Connecticut Wants to Restrict Social Networking 242
csefft writes "According to the Hartford Courant, Connecticut became the latest state to want to restrict the use of MySpace and other social networking sites. The proposed bill would require that all such sites verify the identity and age of users, as well as get parent's permission for those under 18. Sites that failed to comply would be subject to a $5,000 per day fine. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said of the proposition, 'If we can put a man on the moon, we can verify age on the Internet,' but quickly followed with the acknowledgment that there is no foolproof method."
There is no need for a foolproof method (Score:1, Interesting)
You simply cannot stop people who are intent on circumnavigating the law in order to achieve their goals. But this does not mean that good policy won't make it easy to do the `right' thing and hard to do the `wrong' thing. The focus of such a policy will be to stop most people, not to stop all people. And since people are lazy, almost any non-trivial method of age verification such as requiring a fax or scan of a driver's license will prevent most underaged people from having accounts.
Not that I think this legislation is necessarily good. I'm only pointing out that not being 100% effective shouldn't be considered a barrier to adoption. Condoms have less than a 100% success rate. But that shouldn't stop most people from using condoms if using a condom is in line with their goals.
If it moves regulate it. (Score:5, Interesting)
so true..
Rep [r]: Whats this MySpace thing Bob?
Rep [d]: I dont know but its unregulated so it must be illegal.
Man on the moon? (Score:4, Interesting)
But we can't proove either worked
Re:Lazy parents. (Score:3, Interesting)
I monitor my children's internet usage, but what about friends? My oldest daughter is 11 and she has a friend the same. Her friend's parents seem to be quite relaxed about their daughter's internet usage. This friend of my daughter met a 17 year old guy on WoW and introduced him to my daughter. IT seems that this friend of my daughter's had introduced herself and my daughter to this guy as being older than they are. She also got involved in some rather sexual conversations - claiming to this guy she had just lost her virginity. My best guess is that she was talking herself up, trying to sound more mature so she could get this guy's attention. She succeeded, and it put my daughter in a situation she really wasn't equipped to handle. I put a stop to this, but the question remains - do I cut her off now from this friend?
I don't know how old you are now, but when you were in that age range and entering teen years, what would your reaction have been if your parents tried to dictate who your friends could be? My daughter is young enough now that I can probably get away with it this time, but what about in two more years? What if she gets a friend who is a latchkey daughter of a single mom? Can I depend on being able to monitor what she is doing on the internet at her friend's house? Can I depend on that parent? I'm not slagging single mothers, but she may just not have the time or ability to monitor her child. Do I tell my daughter she can't be this girl's friend?
When I was a kid, there was a certain amount of interdependency that parents could depend on with other parents and even with complete strangers. If I was a kid acting out in a mall, most any nearby adult would have considered it proper to issue a little correction. This was the way society worked in the past. Now, this is considered politically incorrect. This is because as a society we are so afraid of coming to moral decisions - afraid to make a determination of absolute right and wrong. I can't tell a kid that what he's doing is wrong because it's not my place to make that decision. And woe betide the politician who wants to legislate anything that smacks of interference.
I am all for this proposal. Sure it may be difficult or even impossible to implement, and there may be ways around it, but those aren't reasons not to try. We need to step up to the plate and as a society come to the decision that it is our responsibility to make places as safe as possible. Because no parent can be everywhere, and I want to believe that other people will look out for my children, just as I would like to think that I would look out for theirs.
Enforcable? (Score:3, Interesting)
What if MySpace simply decides to not do business in Connecticut (as in, have no office nor servers there). Can they enforce the $5000 fine? What if MySpace simply doesn't pay up? Connecticut isn't simply going to filter MySpace, is it?
I think it's just going to be like those Russian servers hosting warez. The stuff on there may not be allowed in many countries, but while it's in Russia, the only thing the US and European countries can seem to do is take action against the actual users.
What will this change? (Score:2, Interesting)
Goodbye Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless the law specifically named the sites to be restricted (which of course would not be possible) or they figure out a way to specify exactly what separates MySpace or Facebook from, say, a forum for a Warcraft guild (which would be possible, I suppose, but probably not by anyone fool enough to come up with such a law) then no site will be safe from the repurcussions.
Re:Anyone miss the 20's? (Score:4, Interesting)
They both can be faked in highly convincing manners? MySpace could start verifying with credit card info, which one can obtain by going through Mom's purse. And NASA can go to a remote desert location, add a mat painting, let the motion blur of a low speed camera, "signal interference", and "audio static" make it all more authentic.
However, about as technology progresses, it may become easier to scrub the original tapes of the footage and discover the fraud, so they conveniently "lose" the original footage so they can make new "masters" with the same tech so that are harder to detect.
I don't believe the moon landing didn't happen, I'm just playing Devil's advocate.
Greater Implications (Score:3, Interesting)