U.S. Legislators Move to Ban Social Networking Sites

It's a challenging issue to be sure. I'm afraid I don't have the answer - just a question and a concerned look on my face. :-(

I hope that any implementation by the US government defines what constitutes a threat sufficient to warrant blocking, rather than blocking some domain names. Domains change over time.

Hmm.... Two observations:

1) Don't rely on the government for access to websites.

2) This law is brought to you by the same people who think the Internet is a collection of interconnected "tubes", which occasionally get "clogged".

>1) Don't rely on the government for access to websites.

That, though, is what this discussion is about: Schools and libraries.

It is a rather unsettling thing to think that the only practical/acceptable solution to this problem is to say that internet access is not permitted in schools and libraries.

I could live with that if there is not better answer. Kids are too important and too vulnerable to take their safety lightly.

Still, it would be very sad, because the internet has so much potential for good.

Unfortunately, if you take money from the federal government, they can and will bind you with their rules. It is better to not take the money and remain free.

The government is asking you to give up essential freedoms (free speech, freedom of association, freedom to do what you want even when someone else thinks it is bad for you) in exchange for their services.

It's just not worth it.

Kids (and adults) who want unfiltered access to the Internet will just go elsewhere.

My children were not free when they were growing up. I gave them many privileges, as many as they showed they could handle, but always with the ability to revoke those privileges at any moment. Children need adults.

>Kids who want unfiltered access to the Internet will just go elsewhere.

Good. Make them go elsewhere. Make it hard. Everything that makes it less convenient for them makes harder to be preyed upon by very nasty people. At the very least, it reduces their opportunity to be harmed.

Schools and libraries are places that I want my kids to go to. They are places where kids should be able to go and places that should be safe for them.

I have a lot of control on where my kids go, but I want them at school and I want them at the library. These should be good things.

dinotrac - I agree with you.

Let's get the feds, schools and libraries out of the ISP business. Congress shouldn't give any money to libraries or schools for general Internet access, nor should it restrict what schools and libraries can do on their own.

Providing unsupervised, anonymous access to the Internet is just inviting trouble and it is not the job of the government.

Let each individual organization decide what is best for itself. Let the members of the boards of trustees and boards of education be responsible for what happens at their institions.

J -

Well....I'm almost with you there. Most schools and libraries are government functions in the US, but I agree that the federal government is the wrong level to be making these decisions.

The one place I could see beneficial Federal action is a law that grants local government the freedom to make those choices.

In a way, it would be a silly law -- they actually have that freedom. As a practical matter, it would be a lightning rod for ACLU types, which is good. Instead of pitty-pat attacks against under-funded local governments, get a nice big federal case. I suspect that the Supreme Court would come to some kind of reasonable guideline on this.

dinotrac:

Every level of government tries to extend its power beyond its mandate. Sometimes the conflicts between those power interests keeps them too tangled up to actually interfere with citizens the way they want.

The reason I asked, in the opening comment, about minimal requirements for each level of government is that it could be a way to keep the most control close to the parents. Each level should leave as much open as possible while fulfilling its obligations as directed by the citizens. The federal government is certainly not the place to decide which domains are to be filtered.

Yeah - I get what you are saying.

What I mean is that if the option were put before me in my local town, I would advocate against general Internet access in our library for the reasons I outlined. The purpose of the library is to promote and preserve knowledge contained in books that would otherwise be lost when books eventually go out of print.

Libraries are a compromise between copyright holders and the government. The government gives copyright holders exclusive control over their work for a certain period of time, but also requires that such works can be archived and accessed in libraries, without restriction (or further royalty), thereby providing a benefit to society in exchange for the copyright. There are organizations trying to do this with digitally recorded knowledge and some are connected to the Internet. However, public libraries are not filling this function.

I find it strange that a debate has erupted about anonymous, unrestricted access to the Internet, in of all places, public libraries, as this has no analog to a library's mission. If public libraries are going to provide access to the Internet, why not provide access to television, radio and the telephone as well? Is anyone advocating for unrestricted, anonymous, free phone calling from the library?

jkouyoumjian and jdixon, while you're right that federal funds have more strings attached than ever, don't forget that's OUR MONEY. Just like local funding.

tuxchick:

> jkouyoumjian and jdixon, while you're right that federal funds have more strings attached than ever, don't forget that's OUR MONEY. Just like local funding.

Yes, but at the federal level you don't get to directly vote on the spending levels and uses. In most areas the local funding is voted on directly. That makes a big difference.

>In most areas the local funding is voted on directly. That makes a big difference.

Not where I'm from. And, yes, it would make a big difference.

OLPC.

How does that figure into this? Since we're talking about shipping internet access to a population of children potentially many times the U.S. population, it seems a significant question to ask.

I suspect that we need to start trusting the judgement of the kids a bit more.

>I suspect that we need to start trusting the judgement of the kids a bit more.

There is a reason kids need parents and other adults in their lives. It is to help them form the ability to exercise good judgment (not to mention provide survival basics).

Good thing we're sending parents and other adults with the laptops, then. Otherwise, who knows what might happen?

>"Good thing we're sending parents and other adults with the laptops, then. Otherwise, who knows what might happen?"

I suspect there might already be one or two adults in Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, and (I forget the other country that has ordered).

Those folks might feel they can handle the adult supervision without the U.S. government's help.

> Those folks might feel they can handle the adult supervision without the U.S. government's help.

Now if we could only get some adult supervision for the federal government.

LOL dinotrac!

First we have to get the tubes unclogged. http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/497