Representative Pomeroy:
I am writing to indicate my opposition to the “Deleting Online Predators Act” or DOPA. To me this proposal seems a misguided overreaction to a legitimate problem. Blocking social network sites will remove many significant learning opportunities without addressing the core problem. Students need to learn about the infrequent, but real dangers of the Internet. Blocking access to a wide collection of sites – many of great value – will not increase student understanding or eliminate the problem once students are outside of the relatively well-monitored environment of the classroom or library.
In my opinion, the opportunity to turn access to specific sites on and off is not a realistic compromise and is seldom actually used. Many small schools in North Dakota receive service through Edutech – a state supported provider. I believe if you check you will learn that it is impractical for this provider to manipulate access for individual web sites for individual schools.
