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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
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 had to look twice to see that Palatine wasn't Palpatine.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
"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...
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.
Chalmer
If anyone would like to contact Senator Murphy about this, his email is info [at] gomattmurphy.com. I just did.
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.
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.