Lawmakers take aim at social-networking sites

MySpace.com is facing a new threat on Capitol Hill.

MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are the potential targets for a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users.

"When children leave the home and go to school or the public library and have access to social-networking sites, we have reason to be concerned," Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, told CNET News.com in an interview.

Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation (click here for PDF) that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.

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.

Fitzpatrick's bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA, is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to address topics that they view as important to suburban voters. Republican pollster John McLaughlin polled 22 suburban districts and presented his research at a retreat earlier this year. Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, is co-sponsoring the measure.

The group, which is calling itself the "Suburban Caucus," convened a press conference on Wednesday to announce new legislation it hopes will rally conservative supporters--and prevent the Democrats from retaking the House of Representatives during the November mid-term election.

Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick

For its part, MySpace has taken steps in recent weeks to assuage concerns among parents and politicians (Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly also took aim at MySpace this week). It has assigned about 100 employees, about one-third of its workforce, to deal with security and customer care, and hired Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam, a former Justice Department prosecutor as chief security officer last month.

"We have been working collaboratively on security and safety issues with an array of government agencies, law enforcement and educational groups, nonprofits and leading child safety organizations," said Rick Lane, vice president for government affairs at MySpace owner News Corp. "We've also met with several state and federal legislators and are working with them to address their concerns. We hope this healthy dialogue will continue."

Fitzpatrick, who represents a suburban district outside Philadelphia, acknowledged that MySpace "is working" on this. Still, he said, children are "unattended on the Internet through the course of the day" when they're at libraries and schools.

"My bill is both timely and needed and will be very well-accepted, certainly by the constituents I represent," Fitzpatrick said.

Backers of the proposal argue that it's necessary to protect children. Hastert said on Wednesday that it "would put filters in schools and libraries so that kids can be protected... We've all heard stories of children on some of these social Web sites meeting up with dangerous predators. This legislation adds another layer of protection."

[john55440]

Just what we need...

Just what we need, a bunch of hysterical, computer illiterate, politicians, passing more stupid laws.

[jbondo]

this is retarded.

libraries are public places for kids, yes.. BUT ALSO ADULTS. i'm <br />so freaking sick of legislation that aims to "protect the children" <br />yet totally trashes the rights and privileges of adults. this is not <br />something that needs to be dealt with on a congressional level. <br />and besides, kids will be kids.. THEY WILL FIND A WAY TO GET <br />TO THESE SITES. all this law will end up doing is allow congress <br />to chip away another piece of our rights so the next time they <br />want to limit our freedoms, this can be cited as a precedent.<br /><br />there are much larger problems in this country... this crap is just <br />a diversion from the bigger issues.

[PSKSUNDANCE]

Retarded

Although they would find another way to get to the sites, they don't need to do it at the library.

[dfranke]

you miss the point

it is not legislation to block you from getting your porn (btw - you should not be accessing porn from a library computer in that children can look over your shoulder and view what you are viewing). DOPA is putting responsibility on network providers to monitor for and report preditor activity. Certainly, this is not a bad thing?

[maxwis]

Same Congress That Taxes Us To Provide Broadband

A few short years ago we kept hearing about the "digital divide" and how our country was falling behind. We were told that we needed a new tax on broadband to pay for a mass rollout of broadband to schools and libraries. Now of course, this same Congress sees an Internet boogeyman (fueled by tabloid shows like Dateline), in a shameful pandoring to "soccer moms". Of course soccer moms can no longer drive little Johnny to soccer games because petrol is so expensive, so little Johnny spends all his time surfing the Net at the library. We MUST protect little Johnny and little Janie from themselves, so yet more legislation must be passed. Of course implementing this new legislation will be expensive, and bankrupt schools and libraries certainly don't have the money to do this, so we'd better levy a new tax to solve a problem that we created by levying another tax. Makes perfect sense. There's no problem in the world that can't be created (solved) by legislation.

[dmm]

You are so right

I disagree somewhat, in that I think the problem is real, but I totally agree with your main point: rescind the telecom tax, and the problem solves itself. No tax = no subsidy = no internet at school/library = no problem. Not only that, but maybe Johnny will learn to read, write, and add.

