House of Representative votes to block MySpace nationwide

For your consideration, here’s another short and sweet bit of stupidity on the part of the U.S. Congress. I quote Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick’s press wire:

The “Deleting Online Predators Act” will empower parents to become involved in monitoring what their children see and do on the Internet when they are not under their direct supervision. The legislation also allows parents who fund school and library Internet access to have control over how their money is spent.

• H.R. 5319 requires schools that receive Federal Universal Service Funding to prevent the access of children to a chat room or social networking website. Schools may disable protection measures in order to allow use by students with adult supervision for educational purposes, or by adults;

• H.R. 5319 requires libraries that receive Federal Universal Service Funding to prevent the access of children without parental authorization to a chat room or social networking website;

• H.R. 5319 requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create a website and issue consumer alerts to inform parents, teachers and school officials about the potential dangers on the Internet, specifically online sexual predators and their ability to contact children through social networking sites and chat rooms.

First off, it’s inane to suggest that blocking social networking services (SNSes) and chatrooms makes the Internet a safer place for kids. Does the bill block instant messaging or forums? Does it block 4chan, or this blog, or other websites that put bad ideas into the impressionable heads of teenagers? One thing it certainly doesn’t block– because it can’t– is proxy sites that will simply allow them to access the SNSes and chatrooms through a middleman.
The second, more offensive, inanity is that this is what parents want in the first place. How does Congress know better than the parents of each individual district? If they want censorship they can petition the school board themselves! There’s no need for a federal ultimatum!
For the most part, this blocking will be done using censorware, because that’s the easiest route. Nobody who respects freedom of expression will want censorware on public computers. Yes, we don’t want people looking at porn in a public place– but censorware doesn’t block porn efficiently. What it does block are a large variety of false positives: sex education sites, gay and lesbian advocacy groups, breast cancer awareness sites, and so forth. When I was in middle school, the censorware filter blocked a webpage about the mathematician Euler as a “hate site”, making my little research paper about him a pain to write. Even if schools attempt to use it just to block SNSes, it’ll likely render the Internet a significantly less useful resource in schools.

The third and worst offense is that libraries have the same obligation to block SNSes and chatrooms. What if adults actually want to use the library computers because they don’t have a computer at home? Look how this bill defines “social networking”:

In determining the definition of a social networking website, the Commission shall take into consideration the extent to which a website–

• is offered by a commercial entity;
• permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;
• permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;
• elicits highly-personalized information from users; and
• enables communication among users.

It seems to me that this bill could block a fair number of blog hosting sites such as LiveJournal! Actually, there must be millions of websites that “enable communication”. Which ones will be blocked? It’ll probably be arbitrary.

Basically, Congress doesn’t “get” the Internet. And they should stop trying to make it kid-friendly. It’s both a Sisyphean task and one that impedes its usefulness as a resource. The decision of how to filter the Internet should be left to individual communities.

Some related links: The American Library Association and related groups opposing this bill–Several online safety experts oppose the bill.