Alaska- A bill proposed by U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens could limit children’s access to chat rooms and Web sites like MySpace.com in public schools and libraries, and aims to make online porn harder to stumble upon — or at least easier to avoid.
The sweeping proposal also calls for stiffer penalties for failing to report child pornography, would require Web sites to label sexually explicit material and would restrict the sale of children’s personal information, such as names and e-mail addresses.
“Sen. Stevens is a strong advocate for online child safety, and the goal of this bill is to protect children from online predators,” Stevens spokesman Joe Brenckle wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.
Stevens, R-Alaska, introduced the legislation on Jan. 4. At least two elements of the bill — called the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act — have been proposed before to mixed results. While Stevens’ staff said the bill is a work in progress, critics have already raised questions about free speech and the effectiveness of trying to control pornographers.
One provision would require schools and libraries that get certain federal funding to block or limit access to social networking Web sites. The bill would leave the definition of such sites to the Federal Communications Commission, but such popular Web sites as MySpace, Facebook and Friendster all fit the criteria outlined in Stevens’ proposal.
Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., introduced a nearly identical plan called the “Deleting Online Predators Act” last year. It easily passed the House 410-15, but stalled in the Senate.
Supporters saw it as a tool to shield children from creeps trolling for victims online, while critics said it was too vague and could end up barring kids from using harmless or educational sites.
Stevens’ proposal would also require Web sites to label or “mark” pages that have adult content — even embedding a red flag in the Web page’s code to make it easier for people to filter and avoid. The plan is similar to part of a communications bill that died last year.
Proponents of that proposal said it would keep kids from stumbling onto pornographic material, while critics such as the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology — which opposes Stevens’ new proposal too — called it unconstitutional and said it could lead to things like song lyrics and PG-13 movies being labeled “explicit.”
Stevens’ bill has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee, where Stevens is vice chairman. His committee staff say they’re listening to potential critics and have been meeting with industry and family groups.
The bill was introduced “as a starting point to begin the discussion on this important issue,” Brenckle wrote.
The Anchorage School District already blocks access to MySpace on its computers. Anchorage public libraries do not, said libraries director Karen Keller.
More than half of Americans aged 12 to 17 use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey.
Conducted over three weeks in October and November, the survey of 935 teens showed that 72 percent of social networking teens use the sites to make plans online, while 49 percent say they use them to make new friends.
Bloggers, Internet pundits and “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart all questioned Stevens’ Internet cred last year when the senator described how the Web works at a June Commerce Committee session.
“The Internet is not something you just dump something on,” Stevens said. “It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes.”
But others have said Stevens is more savvy than his critics give him credit for.
“We would love if all senators were as sophisticated on technical issues as Sen. Stevens,” Microsoft’s top lobbyist, Ed Ingle, said last summer.
His new bill put Stevens back in the blogosphere’s cross hairs. A description of Stevens’ proposal was recently one of the most popular items on the news-sharing Web site www.digg.com — which itself could be defined as a social networking site because it asks users to register and allows them to post comments and interact.