FUD is amongst us. That’s Fear, Uncertainly, and their cousin Doubt. And once again we see proof that this trio is a master of legislative acumen.
I’m referring to, of course, to the piece of legislation given a thumbs up by the US House of Representatives this week, the aptly named DOPA, aka, the Deleting Online Predators Act.
Foaming at the mouth and driven by polls showing that white suburban voters fear the big bad online world, the act bars access to all forms of social networking from federally funded access locations like schools and libraries. Well, actually it bars minors and lets adults ask by special permission.
The reason? These sites "have become a haven for online sexual predators who have made these corners of the Web their own virtual hunting ground,” fuds bill sponsor, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick.
What exactly are these sites? The target appears to be everyone’s favorite bogeyman, the wildly popular myspace.com. But the broad scope and the default definition also bars access to Amazon, Ebay, SlashDot, AOL, MSN, and most news sites ... just to name a few places that incorporate elements of social networking.
If you want to visit any site that matches some or all of these FCC defined criteria, you better think again if you want to do it from a library:
Social networking isn’t going away. It’s part of the fabric of our communication patterns and part of the interaction paradigm of our world. It’s scary for people who like to control everything because the control is in the hands of the many, not in one single person or entity. And so FUD becomes the driving force for these folks.
The American Library Association is adamantly opposed to this DOPA-ey legislation. ALA president Leslie Burger’s statement sums it up very nicely:
This unnecessary and overly broad legislation will hinder students' ability to engage in distance learning and block library computer users from accessing a wide array of essential Internet applications including instant messaging, email, wikis and blogs. Under DOPA, people who use library and school computers as their primary conduits to the Internet will be unfairly blocked from accessing some of the web's most powerful emerging technologies and learning applications.
Can you say “Digital Divide?” How interesting that if you use public resources to function in the online social space you wont’ be able to access the most common and popular sites that provide public discourse?
But instead of common sense, intelligent thought, or even an ounce of understanding about the cyber-dynamics that define our daily life, we’ve once again pandered to a view driven by FUD. And that’s even dopier than DOPA itself.
Become a Member
