John Mccain has introduced legislation that would make blogs come under the same legislation as Internet Service Providers. Here’s a powerful summary of how that would affect blogs and other new media, socially-driven sites:
- Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”
- ISPs are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.
- Social networking sites will be forced to take “effective measures” — such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is “associated” with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up for personal diaries.
The pending legislation is all about using fear to regulate free communication online. It limits freedom of speech by using scare tactics. Sound familiar? It’s the same old ‘terror warfare’ that our government is now addicted to—the same one that they’ve used to pass ridiculous legislation that really just allows them more privilege to monitor us and further limit our freedom of speech.
While online data rentention is somewhat effective in the fight against child pornography, laws like this are always misused against innocents and almost ineffective against those it was created to fight. I hope this legislation makes it impossible for the guy to run for El Presidente.
Originally posted on December 15, 2006 @ 7:27 am