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After some technical analysis, the General Assembly's head tech guru, Mike Gaudiello, has decided that the legislature, like every other governmental entity known to man, can handle allowing its members to access Facebook, The Post's Roz Helderman reports this morning. Curiously, Gaudiello has concluded that Facebook is OK but Myspace is not. Sadly enough for Myspace, nobody seems to care.
Annie Linskey covers state politics and government for The Baltimore Sun. Previously, as a City Hall reporter, she wrote about the corruption trial of Mayor Sheila Dixon and kept a close eye on city spending. Originally from Connecticut, Annie has also lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where she reported on war crimes tribunals and landmines. She lives in Canton.
John Fritze has covered politics and government at the local, state and federal levels for more than a decade and is now The Baltimore Sun’s Washington correspondent. He previously wrote about Congress for USA TODAY, where he led coverage of the health care overhaul debate and the 2010 election. A native of Albany, N.Y., he currently lives in Montgomery County.
Julie Scharper covers City Hall and Baltimore politics. A native of Baltimore County, she graduated from The Johns Hopkins University in 2001 and spent two years teaching in Honduras before joining The Baltimore Sun. She has followed the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pa., in the year after a schoolhouse massacre, reported on courts and crime in Anne Arundel County, and chronicled the unique personalities and places of Baltimore City and its surrounding counties.
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Comments
Now our legislators can again focus on our state's finances.
Posted by: Mark Anderson | February 11, 2009 10:46 AM
REALLY? WHO GIVES A S***? WHY ARE WE PAYING OUR LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT TO PLAY ON THE INTERNET??? Find something better to report on.
Posted by: Nunya | February 11, 2009 11:30 AM
Lumping Facebook with MySpace was ridiculous to begin with. The only thing Facebook and MySpace have in common is that they are social networks. MySpace completely lacks any control of its security or its users' malicioius code-writing activities.
Besides, MySpace has been essentially dead for at least a couple years, but nobody has seemed to let those completely out of the loop know. MySpace will be Friendster in a few years. Friend-who? Exactly!
Posted by: Jeff | February 11, 2009 11:45 AM
Either way, both myspace and facebook are site where people can find old friends. My experience is I have a ton of "friends" on myspace, but only a select are actually friends. The rest are just people I used to go to school with and really have no contact with now. Both sites are a waste and contain a lot of malicious activity. Get real friends and a real life! And lawmakers, quit wasting time and our money on this stuff. This isn't what we pay you for!
Posted by: Rob | February 11, 2009 11:56 AM
This is news? Must be a slow day
Posted by: Anonymous | February 11, 2009 12:22 PM
Guess what Andy Green!! No one seems to care about your article either!!!!! Write about something that matters!
Posted by: Kate | February 11, 2009 12:36 PM
This is unbelievable! With all the problems we have now in the state of Maryland, this is what the Maryland legislators are worried about. First of all, they are their own individuals. What they choose to do online is up to them. If they do something unethical that can jeopardize their jobs, that's on them. There shouldn't be a ban on either facebook or myspace. I understand that myspace has a bad 'rep.' Realistically, the same things that can happen on myspace can happen on facebook. It just hasn't been publicized yet. Facebook, at one time, only allowed college students on its website, which I liked and felt comfortable with. That's why I joined it. Now, anybody can get on facebook just like myspace. You don't have to be in college or high school to join. There are older men on facebook as well as underaged girls. So banning the legislators from one website is not going to make a big difference. You should trust that your legislators will not violate anything. This is stupid.
Posted by: Chanelle B. | February 11, 2009 12:58 PM
Well, hopefully, keeping the assembly members from soliciting underage girls wasn't the primary concern. It was viruses (computer viruses that is) that scared the IT people in Annapolis. But I understand the concern you addressed as well.
Posted by: Jeff | February 11, 2009 1:35 PM
Plenty of us state workers cant get on Facebook. Good to know the higher ups are too good for their own rules.
Posted by: Dave | February 11, 2009 3:35 PM