It's time to ban Wikipedia in schools, libraries

[ashensugar]

www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4598

U.S. senator: It's time to ban Wikipedia in schools, libraries
By Preston Gralla on Wed, 02/14/2007 - 7:08pm

Here's the newest from Sen. Ted Stevens, the man who described the Internet as a series of tubes: It's time for the federal government to ban access to Wikipedia, MySpace, and social networking sites from schools and libraries.

Early in January, Stevens introduced Senate bill 49, which among other things, would require that any school or library that gets federal Internet subsidies would have to block access to interactive Web sites, including social networking sites, and possibly blogs as well. It appears that the definition of those sites is so vague that it could include sites such as Wikipedia, according to commentators. It would certainly ban MySpace.

The bill is, in part, a rehash of a similar bill introduced last year, the Deleting Online Predators Act, also called DOPA. That bill passed the house, but got bogged down in the Senate.

Many people are calling this year's bill "Son of DOPA" because of its similarity to last year's bill.

There are so many things wrong with this bill, it's hard to count them all. But its greatest irony would be banning Wikipedia -- perhaps the most widely used reference resource in the world -- from libraries and schools. I have plenty of problems with Wikipedia, including how easily it can be manipulated, and the way that student rely on it far too heavily. But ban an educational resource merely because it's interactive? If true, it's bizarre beyond comprehension.

It's easy to characterize Stevens as little more than a buffoon. He's certainly a buffoon, but he's a dangerous one. A law like his passed the House of Representatives last year. We're coming up to a presidential election, which always unleashes a kind of madness among candidates, especially when it concerns anything to do with children. So don't count this law out.

Ted Stevens this is just the kind of crap we dont need, i think a law needs passed that unless you understand the net or are of the "net generation" your not allowed to pass/perpose/vote on laws pertaining to the net, how can somebody who dosnt understand something make an informed dessition on it?

corse this is the country thats reps passed the partiot act....


lovenet.ytmnd.com/

[gotlag]

Many schools ban this stuff already so it not really a huge issue, no need for some stupid law if the schools cant regulate this themselves that's their problem.
By schools I mean high school and below, colleges could care less for the most part.
When I was in school they had a ton of stupid restrictions on web usage with everything fed through a proxy that only served up "approprate" pages and the rest got a generic denied page. That was all done over 10 years ago with most the computers on Win95...

[ashensugar]

yes i agree gl, but the point is any place getting any fedral $ for net access would be requiered to block "interactive sites" this includes stuff like Wikipedia,blogs(including ms and educational blogs), forums(even ones that are for educational perpouses), any site that is interactive that would alow people to interact in any way.

and when i was in school they started blocking content my last year, then my comp teacher got her own net access for her dept(and accounting) because the dist "computer guy" (a moron) wouldnt unblock sites needed to teach her class, including sites from APPLE and MICROSOFT thats stupid, but she got FASTER access and blocked out the MORON that ran the dist comp dept(he was a mac fanatic, wanted to replace every pc in the dist with imacs and power macs.......yeah sure teach people to use something that 1 in 100 offices may use not what 99/100 offices use(windows)

sorry for the rant, this crap just erks me, i honestly think that anybody who dosnt understand the subject(like teddy here) shouldnt be allowed to vote on it let alone push a bill on it into law....

[Tarkus]

I would totally disagree with any such law.

I think the schools and local community should decide, period.

If you live in a very "religious" community and feel "restricting" certain things would be best, then let the local community vote on it.

As for the FEDS, screw that. Enough damn laws already and many do not work the way they were intended.

As GL said, most schools already restrict certain things. Example, the elementary school where my kids went bans Google Search on Images. This makes sense for elementary schools.

MySpace can also lead to serious problems and a school teacher or the system could end up with a serious law suit. That also makes sense.

But to have Federal laws is beyond reason. Sorry. Screw the damn senator. He is part of the Problem, not the Solution.

