A few years ago, my girlfriend was a law student at a university in Washington D.C. Like most law students, she didn't have a lot of money to throw around.

So she rented a large house with some roommates in the northwestern section of town. Not a nice area. Hobos on the corner brown bagging it. Kids in hooded sweatshirts riding bicycles with radios duct-taped to the handlebars. You get the picture. Visiting was an adventure.

There was one apartment complex near her street that was particularly bad. Apartments were constantly robbed. Elevators didn't work. A lot of people were mugged at gunpoint. Most of the muggings took place on a dimly-lit dirt path from the street to the complex. The path went by a tall brick wall that wasn't part of any other structure.

One weekend while I was visiting, a man was shot and killed near that wall. A few days later, another man was killed in the same spot. Right beside the wall.

Now there were all kinds of reasons why there was so much crime near that apartment complex. Not enough police, not enough street lights, occupants not knowledgeable about safety precautions, whatever.

There were also a lot of solutions to those problems: Patrol the block, set up a neighborhood watch, educate the residents. Maybe beautify the property so people felt good about where they live.

But you know what the city did to solve the problem? The city tore down the wall.

That's an extreme example. But it's exactly that type of short-term thinking—remove the visible evidence of a problem, but do nothing to solve the problem itself—that dominates the current discourse about the dangers of social networking sites.

This week two House republicans endorsed legislation that would deny access to commercial Web sites that "create Web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users."

Wow. That's pretty broad language. I'm pretty sure that rules out blogs, as well as any number of personalization services. What's that leave us? Snarky posts about puppies and sunshine? While we're at it, why don't we censor Google because, hey, I hear they link to pornographic material.

The truth is, you're not going to be able to completely censor social networking sites. Just like you can't filter out all the pornography on the Web either. Just like you won't be able to stop spam.

Click here to read more about the MySpace phenomenon.

Now, nobody's denying there are predators online. But banning social networks in schools and libraries is only likely to make the problem worse.

Why? Because it means we're abdicating our responsibility to teach children about how to interact online. And believe me, in the process of teaching children how to interact online, we could all learn a thing or two ourselves.

For example, I was chatting with MySpace researcher Danah Boyd a few days ago, and I think what she said to me goes to the heart of this discussion.

"Most people have not yet learned to deal with a mass audience," she said. "Teenagers, especially, have a conceptualized audience, a group of friends they're making videos for."

Teenagers just throw everything out into the world.

Adults don't have any idea how to interact with a mass audience either. And adults react in the opposite manner: Share less. Shut down. Censor. Obviously, neither approach is optimal.

So isn't this a situation ripe for education for both parties? Instead of passing bills to censor technology—how well has that worked for the MPAA? The RIAA?—shouldn't we be supporting bills that establish education initiatives on digital lifestyles?

Here's a first step: Watch the MySpace Movie. It's an amateur production that's made the rounds online (and offline on Current TV). It'll give you the kids-eye view about what's really going on there.

Step two: Watch The Girl Next Door. That's a studio film about a porn star who helps a high school student make a hip sex education film. That's the kinda educational material we need. (Bonus if you cast Elisha Cuthbert. Yow.)

Step three: If you're going to change kids' behavior, you're going to have to identify with them first. Realize that censoring Web sites in school and libraries is akin to ignoring the problem.

It's like sticking your fingers in your ears and your hands over your eyes—or tearing down a wall where somebody got mugged—and saying "no problem here. Move along."

Edify yourself first. Then edify the kids.

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