The US based Deleting Online Predators Act 2006 (don’t you just love the name … can you really *delete* a predator?!) lead to a lot of discussion when it was first discussed in May. It was passed in July, though that seems to have attracted rather less attention (possibly because of the problems in the Educational Technology world with the Blackboard patent situation.)
danah boyd briefly posts about it, though she does link to many other threads discussing it more fully. From UK perspective, Josie has made several comments. The BBC also had a report (between DOPA being introduced & passed) about over regulation of school internet:
internet was over-regulated by teachers, with an emphasis on prohibition rather than encouragement.
Granted, the BBC article was looking at the views of learners, rather than teachers/ researchers. Many children (and adults!), if they know something is banned, will want to go there… either to prove that they can, or to find out why someone didn’t want them to go there. What’s really needed is to educate students to use the web intelligently, rather than just block things.
However, will teachers that aren’t so familiar with the whole process of, and opportunties offered by, blogging, may see it as a thing that teenagers do … and think that DOPA is a Good Thing. I hope not.