StigmergicWeb

If you listen right now, you can hear that the edublogosphere is buzzing in outrage at the U.S. congress’ proposed Deleting Online Predator’s Act (DOPA). I found out about it from Will Richardson (Congress Targets Social Network Sites), but Stephen, Danah and Raj have mentioned it as well. (and on Kairos News, and Bryan Alexander).

My mind is reeling at just how ignorant this is. If legislators were really concerned about protecting children from predators, they would ban minors from going into shopping malls and school yards, since I’d bet many more children face threats from predators in those venues than online. We’d best ban the kiddies from skating rinks too - who knows who might be taking their picture without permission?

Sayeth Will:

It’s not safety. It’s politics. It’s a hot button issue. It’s fear mongering. It’s power, or the potential loss of it. It’s got to stop.

Too right, Will. It seems to me that this is much more about denying people the right to communicate more than safety. I’ve talked with students who use MySpace, and they know how to choose who to talk to - generally they only allow people they know (and like) in RealSpace to be on their buddy list. And the girls are quite able to discern who the creepy guys are, just like they can in the rest of their life. The kids, to quote the ever-quotable Mr. Townshend, are alright. We’d be much better off spending our time teaching children and young adults how to deal with the creepy guys in the world instead of isolating them for 18 years then expecting them to cope in a world they’ve never been allowed to experience. Will, I think, agrees:

I’ve got two days left in the public school system, so I can still feel insulted. Insulted that I’m not trusted to make good decisions about the technology. Insulted that I’m not trusted to teach my students what they need to know to be safe. Insulted that my school space is being trotted out as a place where kids are running amok online all for the sake of political gain. Talk about dangerous…

I’m glad to hear that Will is full of righteous indignation. I hope that , whatever he ends up doing after the next two days, he’ll remember that the students and teachers in the school need his help (and your help, too) to protect their right to communicate.

Thomas Hawk, writer of the uber-great FlickrNation blog, puts it all in a nutshell - You’ve Got to Fight, For Your Right… to Take Photos of Your Own Kid at a Public Ice Skating Rink?

The sheer irony of a public skating rink disallowing photography in a public place while the push is on by governments of every level to cram cameras into every public place makes my bones ache. We are being asked to give up our rights to interact in public places based on a perceived threat that is undoubtedly far less than it is represented in the media. What’s next - we’ll need government approval to look and listen as we walk on a sidewalk?

OK - enough ranting. I’ll return back to my regular edu-geeking. Or maybe I’ll keep ranting. Yesterday, Stephen (announcing his official return from hiatus) said:

…we do not need great leaders. There will be no revolution, no rennaissance, until we change ourselves, until we ourselves become the embodiment of the caring and compassionate society we want to create. How hard that is! I return from my time away more aware than ever of how fallible, how ordinary, how human I am. Oh my yes, I have my apologies to give and my amends to make. Still, no matter how hard it is, we need to believe in ourselves, to believe we can make a difference, to believe we matter, to believe we can live freely. This, above all, must be our legacy.

Maybe what we need is a little more ranting, a little more critical dialogue, and a little less willingness to pass off the stuff we don’t like as someone else’s problem.