CT to regulate social networking sites?

Definition of social networking (4.00 / 1)

I saw this in my daily news crawl, and put it up in the Ninja Fight. I fail to see how a definition could be narrowly tailored to include Myspace but exclude MLN. Maybe when the real bill is introduced, we'll see some magic, but I am not so hopeful.

Even if it didn't regulate community blogs, it'd still be a shite idea.

–7.25 / –7.28 | http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tw...

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by: mattw @ Thu Mar 08, 2007 at 12:46:41 PM UTC

Soapblox, blogger, all blogs, and email could be social networking (0.00 / 0)

You can comment back and forth on blogs. You can comment back and forth on email in close to real time. Are they going to require that Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail all require age proof to open an account? I just don't know how it can be enforced.

It's also going to run up against all kinds of 1st Amendment problems. Every videogame law passed in state legislatures has been overturned because you can't restrict the mode of speech in place of the speech itself. I'm sure the same applies to social networking sites - an incredibly broad definition.

The route to go is voluntary age verification and an education campaign. I think this is a bit of grandstanding after a terrible crime. I know after some horrible child crimes in FL last year the legislature passed all kinds of laws basically calling for having anyone who commits a crime against a child o be drawn and quartered. What the FL legislatured didn't do was provide funds for afterschool programs and child and social services - measures that might make prevent opportunities for the crime to take place in the first place.

Between the Amaro case and this Connecticut is looking very ignorant about how the internets really function.

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by: joejoejoe @ Thu Mar 08, 2007 at 13:02:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This is a terrible idea (4.00 / 1)

You're right, better education, voluntary age verification and parents who actually keep an eye on what their kids do online are the right solutions. What Blumenthal is proposing makes no sense, and will wreak havoc on social networking sites.

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by: genghis conn @ Thu Mar 08, 2007 at 16:50:25 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Education and parenting are key (4.00 / 1)

We shouldn't be looking for a technological solution to ignorance and bad parenting. 

That's a pretty harsh statement, I know, but I'm stunned by how many parents allow very young children and adolesents to have computers in their own bedrooms and spend time on the Internet entirely unsupervised and un-filtered.  It truly boggles the mind.

As a teacher, I actually talked with parents who felt that the school should regulate what sites students would be allowed to visit at home, and that somehow the school should find a way to monitor at-home internet activity and provide consequences if students visited inappropriate sites.  I'd simply ask, "Where does your son have internet access?" and more often than not I'd hear that it was in his bedroom. 

So I'd suggest that the parent move the computer into a public room like the dining or living room and put a parental password on the computer so the child could only surf in public with a parent present...and parents thought that was outrageous! 

You don't just let children wander city streets with no supervision and no guidance about safety.  Likewise, parents need to guide minors as they navitate the 'net, gaining more autonomy and freedom as they grow, learn, and mature.

What school districts and libraries can do is invest in training opportunities for parents so that parents become more computer literate and more able to serve as capable guardians of their childrens' safety online and offline.  The more parents know about the internet in general and social networking sites in particular, the more effective they'll be in guiding their charges toward responsible and safe internet use.

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by: Maura @ Thu Mar 08, 2007 at 18:09:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

COPPA fialed (4.00 / 1)

http://en.wikipedia....

Think of this as an extension of COPPA.

As I run a site for kids I had to deal with COPPA. The drill game side of the site collects no personal information so there was no need to deal with it, but the store side of the site does collect personal information (addresses).

Since the collection of personal information requires that you provide a credit card in the store, I was able to leverage that collection to the requirement that a credit card is collected before any of that information is used and you can't be underage and have a credit card. My legal team of Whosits, Howsits and Screwem said I was covered.

So, in the case of social networking sites like MLM, they will be required to validate using something like a creditcard check (you enter your credit card number and it is then authorized at $.01) to ensure that the person signing up is either an adult or authorized by an adult (has access to the credit card).

This will have a chilling effect, and it will be challenged legally since it does have a chilling effect on free and open speach.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
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by: Met00 @ Thu Mar 08, 2007 at 19:03:26 PM UTC

I think 20% of all adults don't have credit cards (0.00 / 0)

Heres's some facts I found in a 30-sec. Google search.

"While credit card use among the nation's 42 million Hispanics is on the rise, a substantial number of Latino households don't have access to credit, according a survey conducted by the National Council of La Raza, which found that 80 percent of American households use credit cards compared with only 56 percent of Hispanic households."

http://www.gainesvil...

If these figures are right then right off the top you are denying social networking access to 1 in 5 adults and 40% of Hispanics. Social networking isn't merely a tool school kids to chat (and be exposed to threats). Social networking is primarily an adult phenomenon for political and cultural participation thru free speech. That's NOT something that can be regulated away by the CT state legislature.

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by: joejoejoe @ Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 04:16:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Bill number (0.00 / 0)

I spoke with someone at the General Law Committe of the CT State Legislature on 09 March 2007 and was told that the proposed bill would likely be merged with HB-691, which can be tracked here: http://www.cga.ct.go...

-A

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by: AThomas @ Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 03:46:43 AM UTC

They already had a public hearing (0.00 / 0)

and passed it out of the committee, even though the new language isn't available yet.

–7.25 / –7.28 | http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tw...

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by: mattw @ Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:43:25 AM UTC

[ Parent ]