[gawdess]

Congress targets social network sites - NOT

Making anything off limits to kids only makes it more desirable (please refer to history of Prohibition, cigarettes, sex ed, etc.). Duh!<br /><br />This should be a "no-brainer" for our "edge-u-kayshun" president and the likes of him. Instead of *restricting* our children's use of MySpace.com et al, why don't we *educate* them about the "risks and perils" of the internet and all the "boogiemen" waiting out there? Most of the teenagers I talk to about it in our community are totally aware of why you don't give out personal info on a webpage. How insulting to their intelligence is this!? Let's give them a little more credit, please.<br /><br />Besides, if kids don't use MySpace, where will the pervs go then to look for "fresh meat"? As it is now, finding and arresting them is like "shooting fish in a barrel". By having sites like MySpace, we're making law enforcement's job just that much easier.<br /><br />Fear-mongering Repukelicans will do anything to get a vote! This story reminds me of when I was little and mommy told me, "Never get in a car with a stranger." Did they take all the cars off the road? "I don't think so, Scooter!"<br /><br />Get off the computer Congressman, and get a life!

[blogtommy]

Absolutely

Correct. Well said and right. This is more right wing midterm desperation politics.

[victor_kahn]

DOPA is for DOPES

"Fitzpatrick's bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or <br />DOPA, is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to <br />address topics that they view as important to suburban voters. <br />Republican pollster John McLaughlin polled 22 suburban <br />districts and presented his research at a retreat earlier this year. <br />Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, is co-sponsoring the <br />measure"<br /><br />More like part of there "lets focus everyone's attention away <br />from our total lack of ability to govern" strategy...<br /><br />And more importantly, this vaguely worded sorry excuse for <br />legislation is not gonna do anything to protect children from <br />cyberstalkers...<br /><br />And did I mention it was vague and poorly worded...<br /><br />"cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create <br />public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, <br />chat room, or e-mail service"<br /><br />that could be construed to mean any site where you have a <br />profile and a discussion board...<br /><br />that includes cnet...<br /><br />and then where would i go to watch flame wars?

[kaufmanmoore]

What we really need

Are parents who do their job as parents and quit relying on the govenment to be your nanny.

[Steve Imparl]

Re: What we really need

But parents are working. Wah waah waah! They're too busy to take care of their kids.

[seamonkey420]

amen..

so true... parents.. isn't that YOUR job not our governments? plus, i don't want my tax money (being a single man) to go to such a bill...

[Dachi]

The public library??

Schools that want to block these sites may do so today without the need of legislation, but how can we justify blocking access to these sites from the /public/ /library/?? <br /><br />They can't fairly block blogger.com and no other blogs, so does that mean they must all be blocked?<br /><br />Just as they are voted into office, people should be able to vote these idiots out of office.<br /><br />Politicians always make promises they can't deliver to get voted into office and then instead spend their time in office chipping away peoples rights little by little.<br /><br />I don't even have a political party to run screaming to because they are all mostly just as worthless.

[Razzl]

What happened to State and local authority?

I can't for the life of me figure out why the choice of whether to block a website from a school computer shouldn't be exclusively up to the school authorities. Surely the school system and its parent's groups and voters would be able to work out this issue to their satisfaction based on local standards? Isn't that what a federal system is all about, that each level of government gets to make the choices reserved for them in the Constitution (and the State constitutions)? Welcome to the Republican theocracy, where religious extremists ride roughshod over the Constitution when the public doesn't side with them. This silly proposal will fail, as will Karl Rove's attempt to make a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage (marriage law belongs to state authority, not federal) a centerpiece of the party's Fall congressional strategy. Offering up bad legislation in order to pretend to serve party ideology is damaging to the fabric of our democracy; it shows a contempt for the underlying basis of our legal and governmental system.

