House Bill Seeks to ban Teens From Social Networking Sites

are our forums going to be illegal in a few months?

[delphian]

A Pennsylvania congressman has introduced legislation that would ban minors from accessing social networking Web sites such as MySpace, and forbid libraries from making such access available

(snip)

Within the bill, the definition of "social networking site" is left somewhat vague.

In an effort to prevent minors from viewing child pornography, the bill would bar minors from accessing a social networking site, defined as one that "allows users to create Web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, e-mail, or instant messenger."

[foxnews.com...]

My forum has many *many* minors on it. Because of the subject matter, these are a majority of my target audience... :-(

[treeline]

Sounds like it includes E-bay, AOL, Yahoo and email in a defintion that broad. Won't be workable, or pass, but will give him something good to put in his reelection literature on how he "did something" to control the problem.

[tsheridan]

humph - just a publicity stunt as far as I'm concerned

[rogerd]

Ban teens from anything that has "a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, e-mail, or instant messenger"? Not likely... Teens practically invented IM.

[Vishal]

eighteen & nineteen..

Now there is something that can encourage them to vote!

[Mistra]

Good idea. Many forums are corrupting our kids. :D