CNET’s Declan McCullough has this item about proposed legislation that would in essence ban access to social networking sites in public schools. Representative Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and fellow Republicans have introduced a bill that would block access in public schools and public school libraries to Web sites that let users create public “Web pages or profiles” and that also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.
In effect the bill would block minors’ access to MySpace, Facebook and a crew of social networking sites. The motivation is the growing fear that these sites are hunting grounds for child predators.
As Declan points out, the bill’s language might end up sweeping into the prohibition far more than just social networking sites.
That’s a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google’s Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo’s instant-messaging features, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat.
The bill’s backers are trying to peg the prohibition to a law passed in 2000 and subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court, The Children’s Internet Protection Act, that requires schools that receive federal funding to block access to adult content. Whether this law would pass constitutional muster is dependent on just how broadly its terms are defined (and they sound broad indeed).
The article quotes First Amendment attorney (and friend) Bob Corn-Revere:
Even so, Corn-Revere said, “treating MySpace sites like poison seems like an extreme overreaction.”
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:31 AM|Comments(0)
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