check his hotmail.
Ok, let's look at the title:
Illinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites
Not bad, can incite conversation.
Here's what I'd put down as the title:
Illinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites in Public Libraries and Public Schools
That makes a little more sense, and doesn't say "GTFO" for you browsing at home.
Karnal
Just imagine all the good he'll do once he becomes emperor!
This bill is just asinine....it couldn't pass the first amendment sniff test on its best day.
The problem in Illinois right now are that neither political party is showing itself to be representative of the true best interests of the constituents (let alone constituents outside of Chicago-land). The Democrats in power have made it more expensive to due business in the state (increasing taxes and fees by ridiculous proportions -- fine if you live in Chicago-land, but not good if you live in South Podunk, IL). The Republicans haven't come remotely close to undoing the damage caused by the licenses for bribes scandal. Bills like this -- which you might expect from leadership that tried to ban violent video games -- don't help.
Actually, the National Guard, despite the name, can be activated by that's state's governor. A slightly better analogy would be sending out the Army to stomp on a spider. However, either one is, by far, overkill.
a l_Guard#Duties_and_Administrative_Organization
Finer details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Nation
Once again the politicians close the barn door way too late. People don't need to do this at the library or in their schools anymore. By the time they'll be able to get this bill out the door everyone will be doing all the social networking that they want on their cell phones, pim's, etc. I'm always glad to see our government spinning their wheels on stuff like banning social networking in govt facilities and changing DST. Heaven forbid they should ever turn their incompetence loose on something of great importance.
Clearly the bill has nothing to do with banning social networking sites within Illinois in its entirety. Clearly the title was formatted for sesationalism (pot calling the kettle black, I know).
Can someone tell me exactly what these politicians, lobby groups etc hate about MySpace and why they want to shut it down, block it or restrict it?
Illinois is an odd state. It seems both sides are fighting to see who can out oppress the other.
Illinois is solidly Democratic. This bill was dead on arrival as soon as the Republican Senator signed his name to it. He obviously did it for attention and /. obliged.
IANAL, but I fail to see how this could possibly be free speech issue. You're not prohibiting anyone's speech - it's the equivalent of book-banning, which IS legal, not suppression of publication, which wouldn't be. Even if there was a right to free (online) assembly, this wouldn't violate it - it's not limiting who interacts with who.
:)
That said, in my opinion the librarians do a pretty darned good job balancing such issues, and I hate to take any control out of their hands. Furthermore, there is no "save the children" aspect to blocking social networking for adults, which seems decisively included. (Unless you're taking the "no anonymous internet access" route, which isn't realistic)
On the other hand, MySpace has traditionally shown a pretty flagrant disregard for keeping people safe from predators, and the age where you can type is definitely younger than the age where you can really have an adult understanding of someone lying repeatedly and systematically to scam you into a predation situation that you don't understand, especially if all the adults you have met have been relatively friendly. So I WANT my child's school to block MySpace, at least at younger ages. Or I want them to send me home a transcript of my student's messages there. (Frankly, I think there's definitely a whitelist age, followed by a blacklist age, followed by relatively open access. I'm not going to get into the argument about what these ages are, though - which I'm sure would vary wildly from person to person.
Obviously this legislation is nothing but lawsuit fodder if it doesn't carefully define a social networking site. So it's terrible legislation until it does that. And once it does, you'll have a devilish problem of policing the smaller ones. Actually maybe a harder problem than just monitoring all the communications on MySpace, because at least then you'd know where it was.
So I guess overall I'm in favor of this legislation if substantially watered down to something like:
The librarians are required to either provide guardians with transcripts or block access by minors to sites where the users can privately message each other and which have been shown to have a strong disregard for the protection of minors.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Nobody is proposing that the sites are banned, that is just a sensationalist, and misleading, headline. The bill on proposes that the sites be blocked in libraries, why is that a problem?
Should libraries also carry hard-core pornography? How about child porn?
Wipe them out... all of them.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
...that similar laws at the Federal level ( CDA, for example ) are unconstitutional, because they make no exception for adult patrons of libraries. Like it or not, the states and the federal government have a lot of leeway where minors or concerned, but this law is DOA because they catch adults in the same net. The Supreme Court has already ruled this is a no-no.
This is why many people are against government-run wireless internet access that everyone on Slashdot thinks is such a fine idea.
"Yeah, but dude, like the government would be giving us wireless access FOR FREE!! And like, we can trust them, because they are the government!"
