Anonymous Comments To Be Made Illegal
March 10, 2008
No. Seriously. It’s not April’s Fools, yet.
“Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal. The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site. Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.”
Okay, this won’t only affect us or say, Wonkette, but it will also be an issue for sites such as Wikileaks. Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.
You know, but here’s the thing… How does anyone know if a commentator makes up an email and snail mail address? All they need to do is create a dummy Gmail account and that’s that. What? Is Gawker going to check that every postal address is a real one for every comment? It’s impossible.
Anyway, we’ll be keeping an eye on it, but of course.
[source]
March 10, 2008 at 5:50 pm
It seems that the real issue someone might care about would be taking someone’s name, let’s say George Parker, and sending a COMMENT under that name.
Bearing in mind that you could always get that Professor from Vassar–the one who outed Joe Klein as ANONYMOUS author of Primary Colors through an analysis of his style–to analyze the COMMENTS see if George’s douchenozzles and Orwellisms flowed from George’s keyboard or someone else.
What is “online bullying” anyway?
March 10, 2008 at 6:26 pm
rep. couch seems blissfully unaware that america makes for only a slight fraction of internet users. I always have a chuckle when american airlines wants to tell me about “federal law prohibiting smoking in lavs” when we’re in heathrow.
it’s bullshit, it’s bound to fail, end of story.
and just for good measure: tim couch is a nutbag.
March 10, 2008 at 6:40 pm
This is unenforceable, and also a violation of free speech. Writers have been using pseudonyms since the days when Ugg the cave painter signed his name Bonk, to impress cave-chicks.
March 10, 2008 at 7:25 pm
NUTBAGS MAKE AS MANY LAWS AS NON-NUTBAGS—MAYBE MORE JUDGING BY THE LAWS
March 10, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Free speech issues obviously come into play here…
But in the case of genuine harassment or predatory activity, can’t they just check the IP address of the message? Even then, that’s no guarantee of who the author is.
March 10, 2008 at 10:02 pm
^IP is easily spoofed or masked. If you have a dynamic IP than it changes every time you reboot your computer. Also, what about PC Cafe’s or public computers? There’s no way to track people using those really.
This law is trash, violation of Free Speech, and unenforceable. When will our politicians stop wasting our time and tax money on pointless bullshit?
March 11, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’m actually curious what First Amendment problems we have here. There are -some- restrictions, i.e. hate speech, libel, slander, yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre when there’s no fire… where Freedom of Speech isn’t going to save you.
I think tracking violators may be the rate limiting step and would add a level of complication to law enforcement agencies that seems to have problems following the laws they’re charged to enforce, cops speeding, single drivers of gov’t cars in HOV lanes, county employees holding their handsets to their heads and talking while driving, governors engaging escort services in states where those services are illegal…
The international implications simply add a whole other set of concerns. The EU has got a much more serious set of privacy laws which may make the implementation of this legislation im-frakkin-possible.
My knee-jerk reaction -was- a questioning of this particular legislator’s grasp on reality. While an attempt to find a way to confront cyberbullies is admirable, there are other more pressing issues in today’s culture that may treat the underlying causes of such bullying.
April 10, 2008 at 9:33 am
This law is utterly stupid. As someone said earlier, webmasters are protected by precedent from anonymous postings on websites and blogs.
I thought the Don’t Date Him Girl website cleared that up.
What an idiot.