Today, MIT’s Technology Review published an article on the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA – HR5319). The piece (The Moral Panic over Social-Networking Sites*) reviews many of the objections to DOPA that have been expressed from the library and educational technology communities, including equity issues. Schools and libraries are many children’s only access to online social communities. DOPA would deny them access to an integral part of teen culture today.
In quoting Henry Jenkins, director of Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, the article includes:
It’s a “monumentally ill-considered piece of legislation” that “by any rational measure” should never have left the House, says Henry Jenkins, professor of literature and director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. Jenkins believes the act plays on parents’ lack of understanding, and their resulting fears, about their kids’ activities on the Internet. “But the price of standing up to that fear may be too high for liberal Democrats,” he says.
From the other side of the issue, the article quotes from an interview with Michael Fitzpatrick’s (the bill’s author) press officer, Jeff Urbanchuck.
Opponents of DOPA misunderstand the bill, says Jeff Urbanchuck, a press officer for Representative Fitzpatrick. He says it is intended only to reduce the risk to teens from one particular category of websites — those where members can create online profiles and fill them with personal details, including e-mail or instant-messaging addresses, that help predators contact them. Critics are “extending beyond the MySpaces and Facebooks and arguing that the technology of social networking is so pervasive now that the Internet is going to become one big social-networking site,” Urbanchuck says. “But the objective of the bill is to deal with the growing threat of online predators on specific sites that allow profiles. We want to tailor the bill to those sites.”
Also appearing today is an article from Find Law. Written by Anita Ramasastry**, this article (Why the Delete Online Predators Act Won’t Delete Predatory Behavior***) offers a brief, but thorough overview of the bill, and then goes on to describe several reasons why the law will not work, and perhaps even make things worse, with regard to predators. Ramasastry says,
…teenagers can easily meet sexual predators or other criminals in public places – at shopping malls, all-ages clubs, roller skating rinks and parties. If they are forced off social networking sites, that won’t be the end of their social activity. Surely, many parents would much rather have their kids chatting online at school or at a library, than unsupervised at a mall or party. Even if DOPA did force teens offline, it might only put them in more danger.
The conversation continues. Hopefully, it will be heard by any Senators with the courage to be leaders.
* Roush, Wade. “The Moral Panic over Social-Networking Sites.” Technology Review 7 Aug 2006 7 Aug 2006 <http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17266&ch=infotech&sc=&pg=1>.
**Anita Ramasastry is an associate professor of law and a director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce, & Technology at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, Washington.
***Ramasastry, Anita. “Why the Delete Online Predators Act Won’t Delete Predatory Behavior.” FindLaw 7 Aug 2006 7 Aug 2006 <http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20060807.html>.
I personally think that the onus should fall on parents to educate their kids about the potential dangers of sites like MySpace and Facebook. More legislation is not the way to go here.
I agree with what you say on many levels. Certainly safety is something that should be part of the child/parent relationship. What’s changed is that the information landscape has become a real part of our children’s experience. It is much more a part of their “real world” than it was mine. Therefore, it seems to me that Internet safety has become a literacy issue, and that safety, and ethics, and all of the skills involved in using contemporary information environment to accomplish goals are now rolled up into what it means to be literate in this time.
So, although what you say is true, I suspect that Internet safety is also part of literacy, and that’s what we teach.
Thanks for writing!
I’m aware of a number of bloggers from outside the USA who are following this debate with interest, and with more than a modicum of concern that what is happening in the USA today might find its way into the minds (or mailbags) of politicians elsewhere tomorrow!
I’m curious why bloggers aren’t drawing attention to The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 which was signed into law on July 27. Among its many provisions are some intiatives aimed at protecting kids online. One is staffing up Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces across the country to go after online predators, increased penatlies for offenders, and a grant program to that instructs:
The Attorney General, in consultation with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, is authorized to develop and carry out a public
awareness campaign to demonstrate, explain, and encourage children, parents, and
community leaders to better protect children when such children are on the Internet.Similar grants could be made to state governments and potentially schools as well. http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/AdamWalshAct.pdf
It strikes me that this at least provides the arguement that DOPA is not needed due to a bill that was just signed with child saftey protections. Plus it includes the educational campaign that some are calling for.