Banning Bebo and MySpace in Ireland

 – posted August 1st, 2006 by Laurence Veale     Comments (3)

Banning MySpace

Bebo, MySpace and other social networking sites may be completely banned from U.S. schools and public libraries if the DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act) is passed by the Senate next month. It’s already passed through the House of Representatives with a massive majority, so the Senate is the next step. The legislation aims to address the growing use of social networking sites by sexual predators who masquerade as children and arrange to meet children through these websites.

This is particularly relevant here in Ireland, because no such legislation is needed to block sites such as these in schools. Instead, the NCTE (National Centre for Technology in Education), who are responsible for managing the new schools broadband network, have issued guidelines which schools must follow if they are to use the network.

What’s all the fuss?

The latest figures released from the NCTE certainly make for sensational headlines. 7% of children surveyed have met someone in real life that first met on the Internet, and of those 11% of reported that the person tried to physically hurt them. This amounts to 0.77%. Not many, but obviously, it would be crass and insensitive to say this is a small number, because it is 0.77% too much. In a similar 2003 report, NCTE concluded that 12 per cent of Irish chat users have met in real life a person they first chatted with on the Internet. This was at a time when most of the social network sites like Bebo and MySpace didn’t even exist. Between then and now, there’s been a decrease of nearly 50%. So what’s made the difference? My guess is education.

On issuing these guidelines for schools, Jerome Morrissey, Director of the NCTE, is quoted on SiliconRepublic.com as saying

“We have a responsibility to make sure that the material that goes into schools is of educational value. Our first priority will be to provide targeted, focused educational material that aligns directly with learning and teaching objectives”.

But when is a site educational and when is it not? And who decides? The way I connected with my German penpal 17 years ago and how a 13 year old student does today are probably radically different. I used pen and paper, where now they use the likes of Bebo. Is this educational use of Bebo? Certainly, why not?

Education, not prohibition

Education is probably the only solution to the problem. It needs to come from both the schools and parents and it needs to be for both children and their parents. By blocking certain sites from schools, the Department of Education and Science may be limiting their liability, but they’re shifting the problem to parents who are ill-equipped to deal with it. To their credit though, the Department have set up webwise.ie, a resource for parents and children on how to use the web safely.

The threat is probably the same, only the medium has changed and is probably less well understood by parents.”Don’t talk to strangers” is as true a piece of advice as it ever was, but now, it applies equally online.

Thomas Jefferson put in best when he said: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

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