by Playfuls Staff |
1st August 2006
The preoccupation of US Government for the safety and protection of children is understandable. But when it spreads in areas that are helpful for education, we might have a problem.[more]
The US authorities have ruled that any federal institution which receives money from the E-rate scheme for computers and internet access must install on their networks filters against the free access to social sites and blogs. This means that minors will be allowed to enter this type of sites only under adult supervision.
The measure, included in Deleting Online Predators Act, is aimed at minimizing the pedophiles’ easiness to reach the under aged, on popular sites like MySpace.
The DOPA has gathered the positive votes of more than 400 members of the House of Representatives (410 to be accurate) at the end of last month, and only 15 members voted against.
"The social networking sites have become, in a sense, a happy hunting ground for child predators," US House Representative Michael Fitzpatrick is reported to have said.
The initiative of the US authorities has already attracted the opposition of many MySpace and other social sites users, who claim that the ruling hinders a lot of students from accessing useful information and exchanging opinions and ideas.
More and more MySpace users have begun signing a petition called “Save your space” which targets the recently adopted amendment. The campaign hopes to raise more than 1 million adherents in less than a month.
The Act prohibits the publicly funded bodies to give children access to sites where they might receive "unlawful sexual advances".
In the end, it is the Federal Communications Commission who decides whether the law opposes the First Amendment and which sites are to be considered under the influence of DOPA.
The difficult issue for the Commission is the fact that DOPA suggests that any site which allows users to create a personal profile and sustain a conversation with others is to be considered inappropriate for viewing in libraries and schools.
This means that even famous sites like Amazon or Slashdot, which require some sort of registration, could be banned in state-funded institutions.
New guidelines from the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) in Ireland, published earlier in the summer proposed tough punishments for students who misuse the school networks, including expulsion. The NCTE wants internet access to be used only for educational purposes, and will impose tough new restrictions including banning students from using their personal details online and from arranging any meetings with people they know online.
Leslie Burger, American Library Association president, told BBC News, “DOPA is redundant, unnecessary legislation,” noting that the Children’s Internet Protection Act currently mandates that libraries keep all potentially harmful Web content away from children.
"ALA is disappointed by the House's passage of DOPA," added Leslie Burger. "This unnecessary and overly broad legislation will hinder students' ability to engage in distance learning and block library computer users from accessing a wide array of essential internet applications including instant messaging, email, wikis and blogs.”
"Under DOPA, people who use library and school computers as their primary conduits to the internet will be unfairly blocked from accessing some of the web's most powerful emerging technologies and learning applications. As libraries are already required to block content that is 'harmful to minors' under the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), DOPA is redundant and unnecessary legislation."
The Senate’s positive or negative vote is expected early this month.
"We think it is a very unwise bill," said Rick Weingarten, director of information technology at the American Library Association. "The definition that they tried to cobble together covers an enormous range of very beneficial applications. By blocking access to those applications only in libraries and schools what they have done is to block access to those kids who have no other way to get access."
He added: "People join these virtual groups for all sorts of beneficial reasons, including getting information or joining support groups ... You get in a morass every time you try to block technology."
MySpace boasts today with more than 80 million users and has generated lately a battle between Internet giants for the implementation of a search engine inside it.
But parents are beginning to be worried by the popularity the site gains among youngsters because the social-site does not offer enough protection for under-aged, especially against pedophiles.
Their concerns seem to be justified since a 14-years-old girl, using a MySpace account, has been sexually assaulted by another MySpace user, aged 19. The girl filed a complaint against her attacker, who falsely pretended to be a member of a local high school football team, in order to obtain her phone number.
As a consequence, MySpace restricted access for those under the age of 13, and has begun displaying partially the profiles of those between 13 and 16, but only for those included in the friends list.
Any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other attributes, such as display name. The difference is that currently, adults can then request to be added to a youth's list to view the full profile; that option will disappear for adults registered as 18 and over.
