Law on Rice

A bill recently introduced by Rep. Mark Kirk would have the effect of banning social networking sites—such as Facebook and Myspace—from libraries. This is clearly not what I have in mind when I say I’m trying to connect the dots.

For a simple explanation of the bill, read the USA Today article here.

I couldn’t find this year’s bill on GovTrack.us yet, but I did find a few recent incarnations of it. The most recent is H.R. 1120 “Deleting Online Predators Act of 2007.” According to the Congressional Research Service, the bill

[a]mends the Communications Act of 1934 to require schools and libraries that receive universal service support to enforce a policy that: (1) prohibits access to a commercial social networking website or chat room unless used for an educational purpose with adult supervision; and (2) protects against access to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors. . . .

Directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to: (1) issue a consumer alert regarding use of the Internet by child predators and the potential dangers to children because of such use, including the potential dangers of commercial social networking websites and chat rooms; and (2) establish a website resource of information for parents, teachers, school administrators, and others regarding potential dangers posed by the use of the Internet by children.

So in the last bill, anyway, not only would libraries (and schools) have to ban the services, but the FTC would also have to get involved in “alerting” us about the dangers of social networking for children.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.