Charles Darwin has 18540 friends.

July 5, 2006 3:54 AM

Myspace for education. Nietzsche is a cat person. Isaac Newton scores the hotties. School assignment, or for fun? Social software is being used in many different ways in the classrom, but some schools have ruled that the safety conerns outweigh the benefits. The Deleting Online Predators Act 2006 wants to restrict access to social networking sites by law.
posted by goo (12 comments total)

Before everyone goes into the usual "Myspace sucks" rant, take a close look at the wording of DOPA 2006. Metafilter would qualify, so would many of the weblog sites frequently linked here.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:30 AM on July 5, 2006

How can you use myspace for education when you can't get on it half the time, or it crashes your browser on even the fastest machines. Then,. many institutional computer room machines run slower than molasses. Moodle and wikis, great. Myspace? You'd have to be on glue to see it as a potential tool.

But yeah, the law sounds like an overreaction, but the law as it applies to libraries and educational institutions that receive federal computer-related grants would be constitutional, as Supreme Court interpretation now stands.
posted by raysmj at 4:37 AM on July 5, 2006

Right, because children never try to circumvent anything done for their ostensible protection.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:02 AM on July 5, 2006

Excuse me, the bill. Never write in between sessions on an exercise bike.
posted by raysmj at 5:14 AM on July 5, 2006

Raysmj, maybe you should get your computer looked at by a professional or change browsers. I don't have these problems on MySpace.
posted by melt away at 6:04 AM on July 5, 2006

I use Firefox, and have a thoroughly updated machine, thanks. I've tried it on a laptop too, same thing. Myspace is a train wreck.
posted by raysmj at 6:16 AM on July 5, 2006

Myspace is one of those things that I'm not ashamed to feel curmudgeonly about. Honestly, kids these days!! GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!
posted by basicchannel at 6:26 AM on July 5, 2006

The summary of the law, if I've read it correctly, seems to allow for enabling access to these sites 'under supervision for educational purposes'. Given that I can't see any reason for kids to have unfettered access to social networking sites at school, this seems to allow a reasonable implementation And then I remembered that wikipedia allows the creation of user profiles that hold personal information, and chat between users, and I thought, what the fuck kind of idiot would vote for this?

/derail: raysmj, I use firefox on a semi-updated machine and don't have your problems with myspace. My biggest problem with myspace is that I've never registered, and it STILL tells me that everyone I see is in my extended network! I don't have a network. I wouldn't want these people in it if I did.
posted by jacalata at 6:53 AM on July 5, 2006

Darwin has one too. And David Bohm's favourite music includes We Are Scientists.
And Einstein is MySpacing from the afterlife.
posted by easternblot at 7:28 AM on July 5, 2006

jacalata: My hometown newspaper used to have a small BBS attached as well.

(And a curmudgeonly grump, isn't "social network website" redundant?)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:41 AM on July 5, 2006

It’s because school boards can’t vote such laws for themselves. They need a helpful older larger sibling body of government to observe them and mandate a proper course of action. The incidental lock grip on other’s testicles is, I’m sure, completely incidental. After all who would want to stop free communication outside authoritarian avenues? Particularly among the younger members of society, who are usually extremely interested in maintaining the status quo?
(yeah, that’s sarcasm)
posted by Smedleyman at 11:25 AM on July 5, 2006

take a close look at the wording of DOPA 2006. Metafilter would qualify, so would many of the weblog sites frequently linked here.

But our government would never do anything like that, would it?
posted by blucevalo at 1:41 PM on July 5, 2006