| Author |
Message |
    
curmudgeon
Citizen
Username: Curmudgeon
Post Number: 755
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 5:53 pm: | 
|
NJ State Assembleyman Peter J. Biondi (16, Morris & Somerset), the Assembly's 2nd-ranking Republican (the party Conference leader), has introduced legislation that would make MOL, as it exists today, illegal. Not to mention eliminating much of our right to unfettered online political speech.
This bill, if enacted into law, would deny us the right to anonymous online speech of any sort. While I appreciate the idea in the abstract (having been subjected to some pretty nasty, and personal, anonymous abuse on MOL over the years), in the concrete I'd hate it if people's ability to engage in anonymous political speech were so compromised. Even leaving aside political speech, or personal comments - it wouldn't take long before an MOL post criticizing, say, Bunny's pizza, might be seen as grounds for a lawsuit as a damaging, defamatory, statement.
So long, MOL. So long, 1st Amendment.
Biondi's bill, A1327, describes itself this way:This bill would require an operator of any interactive computer service or an Internet service provider to establish, maintain and enforce a policy requiring an information content provider who posts messages on a public forum website either to be identified by legal name and address or to register a legal name and address with the operator or provider prior to posting messages on a public forum website.
The bill requires an operator of an interactive computer service or an Internet service provider to establish and maintain reasonable procedures to enable any person to request and obtain disclosure of the legal name and address of an information content provider who posts false or defamatory information about the person on a public forum website.
In addition, the bill makes any operator or Internet service provider liable for compensatory and punitive damages as well as costs of a law suit filed by a person damaged by the posting of such messages if the operator or Internet service provider fails to establish, maintain and enforce the policy required by section 2 of the bill. The full text of the bill may be found here. |
TomR
Citizen
Username: Tomr
Post Number: 1014
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 8:25 pm: |
|
curmudgeon,
How would this bill make MOL illegal?
All It would accomplish would be to require Dave and Jaimie to maintain a log of posters (as they do now); require those posters to provide Dave & Jamie with their real identities to have continued posting priviledges; and make posters accountable for slanderous postings.
Isn't this much like the policy presently employed by most reputable newspapers which require that letters to the editor identify the writer, if such letters are to be published.
I've been slandered on this message board. I didn't like it much. I doubt you would either.
Or, perhaps, this is more like Phil Ochs characterization of a "liberal"?
Just wondering out loud here in Maplewood.
TomR |
crabby
Citizen
Username: Crabbyappleton
Post Number: 497
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 8:37 pm: |
|
Not like reputable newspapers because the "users" (readers) of a newspaper pay to "use" (read) it. Users (posters) of MOL do not pay to "use" (post). That's a big difference. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 5873
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 8:57 pm: |
|
And TomR... reading Curmudgeon's post again will satisfy you that he too has been slammed on MOL. Almost anyone who has posted in the soapbox has, it is not a measure of anything.
But crabby makes an important distinction.
It would effectively put an end to truth in contractors/nail salons/family friendly restaurant threads. And some of the best (and worst) info on here has to do with exactly that sort of stuff. Never mind the political sphere.
It is crappy legislation and to feather two threads, it cannot be said that the same liberal whiners are screaming about this who have issues with the smoking ban. One's health is not immediately and, potentially, forever altered by a post. If it is then there are bigger forces at work and a good therapist might be in order. |
LibraryLady(ncjanow)
Supporter
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 3080
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 10:19 pm: |
|
Does anyone else hate when two threads (or more) are run on the same topic? Maybe we could all go over to the Political Soapbox to continue this conversation? |
TomR
Citizen
Username: Tomr
Post Number: 1015
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 10:38 pm: |
|
crabby,
And not paying for the priviledge of reading slander makes it different how?
TomR |
TomR
Citizen
Username: Tomr
Post Number: 1016
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 10:42 pm: |
|
Duncan,
Truth is an absolute defense to a slander charge.
I don't see how the bill will affect posters' ability to offer their opinions on whether a contractor did a good job, or even showed up; whether there are too many/few nail salons in our town; or whether one or another restaruant is kid friendly.
People have opinions. They're allowed to express those opinions.
If a poster wants to accuse me of criminal activity, they should have the intestinal fortitude to do so to my face, or at least have the conviction to stand up, and state who they are, and where they can be found.