[dmm]

Get your facts straight (no pun intended)

1) The Feds feel entitled to intervene in local school internet policy because the DEMOCRATS passed a law that taxes telecom use and uses the money to subsidize internet access by schools. The one who pays the bills, calls the shots.<br /><br />2) Not that this is pertinent to the article, but for the record, the Constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage would ONLY affect FEDERAL and INTERSTATE recognition of gay marriage. Currently, if Massachusetts starts marrying homosexuals, then every state and the federal gov't are also required to recognize that marriage as valid. Thus the current situation allows ONE state to DICTATE to EVERYONE ELSE, which is NOT what Federalism is all about. (And, incidentally, the PEOPLE and the LEGISLATURE of Massachusetts rejected homosexual marriage, but it has been forced on them by their COURTS. How's that for "damaging to the fabric of our democracy?")

[spidermatt67]

it's called nclb- look it up

federal dollars are dangled like carrots in front of state departments of education...they of course willingly do whatever is asked since those dollars are needed to actually meet the new federally mandated nclb act requirements.<br /><br />actually, states rights went away after the war of northen agression supressed state's rights activistism/seperatistism expressed by the southern states in he mid 1800's.

[spidermatt67]

it's called nclb- look it up

federal dollars are dangled like carrots in front of state departments of education...they of course willingly do whatever is asked since those dollars are needed to actually meet the new federally mandated nclb act requirements.<br /><br />actually, states rights went away after the war of northen agression supressed state's rights activistism/seperatistism expressed by the southern states in he mid 1800's.

[spidermatt67]

it's called NCLB - look it up

federal dollars are dangled like carrots in front of state departments of education...they of course willingly do whatever is asked since those dollars are needed to actually meet the new federally mandated nclb act requirements.<br /><br />actually, states rights went away after the war of northen agression supressed state's rights activistism/seperatistism expressed by the southern states in he mid 1800's.

[chuchucuhi]

blocky block blockerson

hahaha do they know anyting? These sites can spring up and become popular faster than congress can every do anything and faster than a public facilities IT staff can block them.

[PSKSUNDANCE]

blocky block blockerson

There are companies that specialize in blocking site though. But you are right, they can't even keep up.

[mgrey]

Congress is reacting, rather than responding

Once again, Congress is reacting to public hysteria, rather than responding from due diligence. <br /><br />The Act broadens the definition of "social networking websites and chat rooms" so as to include any online activity or medium. The Act's description of "Internet safety for minors" includes sites through which the minor "may easily access other material that is harmful to minors." "Harmful to minors"? Such language is highly subjective at best and watered down at worse. <br /><br />However, the real bottom line is that discussing the language of the Act is irrelevant. The Act applies only to computers in libraries and in schools. The majority of U.S. households have at least one computer -- which is in the minor's bedroom. <br /><br />Maurene Caplan Grey<br />Grey Consulting<br />www.grey-consulting.com

[drfrost]

Congress has no right....

Congress has no right to tell me what sites the computers in my house can access. It's my responsibility to make sure the computer in my son's bedroom can't access certain sites.<br /><br />Here's a thought: why don't put the sexual predators in jail and leave them there? As a rule of thumb, lets let the potential predators out there know that if you hurt children or the elderly then you're going to go to jail and you're going to stay there.<br /><br />I live in a city of 35,000. There are 54 registered sex offenders in town. 4 in my neighborhood, 2 of those committed crimes involving children (and I live in an upscale neighborhood).<br /><br />As a society we're failing to protect our most valuable and helpless asset: our children. Shame on us.

[Steve Jordan]

Ropa DOPA

DOPA (Gooood use of acronyms, guys!) is just Congress' latest attempt to swat a fly with an atom bomb. In fact, it's the equivalent of removing one bad congressperson by firing all of them at once.<br /><br />Hey...<br /><br />Maybe we got something here...

About time soneone did something...

Maybe this is a small effort and maybe it isn't. It may be effective and it may not. But it is about time someone did something about all of our children being able to access anything they like without parental supervision. The schools and libraries are not the place for accessing this type of thing. Children should be accessing it through their homes only, where it is the responsibility of the parents to restrict or not what they have access to. As it stands right now it is the equivalent of sending a child into a room of loaded guns and telling the child it is safe to shoot any gun they wish. They child may survive and they may not. For adults to have this access - fine. They understand the consequences and can protect themselves. Children often get into things that they don't understand and don't know how to get out of.

