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The Trouble With Social Networks
by Michael Martinez
The booming popularity of social networking has made online hot spots such as Facebook, MySpace and Xanga central fronts in the war on sexual predators lurking on the Internet.
Law enforcers have cited networks such as MySpace, which boasts more than 100 million users, in recent criminal investigations. Stories about the dangers that the sites pose for the young people flocking to them also have spurred lawmakers in several states to action.
But the most recent wave of state-level proposals already is being subjected to constitutional scrutiny. Legal and policy experts are predicting that the fight to protect the millions of minors in the social-networking universe is going to play out in court as much as it will online.
Age Verification And Parental Oversight
Connecticut became ground zero for the social-networking debate earlier this year when lawmakers and law enforcers unveiled a plan that would require sites like MySpace to adopt age-verification policies. The proposal, which has been championed by state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, would mandate that the sites verify the ages of their users, obtain parental consent from minors to post profiles, and give parents access to the pages their children create. The plan would impose fines up to $5,000 per violation.
In an e-mail statement, Blumenthal said the legislation sprang from a working group his office is leading within the National Association of Attorneys General. He said the fact that MySpace recently provided a link to free blocking and privacy software on its site is a testament to the group's effectiveness.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has been active on the social-networking front as well. Last month, Cooper urged lawmakers in his state to mandate parental consent for children to use social networks. Legislators in Georgia also are considering a proposal that would make it illegal for minors to establish accounts without parental permission.
MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said that while proposals such as Blumenthal's are well-intentioned, they are not the answer to making cyberspace safer for children. He said the site already is dedicating its resources to address child safety issues and will continue to do so.
WiredSafety.org Executive Director Parry Aftab said lawmakers and law enforcers are in a tough spot because their constituents are demanding action on the issue. But she said Blumenthal's proposal, which she argued blocks minors from accessing Web sites that are the "future of the Internet," is dead on arrival constitutionally.
"In my opinion, it won't work," she said. "And I don't waste my time on things that won't work."
Aftab said attorneys general and lawmakers need to do more to reach out to private-sector players to tailor a solution. The only law she said she would like to see is one that would require social networks to remove certain content at the request of parents. "We all need to sit down together and work this out," she said. "I'm frustrated because we have to do better than this."
In The COPA Cabana
Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the author of a recent paper on the issue, also said proposals to impose age-verification mandates raise severe constitutional concerns. He added that he does not believe some of the techniques being discussed would do much to prevent minors from accessing the sites. "This debate is being driven by moral panic and fear of these sites that in a lot of ways is irrational," Thierer said.
A federal court decision issued last week may affect the social-networking debate at both the federal and state levels.
U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed on Thursday ruled that the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 federal law that was blocked by the courts before it ever took effect, is unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union and others sued the federal government over COPA, charging that its implementation would violate the First Amendment.
Reed said COPA is overly broad and "impermissibly vague." His 84-page opinion also questioned the effectiveness of age-verification technologies in preventing minors from accessing Web pages. "I find that there is no evidence of age-verification services or products available on the market to owners of Web sites that actually reliably establish or verify the age of Internet users," Reed wrote.
Thierer said the COPA ruling could impact how lawmakers approach social-networking sites. "They have to be aware of the fact that this certainly will raise questions about the constitutionality of those measures and subject them to an even easier immediate court challenge if they are implemented," Thierer said.
But Blumenthal said the COPA debate should not affect the legitimacy of his proposal in Connecticut. "Our bill deals with online social communities -- protecting children from the harm resulting when people provide false information in these social-networking sites," he said. "In drafting our social-networking bill, we already carefully considered the issues addressed in [the COPA] ruling."
Aftab said the decision is relevant in that it serves as another reminder to lawmakers that they need to rethink their online child-safety strategies. "I think people need to realize that there are better ways to go about all of this than legislating," she said.
The Next Front: Online Dating Sites
State lawmakers also have become interested lately in regulating dating sites, another wrinkle in the battle to protect Internet users from online sexual predators.
The issue has surfaced in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Texas. Legislation introduced in New Jersey this past month also would require dating sites to inform residents there about whether they do background checks on participants. That proposal would bar all of the state's registered sex offenders from using the Internet.
Thierer said states need to proceed carefully on that issue as well because of the potential for clashes with the Constitution, specifically the clause that gives Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce. He said the issue has not garnered nearly as much attention as age verification for social-networking sites.
"It's a real double whammy for states constitutionally," Thierer said. "And no one really seems to be talking about this end of the debate."
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