If schools, libraries, government facilities are required to implement this type on censorship, then without a doubt the "free" wireless broadband offered by municipalities will also implement this type of censorship. The price you pay for your "free" internet access is being restricted to only those websites that your local paternalistic demagog politician approves of. People on Slashdot would much rather have free beer than free speech, so I don't think it will make a difference... but just saying.
While MySpace may be 99.44% teen crap, it should be pointed out that it's also becoming a venue for political expression by elected officials; I happen to know that Russ Feingold (D-WI) has a MySpace page. I seem to recall that several of the current Presidential candidates have profiles on MySpace, also.
This law would ban *all* "social networking sites" from schools and libraries. This means that Barak Obama's new social networking site would be banned. It means that (arguably) any professional or hobbiest forums would be banned (after all, they're nothing more than a bunch of people "talking", right?). It almost certainly would cover professional networking sites--banning based strictly on content is definitely a First-Amendment issue, so if you ban one type of networking site, you'd have to ban them all.
As for those people who say "you can't step into a library and scream whatever you want": well, in many respects, you can. Libraries are public property, and the Law has some very specific things to say about the right of citizens to free speech on public property. Additionally, the analogy is flawed. Viewing a certain type of website is not like standing in the middle of the library and screaming. It's more akin to wearing a Ramones T-shirt in the library: it's an individual doing something which does not disrupt other patrons.
In reply to the idea that "kids are using up all the computer time": how does that differ from the fact that books are checked out from the library for weeks at a time, thereby making them completely inaccessible to other patrons?
Quite frankly, this proposed legislation is nothing more than an old curmudgeon (metaphorically) shaking his cane and yelling "get off my lawn, you damn kids!" --even though they're not on *his* lawn.
Most of y'all are misunderstanding this bill. He doesn't define social networking because A: it's impossible to define, and B: it's *not his problem*. All he has to do is come up with a bill that sounds good, so he can flog it when it's re-election time. He has no intention of it passing -- in fact, that's to his advantage. ("See? I tried to pass this Good Thing, but my enemies shot it down! Vote for me and I'll try again, even *harder*!")
There's hysteresis in the self-correcting system, and he's gaming it. He proposes something stupid, that can't work, but sounds good, and when someone else says it can't work, at some later time, the public perception is that the fault must be with the person who says it can't work, and that more such legislation should be proposed. It's a type of security theater.
(with gratitude to Bruce Schneier, from whom I learned a lot of these concepts.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
That'll be easier if the site in question includes, say, forums or chat rooms for campaign participation. I expect a number of people here are familiar with SpreadFirefox, which draws inspiration from political campaigns including the Howard Dean campaign and Bush in 30 Seconds. When you have a bunch of people on a website discussing how ways to promote your candidate, ways to convince people to donate, etc., you still have a bunch of people getting online to talk with each other.
As long as they don't block the Porn!
This certainly catches my attention each time...
Have you guys noticed that these types of "legislations" happen in little town/states?
I live in NYC, why dont we have such problems here? Is this overlooked? Or is it the fact that kids are raised differently...
This is right down the path of banning wikipedia in a bible thumper town.
sigh, i wish people would spend more time on issues that really matter...
oh man, i live in the city where that state senator is from... and i have one question... who on earth elected this guy? i certainly dont remember voting for him... i honestly think this is ridiculous, whatever happened to freedom of speech? our legislators are turning into the next censoring giant... schools prohibit you from viewing websites (other than things children should not be seeing) that some students use for research. somehow, i see this as a complete failure of the legislative system
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... is that the government shouldn't be in the library business. If all libraries were private (think of video stores) then the government couldn't ban what was offered in there. This is why small and limited government is always a better option.
Libertas in infinitum
i like how people are making this into a first amendment issue, you are being stupid. this will do 2 things:
Also, this is STATE police power, which they can do. What Congress can't do, States often may...
MEF
Have you ever visited one? Answer is no, they cannot be considered peaceable assembly? You were propably sarcastic, in which case I'm a moron.
I am a 13-year old student who frequents the library, and when I'm trying to write a research paper I don't want to be set back by the computers being taken up by myspace users. The library is a quiet place for studying and reading; if you want to use myspace use it on your home computer.
Q: How many slashdot users does it take to change a lightbulb? A: 155. One to change the lightbulb and post that the li
In case you didn't notice, welfare takes up about 750% of the national budget.
Libraries are for knowledge and learning. I see no reason for internet access at the library whatsoever. Go build a free Internet Cafe if you think poor people's greatest need is for that.
I really don't like dumb-shit legislation such as this, but it would be beside the point if libraries went back to taking care of books and periodicals.
Most people don't even think inside the box.