Myspace and other social networking sites won’t be accessible from schools or libraries as a result of  congressional legislation passed a few days ago.   The Myspace ban was a fairly predictable type of response from congress, reflecting increasing concerns by adults who basically had no idea what their children were doing online.

The Myspace ban is very unlikely to have much of an effect on anything since kids, and the predators the bill is supposed to help thwart – probably were not using these access venues very much.   Hopefully the news about this will get some parents to pay closer attention to their children’s online activities, which in general should be supervised far more than they are by all but a few parents.

As a parent I’m more supportive of restrictions and content filtering than most other internet folks, but I think the entire debate is missing a key point regarding a dramatic change in social norms.

I’d suggest that changes in social norms are something like those that happened in the USA in the 1960’s in both scope and substance, but that these changes in morality, personal identity, and social responsibility are “going global” thanks to online activities, online communities, and the explosive cross-cultural connectivity facilitated by 24/7 broadband access and online awareness.

Silly laws like this will hardly put the online Pandoras back in their boxes.   However it will also be funny to hear free speech zealots whining about government intervention which will never have a chance of making truly significant changes.

The ships of sweeping social change sailed long ago and they are powered by exploding global online communities.   Our best course is to look forward to the uncharted waters.