Government proposes to ban Social Networking Sites in Schools and Libraries
House Republicans are proposing a new bill that will block social networking sites from schools and libraries. I recommend reading the entire proposal (in PDF format). First librarians have had to succumb and install filters on the computers within our library walls, and now this. This an egregious assault on the freedom of speech. Give an inch and they will want to bite off your entire arm. Will ‘blog people’ hating ALA elites care about this? Will newly graduated library school students understand the implications? Surprisingly, there is little to be seen on this issue in library news journals.
Here is the killer:
…prohibits access to a commercial social networking website or chat rooms…
COMMERCIAL SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES.�The working term �commercial social net website� means a commercially operated Internet website that�
��(i) allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and ��(ii) offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger.
What will be affected: blogs, sites like digg, friendster, myspace.com, the potential for harm has no bounds.
May 12th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
It’s deplorable, especially because people frequenting schools and library can profit from having access to these sites.. A lot of time, a google search for a certain subject will provide results that points to blogs, digg and other social networking related addresses at the top of its listing. By preventing people to go to these sites, your literally cutting the internet in half.
It seems that we’re not finished about hearing about “Net Neutrality”, this is only the beginning.
Kiltak
[Geeks Are Sexy] Tech. News
May 12th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Shoot me in the head and call me Arnold; but, I sort of agree with that policy.
How frustrating is it for students who have genuine reason to be using the university/school facilities (in which to study) and find that 70% of the machines are being used as social avenues and procastination.
My university is rather limited in computer access, and to find a decent place to sit in silence without disturbances and work on a computer can only really occur after 8pm.
From other experiences this has also been the case, and even though in my younger days I used to abuse the systems to endulge in my inept social life; in retrospect I would be thankfull if someone re-directed me to be more outwardly social.
In a professional sense: if you were an employer and your employees sat at their desk all day chatting on MSN and posting comments on livejournal.com, you’d have good reason to feel like you’re resources are being abused. Now do the turn around and consider how many millions/billions of your tax dollars goes into maintaining computer systems in schools and universities.
Perhaps, the decision should have some calming measures introduced instead of being harsh, this could be done by opening facilities just for social usage, preventing usage during peak times, fill in the blanks.
[my website is still down]