Jul
28
(2006)
I’ve been thinking about the moronically shortsighted DOPA doowackie that got passed South of the Border. Basically, if I understand correctly, it attempts to protect children from online predators (which is a Good Thing To Do™). But, it wants to do this by banning minors from websites that let them contribute. They won’t be able to use MySpace. Or Blogger.com. Or Wordpress.com. Or Flickr.com. Or any other social “Web 2.0″ stuff. Kids will be protected by locking them out.
Which is akin to protecting your children from harm by locking them in the basement.
Sure, they’ll be safe, but they’ll be completely isolated and unable to function in a connected, online world once they reach the arbitrarily decided “safe” age of 18 or 21 or whatever silly number got picked from the hat.
You don’t protect kids by locking them away from danger. You cripple them.
And, this assumes the clever kids aren’t aware of anonymizing proxies, or something as difficult as clicking the wrong/right box on a web form, to gain access to verboten sites. Groups are working hard to provide these freedom tools to the oppressed civilians of China, unfairly locked behind the Great Firewall. While simultaneously allowing their government to impose the same arbitrary limitations on their own children.
Thankfully, there has been no word of a Canadian copycat legislation. Yet.
There are better ways to protect kids. The best, and most effective (but most difficult) way is to actually educate them. If they are aware of the issues (in whatever age-appropriate manner) they will be better able to safely cope with dangers. There’s already a handy group forming around this issue.
It’s better to teach kids to swim, than to trust a fence around the swimming pool. Or the lock on the basement door.
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9 Responses to “DOPA is like locking your kids in the basement”
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Hey D'Arcy, agree with you on all accounts, of course, but do be aware that kids aren't banned from accessing any of these sites; they're banned from accessing them from any school or public library that accepts federal e-rate funding. Which most do. Doesn't make it any easier to swallow this sh*t, but there you go.
Right - so go ahead and participate, but you’d better not be caught doing it as part of any approved activity… Nice subtlety, making online participation a subversive activity…
I think that they are more worried about subversive sexual behavior online more so than online predators. It is the Republicans after all… I would write a diatribe, but I’ll spare you the space.
I mean by that, to clarify, that teenagers will act in certain ways that are considered “improper” and that will attract sexual predators to them, that in addition to all the other stuff that the media reports. But essentially, I think the idea behind all of this is that you have all this teen angst which spills out to online sites like MySpace, check out some of the pictures the members post, and then that type of behavior leads to repercussions, which may be physically harming or in their minds socially harming to society. I think they see social interaction online as problematic in a general sense rather than a specific sense. A lot of right wingers wouldn’t mind putting their teenage daughters in Burkas, if they had their way
They are attempting to use the protect the kids issue to push a larger, moral agenda. They are well-meaning, but we are left arguing against a strong point than the actual issue at hand – “the moral purity of the internet and our children’s minds”. There you have my diatribe, or at least a part of it.
They’re trying to prevent predators from luring kids/teens into physical harm. That’s an education issue, not a lock-up-the-kids issue. If kids know not to meet anyone online without some pretty strict guidelines, they’ll be reasonably safe. Nobody can be perfectly safe, at least not while actively living and participating in a community.
I agree with your point, I think there should be a DARE-like program to educate kids about this stuff… But I don’t think that the purpose of such legislation is simple as just protecting the kids from online predators. I think it has a more encompassing function, but perhaps I am seeing something where there is nothing there…?
well… considering the legislation is called “Deleting Online Predators Act” - I think it’s safe to say that’s its top priority…
All the latest on DOPA is kindly gathered into one place at DOPA Watch.
This law makes me sick to my stomach. The reason why the predators are getting to the children is due to the parents negligence!!! I have a MySpace account, so does my daughter, and I created one for our Website (MyGurlStuff.com). The kids that don't have any supervision post their personal information. (ie age, city, school, friends, etc)
I do not allow my daughter to post anything that will lure a predator to her. When I post pictures of her and her friends or when she posts, we make sure most of the distinguishing information in the background is blurred out. If the photos are taken at school, then I make sure the mascot or school colors are not predominate in the photo.
We just created a "friends network" just for teen and tween girls. I police that thing everyday. If the girls post anything too personal, it will get deleted. http://www.mygurlstuff.com/smf/index.phpÂ
DOPA is completely ridiculous! Parents need to get more involved and not let the government control what is going on in our houses. The social sites like MySpace and MyGurlStuff allow the teens and tweens to display their creativity. I've seen some really cool things while cruising through the web. To stiffle the creativity of our youth will be a grave mistake.
The truth is that the only real online security for your kids is to have the home computer in a public space — your living room, den, etc. — where it’s possible to have a conversation about safe online behavior if something comes up on screen that’s inappropriate.
Allowing your kids to squirrel themselves away with a computer behind a closed bedroom door is just not responsible.