[lschweiss]

Keep crying

You keep crying to congress that the world is a dangerous place and they need to protect your children from it, and I will teach my children that the world is a dangerous place and how to avoid that danger. Keep crying to congress when your children have been molested or even worse killed.<br /><br />All these mandated filters on the world don't protect any child. They only take rights away from all of us and teach children how to become hackers. Monitoring your children and talking to them when they stray teaches them about the world we live in. Relying on software to watch your children is about as safe as the fox guarding the hen house.

[victor_kahn]

children vs. adults

children shouldn't be using myspace without parental <br />supervision.<br /><br />that is a given.<br /><br />but this bill would block EVERYBODY from using these sites in <br />schools and libraries...<br /><br />These sites do have legitimate uses...my tax dollars pay for your <br />network, so do try to keep the policing to a minimum...kthxbye.

[esterud]

no FEDERAL law. Have individual institutions vote for only specific sites.

Forums and blogs provide information that can be used for research. The majority of blogs and forums are not used for social networking amongst teenagers. Generally speaking, forums and blogs should be allowed in schools and libraries. Instead the schools and libraries should decide themselves if they want to block only specific blogs and forums, and that should be done by a parent, library-card-holder vote. They should then work with their IT department to block only those specific sites instead of creating an global law. For those schools and libraries who are not concerned, let them allow all of them.

Thats some heavy bias, there, CNET

While I agree the proposed law is retarded, this line caught my attention:<br /><br />"is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to address topics that they view as important to suburban voters."<br /><br />Thats a VERY loaded line. This should never have gotten past the editor. CNETs 'journalistic' quality has always been scraping the bottom, but this is worse than usual.

[masonx]

Please explain

While I agree the article is neither well written or supported - I'm not sure what you find bias in this statement - assuming that the author verified that there is a Republican poll that says this an actual concern of suburban voters. If its a statement of fact - even though the poll is not referenced or detailed - it should be a statement of fact. Where's the bias?

[Throwing Thunder]

What bias?

Actually, my local Republican legislator sends, on a regular basis, polling materials asking what topics the party should work toward. It usually has a list of topics with a rating system asking the recipient to choose a rating by importance for each topic. It's not the bottom of the barrel - it's a fact. It is a common practice/ploy politicians use to present themselves as caring representatives!

[masonx]

Justification and legislative priority

No where in any of this do I see any actual facts telling anyone how big a problem internet child predation really is. Its certainly not in the this C/net story (shame on you Dedan Mc Cullagh - **** poor writing). Yes, everyone has heard stories. Yes, this country's politicians are stupid enough to propose legislation without any actual justification - just based on popular fear and ignorance. I have never read the actual number of children that have been physcially harmed through public interntet access sites - have you? Where are those numbers to support the priority and need for this legislation. I have no doubt that it is a fraction of the number that will be physically ill and die from smoking and second hand smoke. A fraction of those that will die unnecessarily in car wrecks. A fraction of those that will die from inadequate medical access. Where the hell are the politicans needed to combat these very real high priority threats to our children. NOooo that would mean cutting their kick backs and financial base that might threaten their re-election. I'm not necessarily against this legislation - I am against anyone considering it without enough facts to establish whether its' priority is high enough for congressional action ahead of other much higher priority legislation and I am really pissed because its obvious that its priority is much lower than many other dangers that politicans like this ass Fitzpatric choose to ignore for their own gain and well being Please, somebody kick this Fitzpatrick in the head until he has enough sense to address the facts - in the legislation before he proposes legislation solely to pander to his equally stupid and computer illeterate conservative voter base.

[patgrahamblock]

I vote to give the power to the parents.

Censorship has always had the opposite effect.<br /><br />What happens when someone tells YOU...that you cannot have something?<br /><br />I have faith in parents' ablilities to raise their children, in their own families' values.<br /><br />Pat

[ardentsunshine]

censorship

OMG another way for the government to inact censorship. This pisses me off soo much. Who controls which sites get blocked?? Could be anything. Besides kids can access these sites from homes why not create a law that solves the problem instead of creating needless censorship.

