SIVACRACY.NET

Apparently I spoke too soon when I was exulting over the death of DOPA, the dopey once majority-approved federal legislation designed to block access to "social networking" sites from computers housed in schools and libraries -- which looked to be destined for passage over the objections of librarians, literacy specialists, and gay and lesbian advocates who know that the Internet can be a lifeline for teens seeking information and community, authorship and activism, although the bill abruptly died in the Senate after the Fall election. As a response to threats of regulatory oversight, I particularly liked these positive suggestions from librarians for how such online social networking practices can be used to improve both the print and the electronic media literacy of the young.

Unfortunately, now we have the even worse Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, brought to us by none other than that "expert" on the electronic culture, Ted Stevens, who memorably once described the Internet, which the rest of us think of as a global distributed network for the exchange of digital information, as "a series of tubes." To add insult to injury, he even labels these widespread Web 2.0 social media tools as "trendy" in the "findings" section of the actual text. As Marianne Richmond points out on BlogHer, this proposed law reconstitutes all the bad parts of DOPA, while also throwing in elements of various decency acts that emphasize redundant approaches like fines and federal notification. Although it does include some seemingly laudable sections prohibiting the sale of private information about children, it actually rewards a number of particularly rapacious commercial sectors of the Internet by emphasizing overpriced proprietary screening software at the expense of any real collective discussion of communal norms.

More at Virtualpolitik.