The House passed the Deleting Online Predators Act by 410 votes
to 15. The Act forbids publicly funded organisations, such as
schools and libraries, from allowing young people to access sites
that have chat rooms or 'social networking' elements. Under the
proposed law, adults in such institutions can ask for permission to
access the sites.
Opponents argue that the definitions in the law are so vague
that they could take in a vast array of existing commercial
websites and damage the business potential of those sites and the
research capabilities of schools and libraries.
It will be left to the Federal Communications Commission
to decide what sites come under the control of the Act. Civil
liberties groups are arguing in other legal disputes that the
communications regulator already wields too much power.
"The social networking sites have become, in a sense, a happy
hunting ground for child predators," said Republican congressman
Michael Fitzpatrick before the vote. The Act prohibits the publicly
funded bodies to give children access to sites where they might
receive "unlawful sexual advances".
The move was condemned by the American Library Association
(ALA). "ALA is disappointed by the House’s passage of DOPA," said
ALA president Leslie Burger. "This unnecessary and overly broad
legislation will hinder students’ ability to engage in distance
learning and block library computer users from accessing a wide
array of essential Internet applications including instant
messaging, email, wikis and blogs."
“Under DOPA, people who use library and school computers as
their primary conduits to the Internet will be unfairly blocked
from accessing some of the web’s most powerful emerging
technologies and learning applications. As libraries are already
required to block content that is 'harmful to minors' under the
Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), DOPA is redundant and
unnecessary legislation," said Burger.
The proposed law will now pass to the Senate where a vote is
expected early this month.
The law suggests that the FCC consider as social networking
sites any site that allows users to edit a profile, chat to users
or post personal data.
Under that loose definition a very large number of sites would
qualify, including Amazon.com, which allows users to post lists of
preferences and create profiles of authors, Ebay, in which each
user has a profile which changes as they shop, or any number of
major news sites, where users can discuss stories online.
