Restrictions On Social Sites Proposed In Georgia 349
A state senator in Georgia, Cecil Staton, has introduced a bill that would require parents' permission before kids could sign up at a social networking site such as MySpace and Facebook, and mandate that the sites let parents see all material their kids generate there. Quoting: "[Senate Bill 59] would make it illegal for the owner or operator of a social networking Web site to allow minors to create or maintain a Web page without parental permission [and require] parents or guardians to have access to their children's Web pages at all times. If owners or operators of a company failed to comply with the proposed law, they would be guilty of a misdemeanor on the first offense. A second offense would be a felony and could lead to imprisonment for between one and five years and a fine up to $50,000 or both." The recently offered MySpace parental tools fall short of the bill's requirements. This coverage from the Athens Banner-Herald quotes Facebook's CPO saying that federal law forbids the company to allow anyone but the account creator to access it..
Uhh... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
why not ban parenthood? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kneejerk reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is about parental control, and parents should be up in arms about this. As it stands (in America, at least), once your kids are waiting on the corner for the public school bus in the morning, your kids belong to the State. A child student has to have parent's permission for an asprin, but not for an abortion.
Parental rights are increasingly in jeopardy in America.
This is one step down a slippery slope, and a good time to make a stand. The bottom line is that your kids are yours to raise -- no matter how much some may disagree with your parenting tactics -- and we are standing to lose that right. This is only the first step.
Re:Uhh... what? (Score:4, Insightful)
They get headlines.
They get politicians elected
Thus, they get attention of politicians
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
you know, shit can happen on the bus....
in fact, shit can happen anywhere.
How about a site hosted in Romania or Israel?
State laws can not and will not replace neglecting parents.
If we accept restrictions on children in general.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Why are we opposed to these ones? Why is the Senator (and the entire State of Georgia) being called names?
Kids (depending on age) can not drive, buy tobacco and alcohol, open bank accounts, stay out late, or marry without legal guardians' consent. Heck — a few months before birth they can even be killed by their mothers (with doctors assistance).
So, what's the fuss about restricting their on-line socializing? It is not like their real-life socializing is not already restricted (and always has been)...
responsibility or control (Score:1, Insightful)
I hunch you are not a parent, or at least I hope you aren't! You have clearly no idea as to how to provide the correct environment for a child to grow up.
Right to teach (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:people or property (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as a parent I'm legally responsible for my kids, so NO, they DON'T have the same rights as adults. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Re:people or property (Score:2, Insightful)
3) as the property of the State
KFG
Re:You need to lose that right. (Score:3, Insightful)
I find no compelling argument here; rather, there is no argument of any kind.
Re:people or property (Score:3, Insightful)
And careful what rights you take away. Few would argue with limiting access to (say) firearms or tobacco, but sheltering your kids so they don't grow up faster than you want them to can be unhealthy. Unless they're really too stupid to make the right decision even after you explain it to them, don't just invoke authority and tell them too damn bad on what they want to do or see. Makes them bad citizens when they grow up and the govment does the same thing.
Re:people or property (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uhh... what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:responsibility or control (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:people or property (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:people or property (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with him on the level that they should be doing more to catch the predators and less to incovenience the victims, but sometimes that's just not practical.
You'd get on my case if I complained someone stole my cell phone out of my car when I didn't lock it. You'd get on my case if someone stole my TV when I didn't bother closing the doors on my house. You'd get on my case if someone stole my bike when I didn't bother chaining it.
Why are you going to get on my case when I use some parental controls to attempt to help keep my kids safe?
So no, I don't necessarily agree with this law, but I also don't agree with the attitude that kids should have all the rights that adults have, including viewing all the content they want on the internet without restriction, when the parents are responsible, and the attitude that parents are some kind of Nazis when they restrict what their kids can do.
Re:people or property (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, as a parent I'm legally responsible for my kids, so NO, they DON'T have the same rights as adults. Sorry to burst your bubble
I've been stating this for a number of years. People that don't have kids really have no business telling parents what their kids rights are. Kids don't have the responsibilities as adults so they can't have the same rights.
Of course now I've said that there will be some arm chair parent who thinks because their brother has kids they know everything there is to know about parenting.
Re:people or property (Score:-1, Insightful)
Oh, and I vote.
Let's not blow this out of proportion (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not only a stupid idea, it's an unworkable stupid idea that's going nowhere. Yeah, it's been "proposed in Georgia", but it might as well have been proposed on the moon. It has no support in Georgia and shouldn't reflect on Georgia.
Re:responsibility or control (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:QFT - idiot. (Score:3, Insightful)
If there was actually a working scheme that allows you to prove your age online without placing trust in a dubious third party and which wasn't trivially breakable, I'd buy that. But there is no Internet-based proof-of-age scheme that works. Generally, anyone with access to a credit card can acquire one. Anyone who doesn't trust the apparently-dodgy businesses operating in the area with their credit card details can't.
