DOPA and the New Bubble
The World Trade Center atrocity happened in September during moose hunting season. All of the bush planes in Alaska were grounded along with general air traffic in the US. Never mind that there were hunters out in the bush waiting to be picked up who had no idea why their ride didn’t show. Terror reached all the way out to the end of the earth and gave a few anxious hunters who truly had no clue something to wonder and worry about.
That was the beginning of Bush’s War on Terror. Those hunters came back to a changed world. Terror is big business these days. The protagonist in Bruce Sterling’s The Zenith Angle is a cyberwarrior, a geek with an attitude, who called terror “the new bubble.” It feeds on an advertising ploy. Create a market by selling insecurity, and then cash in on the fix. The predatory profit makers are like wolves who maneuver the public into thinking that they’re being done a favor. Congress helps with the legislative muscle to guarantee success, and they get to claim responsibility for their far-sightedness.
The “Deleting Online Predators Act” may not be about making money for anyone at this point, but it still stinks. It looks like reckless election year political grandstanding. It requires “recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms” which everyone knows are dangerous. Once it passes, the kids will be safe and life will go on. We’ll be able to relax and think about North Korea, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Muslims again. We’ll have things under control.
Locking down school web servers in the name of child safety won’t seem like such a bad idea to most people. The way the average person sees it there’s no cost to this. It’s a no-brainer. The kids are in school to learn, and they shouldn’t be messing around with the internet anyway. There will only be a few teachers wondering about the why of it all, like those moose hunters.
I wonder if we’re going to have to spend the winter out here, because I didn’t come prepared for that long a wait. Maybe we should build a big signal fire to get someone’s attention. But then, we haven’t seen any planes flying at all. Who do you think will come to pick us up? There’s one thing I do know about being lost - Don’t panic. We’ll figure something out. It may be a bit rough, but it could be interesting.
2 Cents Worth » Re: DOPA and the New Bubble wrote,
[...] Doug Noon, at Borderland, has posted a powerful statement about the House of Representative’s passage of HR5319, DOPA. The article is called DOPA and the New Bubble. Noon also references a posting at Techcrunch, one of the top technology blogs on the Net. Read US House: Schools must block MySpace, many other sites. [...]
Link | July 28th, 2006 at 2:52 am
Teaching Generation Z » U.S.D.O.P.A wrote,
[...] All through my US based links on my Learning Network, the feedback and disbelief is being realised as edublogger after edublogger posts about the successful passing of the US Government’s DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act). The first post I read on the issue came from Mark Ahlness, then I read Will Richardson, then Vicki Davis and Doug Noon. In a nutshell, DOPA means this: It would require that, as a condition of receiving E-Rate support, all schools and libraries block access to social networking websites and chat rooms. [...]
Link | July 28th, 2006 at 4:09 am
Carlos Tabora wrote,
Sign the SAVE YOUR SPACE petition opposing HR5319.
Although HR5319 is titled the “Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA)”, the bill is very misleading. What most people don’t realize is that this bill is misleading. If you take a closer look at DOPA, you’ll find that this legislation actually limits your rights to access and express yourself on the Internet instead of “deleting online predators”. But before this legislation becomes law, there are several more steps including getting approval by the Senate and, ultimately, being signed by President George W. Bush.
Unfortunately, the public only sees what the media and politicians tell them. They need to hear from the actual users of social networking sites.
The SAVE YOUR SPACE petition is your chance to be heard and to show the public, the media and the U.S. government the importance and amazing power of social networking sites.
Help us get 1,000,000 signatures in 1 month.
Visit http://www.saveyourspace.org for details.
Link | July 28th, 2006 at 5:22 am
Bill Kerr wrote,
MySpaceDOPA is an excellent interview IMO, from earlier this year (Henry Jenkins, Danah Boyd)
There appear to be 15 intelligent people in Congress
Link | July 29th, 2006 at 4:31 am
Queenannelace wrote,
I kinda of see this like US Prohibition - it’s not going to work. We need to be able to teach our students (and teachers) to use this media wisely. Like Drug Education, if we don’t talk about it, gross abuses will continue; however, if we show how the media may be used and be role models to its potential, I have a feeling we will be able to show the benefits of being a global collaborative group.
Link | July 29th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
leigh wrote,
6 Ideas for dealing with DOPA
Link | July 30th, 2006 at 11:16 pm