[emeraldgate]

create laws

There are already laws on the books against the most horrific porn - beastiality. There are laws on the books against raping childen. What they should be doing is charging the producers of this garbage with slavery. A new law could be one entitled 'chemical kidnapping'. It could be used against those people who drug and rape someone. What the neutrality law does is protect the web server, like Google, from prosecution. <br />They should be charged, raping people with animals, has become a billion dollar industry and the web servers make a fortune off of it. They should be in jail. <br /><br />Dianne

[BradPhone]

Basic Identity confirmation

So why hasn't a reporter done a story about the stupid boring things Google and eBay did that myspace could also do to limit perverts and 12-year olds wearing barely-there tube tops?<br /><br />EBay had the same problem when it first started and was perceived to be overrun by rip off artists.<br /><br />It instituted identity verification processes like phoneconfirm.com and the overreaction was "Big Brother is here!" But, they were wrong. All it did was help limit the use of the system to rip people off. Similarly, Myspace could be using any number of innocuous identity confirmation systems and processes to make their system have fewer underage users and put the fear of castration into the hearts of perverts.<br /><br />You note, 97 percent of sex offenders have phone numbers ... so perhaps use a phone confirm system when someone signs up for myspace and put sex offender phone numbers on the black list? Gosh what an idea. But we can't do that ? that's like Big Brother. No it's not, it's common damn sense. We do it every day down at the local gas station with people who posted bad checks. We put the faces of bad people up in the post office. We exclude people who don't wear ties from fancy restaurants. We ask questions of strangers who wander into the cubicle farm unannounced: "Say can I help you? Are you looking for someone?"<br /><br />And, hey, while you're at it, should we blacklist phone numbers from households that have underage users who repeatedly get deleted and then create new myspace profiles? Or put a limit to the number of sites associated from a specific phone number?<br /><br />Both myspace management and the reporters covering myspace are focusing on the throbbing pants of teenagers and perverts (and the First Amendment rights of pre-teens, by god!) rather than the simple, but relatively boring, technical fixes and processes that will make the Great Myspace Freakout of 2006 look about as stupid as the Y2K hysteria.<br /><br />- - -

[rneubert]

Get out of my face Yahoos!

Here we go again, political Yahoos trying to get into our shorts again because they can't seem to do anything else right. Get out of MySpace and the Internet entirely and leave us alone. I think we can govern our own lives and choices on our own a lot better than our politicians are running the so-called government, such as it is.

[mwa423]

Anybody find this ironic a week after articles about kids using proxies?

I think just from the CNet articles about proxies we've seen how well these filtering ideas work. Personally, I don't care about the black lists, I have my own webserver with my own personal proxy, lets see the blocking companies track that down and block it. <br /><br />And I really don't see libraries trying whitelists any time soon.

[PSKSUNDANCE]

Because we obviously can't handle ourselves

Once again, it is obvious that Congress has been pushed around by lobbyist that have figured out that parents don't know how to monitor their kids. Then again, they do have a responsibility at the library. I don't know why libraries are not all interconnected with an IT department to manage that kind of stuff. I believe that library computers should be set up like company computers. Libraries are there for the purpose of doing research. Although I know that not all people don't have access to the internet, I don't think that library computer is the right place for personnel web site creation and chat unless it is work, or school related. In this age of cheap access and even cheaper, over a time period, computers, I really don't understand why so many people flock to libraries to use a computer, anyways. <br /><br />At any rate, social network sites have no real place in the libraries. You have to know that the real reason this is even news is because pedefiles have been using those sites to attract targets. For that reason, I have no problem with Congress going after the this issue. It is only sad that they do have to take the issue up themselves.<br /><br />Another reason this is a problem is because of privacy issues. Nobody monitors what is going on with the computers. I know the few times I used one at the library it was to pay bills and granted, I would not want somebody looking over my shoulder while I was typing in my credit card number, however it is a public place and I should not expect to be able to do that without somebody taking notice. What I would really expect is for someone to come up and warn me that anybody could be looking over my shoulder so I should use my credit card, in such a public place, with care. I would think that people would do the same thing with something as intimate as talking to "friends or dating."