And as long as you bring up the smoking ban: the two pieces of legislation are admittedly within the authority of the legislature.
They are also both poor uses of that authority.
WRT the smoking ban, most of us liked the result.
WRT the identify yourself or be silent bill, most of us don't like the possible result. (Especially it seems, those who haven't read the bill).
But what's the real difference?
Some of us will benefit under either bill. Some of us will find a burden under either bill.
And lastly, it was you who first labeled liberals as whiners.
TomR |
TomR
Citizen
Username: Tomr
Post Number: 1017
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 10:44 pm: |
|
LibraryLady,
Generally I would agree with you, but...
There is a poster in the other thread with whom I will not converse. And as long as this thread is here, I don't even have to run the risk that they might attempt to engage me.
Why don't you try to bring the rational people from the other thread over to this one?
TomR |
crabby
Citizen
Username: Crabbyappleton
Post Number: 498
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 8:20 am: |
|
TomR- People pay for the newspapers because they are getting real credible news, or let's hope so. MOL is just a bunch of people sitting around in a bar or over coffee shootin' the breeze. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 874
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 8:36 am: |
|
TomR - let me know which people would you like to bring over. I'll send out invitations and RSVP to you. |
thoughtful
Citizen
Username: Thoughtful
Post Number: 179
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 9:10 am: |
|
Some people pay for the World Weekly News. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 5879
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 9:19 am: |
|
TomR, my post seems to have made you really defensive. That wasn't my intention.
You make great point re: truth.
Sorry that what I posted raised your hackles. And I know I brought up the whiny liberals, I'm not sure what your point there is either.
And, frankly, if I were a whiny liberal I would have sued someone on this very board last year for saying unbelievably false and slanderous things. But I didn't cause, frankly, I was right about my position and it is a message board. People who want to try to evicerate me here are welcome to do so, I would only be bothered by it (really bothered by it) if it were someone with whom I had an existing relationship or had at least met in person.
|
Ond
Citizen
Username: Ond
Post Number: 80
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 9:37 am: |
|
TomR,
I think what the proposed legislation does do, though, is to assign direct liability to the message board operators. It would certainly make the operators a direct party to any libel suits with the burden of proof/cost of litigation falling on Dave and Jamie every time someone feels that someone has libeled them. I notice the bill makes no provision for reimbursing legal fees to those wrongly accused of libel or for message board operators who properly maintain records, but might still be sued. I think if this legislation passes, it'll shut down every message board in the state, and probably force those out of state to restrict NJ residents from posting.
It would be a scammer's paradise. Post something controversial, get flamed, sue every possible party, seek substantial damages, and settle out of court for whatever you can get.
At least that's the way I see it. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 12768
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 12:48 pm: |
|
By the sounds of it, there is such a deep lack of merit to the proposal that I wonder if we have any reason to fear it.
I view anonymous posting similarly to offensive speech. I don't like it, I don't advocate it, but I have to defend it. If the net had been invented differently and anonymity were harder to achieve, I'd probably oppose anonymity, and I'd probably oppose making it easier to be anonymous. But the horse is out of the barn, and it's now technologically difficult to make anonymity difficult. The proposal is a little similar to trying to legislate the UN-invention of technology such as photocopy machines and computers that make perfect copies of files (including music and movies).
So do we really have to worry? Maybe there is a hidden motive under the proposal, but I can't figure out what it is.
|
Case
Citizen
Username: Case
Post Number: 1232
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 1:36 pm: |
|
Good point - I'm trying to figure out how they can claim this is a national security issue... but so far I'm coming up very short. |
Stuart0628
Citizen
Username: Stuart0628
Post Number: 229
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 12:54 pm: |
|
There are good reasons to post anonymously, and there are bad reasons to post anonymously. Unfortunately we have not found a way to allow the former and prevent the latter.
We want to permit anonymous soliciting of information (say I want to hear your experiences with Viagra, or Ritalin, or a given bedroom activity, or how to deal with an annoying neighbor. None of this criminal, all of this better treated discreetly). We want to avoid the Internet Troll activity (threatening livelihoods, extorting, embarrassing).
If anyone can figure out a way to write a bill that achieves this distinction, constitutionally, I would gladly support it. |
ML
Supporter
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 2954
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 12:59 pm: |
|
Dave explained how that would work in another thread. |
|
Closed: New threads not accepted on this page