Blog blocking, coming to a teen near you...

[mole]

Intellectual freedom continues to be challenged, especially when the information seeker is under 18. And, what's the one major way they seek/share that information, well, the latest thing that's under fire, of course. Check this out:

http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6071197.html

Fighting the good fight.

[Doug]

Intellectual freedom continues to be challenged, especially when the information seeker is under 18. And, what's the one major way they seek/share that information, well, the latest thing that's under fire, of course. Check this out:

http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6071197.html

Fighting the good fight.

DOUG
Wow, good work, Mole. The bill under consideration would ban teen use of blog and chat sites at public libraries, among other places.

The online mag Techdirt states of this:

In schools and libraries, at least, adults can monitor the students while helping to educate them about the dangers online, rather than pretending they don't exist. This law doesn't protect the children -- it takes away the responsibility of teaching them how to be safe online.

Is this not unlike the ban on sex education in the guise of keeping children from having sex? And look how well that worked...

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Absolutely like the sex education ban - in fact, it's part of the sex information of ANY kind ban - not that I particularly want kids surfing porn sites, I don't. I do want parents to take responsibility for teaching their kids medically accurate information about sex - and I favor blockers that parents can use on individual computers, but that's a parenting thing. (When we were preteens, Momma showed us just enough about sex via medical textbooks to trigger the "yuch" factor, and didn't worry about it until we hit our late teens.) I also want parents teaching their kids responsible use of the web.

The RWs love to talk about "slippery slope" with marriage laws, but the REAL slippery slope is stuff like this - start taking freedoms/allowing them to be taken under whatever excuse and it's a fast toboggan ride to tyranny.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Oh, and I just called Boozman's office & told his staffer to tell "the boss" that this is a bad idea - like saying there are things in the library I don't want kids to read, so I'm going to make a law saying kids can't use the library. The staffer seemed to get the point. Let's hope Boozman does.