Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006

[Caitriona]

LOL, watch TK end up on some government blacklist...

PC Magazine

House Bill Might Ban MySpace, Friendster
ARTICLE DATE: 05.11.06

By Mark Hachman, ExtremeTech

A Pennsylvania congressman has introduced legislation that would ban minors from accessing social networking websites such as MySpace, and forbid libraries from making such access available.

The bill, known as the "Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006," was introduced Wednesday in the House by Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-Penn), a first-term representative. The bill has also been labeled as H.R. 5319, a Fitzpatrick representative said Thursday.

However, the bill uses extremely broad language to define a "social networking" site, which would theoretically eliminate several Ziff-Davis websites, as well as other highly-trafficked Web sites across the Internet.


"Sites like Myspace and Facebook have opened the door to a new online community of social networks between friends, students and colleagues," Fitzpatrick said in a statement posted to his web site. "However, this new technology has become a feeding ground for child predators that use these sites as just another way to do our children harm."

The bill would also require the FCC to publish a sort of annual blacklist of "commercial social networking websites and chat rooms that have been shown to allow sexual predators easy access to personal information of, and contact with, children."

Within the bill, the definition of "social networking site" is left somewhat vague.

In an effort to prevent minors from viewing child pornography, the bill would bar minors from accessing a social networking site, defined as one that "allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger."

The term "chat room" is defined more conventionally, however: "'chat rooms' means Internet websites through which a number of users can communicate in real time via text and that allow messages to be almost immediately visible to all other users or to a designated segment of all other users."

The bill would also create an eight-member advisory board to the FCC, which would be staffed by four members of the private sector, with the remaining members drawn from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Crimes against Children Research Center, school boards, and primary and secondary school educators, respectively.

Finally, the bill would require the government to set up a web site warning of the dangers of social networking.


Copyright (c) 2006 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

[Tyrant]

A Pennsylvania congressman has introduced legislation that would ban minors from accessing social networking websites such as MySpace, and forbid libraries from making such access available.

I'm not sure I agree with the library thing, but the general idea of not letting kids wander around the Internet as they please (For a variety of reasons) seems sound.

Then again, why don't the parents and libraries, who need not give access to MyCrapSpace and pornographic sites, simply install a web filter?

 

[Starship Coyote]

I'm not entirely kosher with this, but as a father of two, I'm not totally opposed to it either. These fucking molesting bastards are getting thick as flies these days.

 

[Sadistic Bastard]

There needs to be a "systems approach" to this.

1) People who solicit children for sex or sexual behaviors on the internet need to have harsher penalties. Also, the burden of age verification needs to be on the "adult" in a conversation. If a child lies about their age, that's one thing. But if the adult never asks, then they are on the hook. Just as "attempted murder" carries penalties similar to a successful one (why reward incompetence?), "attempted" lewd or sexual acts with a child should be punished as if it were a successful attempt. Also: Probation should be removed from the options for sentencing for such things.

2) Filters don't work. Make them too restrictive and important, non-sexual information gets edited (re: Breast Cancer sites blocked, historic, social, political examples and aspects of torture blocked, etc), make 'em loose at all and the kids will get through anyway. Parental "controls" are things like putting the computer in a public area of the house. It's not going to be perfect, lap-tops, and libraries will allow kids access. But hopefully people will teach their kids in a way to "de-mystify" sexuality. That's a TALL order, btw.

3) Wider, aimed at adults, awareness and societal incentive program to de-sexualize children. Not exactly sure what this would be, but our society needs to value innocence, and not as something to be used or consumed, but preserved for it's own sake and for the health of the child.

Legislating morality has never worked.

I worry about this a great deal. My S/o and I are debating how to handle this for our offspring, and kid 1 hasn't even arrived yet.
-SB

 

[Mentalist]

If a kid is chatting on one of these myspace thingys or AOL chat or something maybe they deserve to be murdered and raped.


Ooo, shnap!


I'm a cunt. Don't need to say it.

 

[SSgt_Sniper]

Legislating morality has never worked.

I've never heard more true words said on TK. That said, it doesn't stop legislators from trying to legislate both morality and stupidity. Which is a doomed mission from the start.

 

[Tyrant]

1) People who solicit children for sex or sexual behaviors on the internet need to have harsher penalties.

For what purpose? To keep them off the streets longer? I don't think it would be a very effective deterrent, seeing as how that group is on the fringe anyway.

2) Filters don't work. Make them too restrictive and important, non-sexual information gets edited (re: Breast Cancer sites blocked, historic, social, political examples and aspects of torture blocked, etc), make 'em loose at all and the kids will get through anyway. Parental "controls" are things like putting the computer in a public area of the house. It's not going to be perfect, lap-tops, and libraries will allow kids access.

They don't need access to the Internet in the first place, or worry themselves about breast cancer.

But hopefully people will teach their kids in a way to "de-mystify" sexuality. That's a TALL order, btw.

First, the tap needs to be turned off: The entertainment industry needs to be put on a leash and entertain people, and not act like a pimp or drug dealer, getting little girls hooked on gossip and role models they don't need in their lives.

3) Wider, aimed at adults, awareness and societal incentive program to de-sexualize children. Not exactly sure what this would be, but our society needs to value innocence, and not as something to be used or consumed, but preserved for it's own sake and for the health of the child.

A simple campaign to eliminate it, like the D.A.R.E anti-drug awareness program, wouldn't be an effective way to reverse this trend.

Why? Because the source of the rampant sexuality would be far more powerful a force than a public-sponsored program.

Legislating morality has never worked.

One might say the same thing about anti-discrimination laws, because that's exactly what they are.

I worry about this a great deal. My S/o and I are debating how to handle this for our offspring, and kid 1 hasn't even arrived yet.
-SB

I wish you luck, and if I were in your place when it happened, I'd turn off access to the Internet in its entirety with my kid the moment it started to become even a minor annoyance.