Will “weblogg-ed” Richardson and Alex Halavais have both posted about a bill under discussion in the U.S. Congress that would require schools to ban any web sites where students might see sexy things and/or be exposed to sexual predators. Apparently, the legislation is targeting sites like MySpace but it’s likely to catch all kinds of other services (wikis, blogs, etc.) in its net. Will and Alex say smart stuff about all this.
Personally, I still think MySpace is kind of stupid, and in a way, I don’t have much of a problem with schools blocking it from their computers. I mean, students while at school probably have better things to do than to browse MySpace. But my sense is that most of the kids using MySpace aren’t messing with it at school anyway.
My college, Spokane Falls CC, has blocked myspace during peak hours, I think from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. because it was the most visited site from campus and the IT folk felt the bandwidth could be better used. This block is only from the open lab in the library (the only open lab we have). I can still go there if I want from my office computer or classroom computers. It has been a problem when students have stored their homework there, planning to print it out at school, only to find they can’t call it up.