Update 2: The title is based on a news story, not on Fitzpatrick's fingerpointing at dKos. As I say in the story, the dKos reference tracks back to Murphy and MYDD. That does not change the import of this -- another threat to limit access to "social networking technology" under the guise of protecting children.
I'm a recovering journalist. Long ago, I set up a google alert on Daily Kos while writing a story about Bill in Portland Maine for a Portland, Maine paper. Never bothered to disconnect it, it provided a pretty window to see how the world reacted to our good work here.
Yesterday, that google alert turned up something interesting: a story in the The Doylestown Patriot on the race between the Republican incumbent, Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick and Dem Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania. Google picked the story up for me because of the following sentence:
Fitzpatrick recently introduced legislation to protect children from child predators on social networking sites such as Dailykos, Blogger and MySpace.
I did not know that we were attracting many kids or many on-line predators. And while I know of a few posters here more then willing to eat corrupt republicans for lunch, this seems a bit extreme. In fact, it seems like another attempt to smear the netroots as a danger to our children, and shut us the fuck up.
Some background. Fitzpatrick has written legislation to restrict access to public-discourse websites under the guise of protecting children from on-line predators. The legislation would limit access to websites like DailyKos from libraries and schools, and mandate creation of websites listing dangerous websites that parents could use to block access from their homes.
I spoke with the Chritopher Edwards, who wrote the story for the Doylestown Patriot, and he told me the referrence was taken from Murphy's website, under endorsements. The link leads to a Chris Bowers Mydd post from May 24, endorsing Murphy. The pertinent quote:
It is also important to note that Michael Fitzpatrick, the incumbent in the race, is perhaps the most vehemently anti-netroots member of Congress. The first bill he has authored in Congress seeks to restrict public access to social networking sites, including sites such as Dailykos, Blogger, MySpace, and even MyDD. Obsentibly the bill is to protect children of child predators, but considering that it is written by an endangered incumbent who, as much as any other Republican in Congress, understands the potential power of the progressive netroots, one can only conclude that Michael Fitzpatrick is trying to curb the progressive netroots in order to save his own seat.
I've called both Fitzpatrick's and Murphy's offices, asking for clarification.
Fitzpatrick's secretary said his only goal was to limit access to MySpace. I asked her if Fitzpatrick's goal is to protect children or to limit free speech and political discourse. She said she was unaware that the legislation would limit access to other websites, and promised to ask my quesetions and get back to me.
I'm still waiting for Murphy's PR person to call me back.
I'll update this if there is anything worthwhile said.
And I would ask you to weigh in with your thoughts. I've never seen posting here that I would consider to be by a child-predator; but I don't spend time reading the hidden comments, and I'm assuming such activity would be trolled and the perp banned. I don't think there are huge numbers of kids posting here, either. I wish there were more. But I do know that some posters have had trouble with stalkers in the past.
UPDATE: I spoke with Rep. Fitzgerald's spokesperson, he claims this is only an attempt to limit minor's access to "social networking technology" from their schools and libraries. If you are not a minor, the ban doesn't apply, and the block can be lifted. He gave me the bill number as HR 5319, but that seems to be a forestry bill.
I apologize for implying that Fitz thinks there are predators here; but it got this important issue out there in a way MYDD and others haven't.