[ashensugar]

Tark i agree myspace is crap, but i also see some value in kids being allowed to use something like it to meet people from around the world, kids who grow up with friends allover the world tend to be FAR less prejudes(sp) and fearfull of "outsiders", i know that compared to some of the ppl i went to school with im far more accepting of diffrent cultiers and points of view, mainly because of ONLINE GAMES and the communits that arose from them, i have friends allover the world from my UO,SFC,SS days, people i would never have met had i not been allowed to access the net fully, even at school my comp teacher in highschool gave us full internet access, so i was able to post on game forums and talk to people when i was done working or waiting for everybody else to catch up(every time we had a multi part ass)

my buddy works for a school dist neer here and he said they stoped blocking myspace and some other sites on a recent site block update, they allow google image searches but have filters to block out anything thats possably harmfull(thanks to the help of google themselves)

he said the reasion myspace got unblocked was that teachers around the district wanted it unbanned because part of a new program they are working on is to use myspace or a site like it for the kids to meet new people who are from other parts of the world, then get to know them and wright about what they learn, and since myspace is not working very hard to prevent any harmfull acts/content from being posted its the safest option.

they still block public chat rooms like yahoo or msn chat because theres really no reasion to allow dirrect access to them.

if this law was passed it would really screw over alot of teachers and successfull teaching methods/projects.

the bottem line is PAIRNTS NEED TO PAIRENT and not expect the school/govt to do it for them, if they teach their kids proper surfing habbits they will be FAR less likely to get into trouble, my pairnts didnt teach me, but i had alot more common scence then the kids of today(quility if kids goes down as quility of pairnting goes down.....funny how that works)

and i got no problem with schools blocking prOn and sites containing it, infact i block that stuff with my hosts file, the problem i have is blocking usefull valid sites and only leaving access to "barney sites" as my friends call them.

when i was in HS they had the SAFE SEX website blocked, not because it was about sex but because the page url and content had the word sex in it..... had to go to the comp lab where the net was seprat and unfiltered to beable to do research for class, stuff like that is just stupid, specly when any jr high student can figuar out how to bypass such things in a matter of minutes, there are apps out there for people outside the us in countrys with very restrictive net filtering like china, they work for ppl in the us as well running the connection thru a proxy, and i have tested this it works on almost any network bypassing filters......

blah im rammbling, guess my point is that as we agree, we dont need more laws, let along laws writen by people who dont understand what they are trying to wright the laws about(listen to the audio file on the bottem link i poosted, the smuch likens the net to "a bunch of tubes" and says his staff sent him and "internet" and it took it over a day to get to him because "commercial stuff on the internet"........this is clearly somebody who dosnt understand WTF they are dealing with let alone talking about........

maby age+term limmits on senitors/congress would be a good idea, get out the old farts who just cant keep up with the times......

[Tarkus]

Please note, I did not say MySpace was crap. There is nothing wrong with the concept of MySpace, YouTube or any of the other sites like them.

The problem begins with parents who let their kids do as they wish, then want to sue or shut down anything that causes them harm because they were too ignorant to provide proper instruction or supervision.

Also, the schools cannot provide the supervision required.

We have similar problems with cell phones in school. They are used to take pictures in locker rooms, embarrass others, cheat, and so much more.

Technology is fantastic for people like me (and you), but for kids without supervision, it is very dangerous.

Also, many kids rely on technology to solve all their problems. They cannot read, write or understand math because the computer or calculator has the answers.

And so many predators are out there.

I understand the concern. That is why it should be up to the LOCAL schools and communities to decide what they want to do.

I also believe in freedom of speech (including pictures, sound, etc), but "restricting" certain speech from 6 year olds is not taking away rights. That is the responsibility of being a parent.

[ashensugar]

i dont know if i can agree that schools cant monotor internet use properly, my comp teacher had 38-40 students in each of the classes i took and she would walk around and "monotor" us as we worked, she caught a few ppl doing stuff they shouldnt, she didnt bann them instantly but did worse, she called them up front and made them tell everybody what they had done if it happened again they where banned from the class PERIOD, they couldnt even come in to ask to have something printed off for them(also got them banned from the school libery comps as well)
normaly 1 shot infront of the class was enought to make them not look at inapproprete sites.

and pairnts should keep track of what their kids do, not blame others for what their kids have done/seen.

properly informed and montored kids are far less likely to make themselves a target for some pervert.

tark have you read the book starship troopers?

think a good part of the theme is about people taking responcibility for their acctions, if a father dosnt teach his son to be a proper citzen/member of socity and the kid steels/breaks the law in a big way, the father gets flogged as well, seems harse, but imagin our socity if people where acctualy requiered to do the right thing and where punished for not doing it.

i mean i wouldnt want to get flogged, but then again, if that was a punishment i would bet we would see far less peoole in and out of the leigal system, because insted of just being confined for a while and getting free food they wouldnt want to risk getting caught.

if you havent read it, you need to, the books VERY VERY VERY good, totaly kills the movie (tho i liked the movie, and thought a seirse like BSG based on the book would ROCK)

[Tarkus]

Yes, read "Starship Troopers". The movie was made here in SD.