Missing the MySpace Vote

"Presidential hopefuls Duncan Hunter of California and Ron Paul of Texas, both Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, last year voted in favor of a bill that would have forced schools and libraries receiving federal funds to block access to MySpace and other social-networking web sites on their computers. So it seems odd, the American Library Association (ALA) contends, that the two lawmakers are among the 11 candidates who at press time had created personal profiles on a special section that MySpace has dedicated to the 2008 presidential election.

'It is kind of ironic,' said Melanie Anderson, ALA's assistant director for government relations. 'We do think it's interesting how many of the same politicians who support DOPA are using social-networking web sites in their own campaigns....'

But if DOPA had become law, Anderson and others say, students likely couldn't access any of the MySpace web pages devoted to the 2008 presidential candidates on their school computers--and library patrons probably would not have been able to find these pages, either." [eSchool News, Thanks, Deborah!]