Illinois is considering new legislation -- almost certainly unconstitutional -- that would require social networking sites to obtain parents' consent before allowing minors to create accounts. The
bill also requires sites give parents full access to their children's profiles, and that sites verify members' ages.
Backers tout the "Social Networking Website Access Restriction Act" as a
measure that will protect kids from predators. It's hard to see how. Whether parents consent to their children being online or not, predators can still approach them. And, even in the unlikely event
that every parent in Illinois successfully prevented their children from accessing social networking sites, predators could still target kids elsewhere.
State legislatures around the country
frequently seem to forget that people under 18 have First Amendment rights. State after state has tried to pass laws banning or restricting the sales of some video games to minors, only to have courts
invalidate those laws. Even laws that don't ban the sale of games, but only require that parents to consent to their purchase, have been nixed, as happened in Michigan in 2003.
What's more, the act arguably does away with people's ability to create anonymous
profiles because it would require social networking sites to use age verification measures. In other words, adults as well as minors would have to provide accurate personally identifiable information
before using social networking sites - a potential infringement on people's long-established First Amendment right to use pseudonyms.
While many users of Facebook and MySpace already use their
real names, the act's definition of social networking sites seems broad enough to encompass just about any site with social networking functionality.
The good news is, the current version of
the bill probably won't pass before Friday, the
deadline for the House to take action this session. But the bad news is just yesterday three new sponsors signed on, bringing to 24 the total number of Illinois lawmakers who like this law so much
they're willing to sponsor it.
Even more bad news: The backers intend to try to refine the bill over the summer and reintroduce it. It's hard to envision any refinements that would salvage
this measure.