Hello,

I think the intention is there, but the reality is that any kind of personal social networking in general is more than likely done at home, or at a friends house and so on. In my personal opinion, I think that the whole process is more of a means to protect Local, State, and Federal Institutions from libel if something were to happen within a school. So for that reason, it is probably smart to do, but I really doubt that it will have any impact on social networking outside of the schools in general and that is where it is needed the most. I also do not think banning is an answer because as the Internet continues to evolve, new things will attract the attention of people. What I mean by that is if banning younger people from social networks is done abroad, within a short period of time, something new will come and people will go to that instead. Besides, social networking has it’s benefits and should not be presented in a “gloom and doom” fashion. What I think would be a good law to incorporate is to have stiffer far reaching method of cracking down on the people that are causing this entire problem, the predators. It seems like they are punishing the wrong people with regards to social networking. This of course is my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the company I work for.

Regards,

Michael Goldberg

no, because students go on library computers generally at lunch to unwind. When they do go for education, they are usually monitored closely so as to see if they are doing what they are supposed to.

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Edited by son of liberty at 08/09/2006 3:15 PM

They don't block sites that aren't educational, but they do block sites that are distracting to education. Yes, I'm sure out of the 99 million profiles, there are many with educational purposes, but as a student who uses MySpace, I can say without a doubt, most kids are not going to use MySpace at school for research. Is it possible? Sure. Will teachers find the information found on MySpace to be credible in a report? Probably not.

Think of it this way, there is a reason cell phones are banned at schools. They are distracting. MySpace is a tool for communication that kids use for entertainment and not education.

It seems like schools are already banning social networking sites because they interfere with education. Most schools in southern California have blocks on myspace (and others) just like they do for pornography sites. If it's not educational, it's not accessible.

Seems to me that the federal government should leave it up to the schools and libraries and not meddle.