That's the approach they'll likely take, assuming this is found Constitutional the fist time it's tested, which it won't
Unfortunately, an unenforceable law still costs the rest of us time, convenience and money, because anyone who doesn't want the hassle of being prosecuted and having to take the case through multiple levels of appeal to have the law declared unconstitutional will comply with it anyway. Don't think for a moment that if this law is passed, every blogger account there is will be suspended until its owner can prove their age, whether or not the owner is even in the US. How many great blogs will we lose?
Re:The Senate Sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand t hat there are currently problems with minors o nthe internet, but within 20-30 years all of these problems iwll be resolved with parents that are technologicaly sound.
No, they won't. Firstly because those parents won't be "technologically sound" and secondly because they'll think they are and, thus, that they can ignore their parenting responsibilities by letting the machine do it for them.
Currently, parents have no idea how to use parental controls or how to supervise their kids, and I know my parents can't figure out what I'm doing.
Guess what ? If/when you have kids, the situation will be exactly the same.
Re:people or property (Score:2, Insightful)
Those are some of the saddest analogies I've ever seen.
Have you ever tried talking to your TV and explaining it that it shouldn't allow itself to get stolen? Have you ever tried to teach your cell phone not to stay in unlocked cars? Probably not, because that would make very little sense or good.
But guess what? You can talk to your children! They are not inert items like your cell or TV. You can reason with them (I know they're children, but still, give them some credit), you can have a conversation with them and maybe, with luck, even establish some sort of trust with them. A trust that will not require from you to monitor them as closely as you feel you must now.
Your children are your family, and hopefully, your friends. They are not the enemy. When you are trying to restrict their freedom, without consulting with them and without trying to understand them, you treat them like such.
While I'm legally responsible, they DO NOT have the same rights as adults.
I don't want to be too harsh but after reading your post I'm really not sure if it's your children that you worry about, or you legal liability for their actions.
No, it isn't. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:people or property (Score:1, Insightful)
I HATE people that treat their children like property. It's just wrong. Why do you think our society is so greedy? It all starts with bad parenting.
The more your tighten your grip... (Score:2, Insightful)
In doing what you are doing, you are not only teaching him your beliefs and values but instilling a distrust in you, his parents, that runs much deeper that you think. You do not trust your son. Get over it. Saying you trust him is not the same as actually doing so. You do not trust him at all, in the slightest. Not one bit. No matter what you say your actions belie your words. In fact, the contradictions created in your own mind by this dichotomy are in themselves damaging to your children as well as yourself.
You say your son trusts you. I can go along with that, considering he's 9. It's much easier to bend your mind to such contradictions when you're young. However, I don't expect that this will last until he's 18. Unless you are able to stunt his growth, he should consciously see the glaring obviousness of your lies in a few years, 5 max i would say.
If he does, you will have created someone who is able to succeed in the modern world of Catch-22's. If he suppresses this knowledge, you will have created a damaged and defective human being (quite possibly schizophrenic). Either way it seems like they will be appropriately paranoid.
Hmm, I guess I take that back. I figure you have probably a good chance of producing someone who is able to cover their tracks pretty well therefore has the skillz to avoid the much more lax authoritarian regimes currently called governments (after all the big G can't afford the extensive monitoring you engage in).
So, how do you expect God to change your belief structures if you won't listen to his representatives on Earth? Do you expect some miraculous experience like Paul (nee Saul) had? I find the best way is to open myself to the possibility that I might be wrong. It's called faith, you know, the actual bleeding edge of it. Faith that your core belief structures will still be there as you question the axioms, roots and branches of it and discard or modify your beliefs. Faith that even if you determine that one or a cluster of beliefs are incorrect (i.e. you change your mind), you will still be in God's loving eyes and are still able to continue the Great Work here on earth.
It doesn't even have to be an active thing; just the sensitivity to know that real world experiences can, and should, send ripples through your belief structures, shaking out the bugs. I guess this, then, depends on the ability to see your beliefs as a gestalt of multiple different ideas.
I am wondering where this Paranoid Surveillance trip comes out of your Faith. You need to find that ideological plank of your belief structures and examine what's wrong with it, because something sure is. While I agree that one's actions should stem from one's beliefs (which is why I am bothering writing this), I think your path to right action has been diverted by extraneous belief structures.
That is, you have some irrational Fear that is haunting you. This, in turn, enables an environment where the seeds of paranoia have grown to blossom, since you have not rooted out this fear. A subset of your belief structures is actively engaged in finding a set of patterns in real world examples to assure your self that you are on the correct path. Judging by your actions, these structures are under control of your paranoid tendencies. They have hooked into your Religious structures at some level such that you believe your behaviour towards your son is both necessary and in his best interest at a fundamental level when in really it's mostly just Paranoia having it's way with you.