Cyberbullying and Bullying Used As Pretexts for Censorship
We read:
"In the name of fighting “cyberbullying,” many New York legislators would like to force blogs to remove blog comments that offend readers, unless they “disclose information about the authorship of the supposedly offensive post including the writer’s name and home address.” As a law professor notes, the cost of doing that “might well be prohibitive for many Web site operators, whose only option at that point would be just to delete all the comments.”
On the bright side, the Tennessee legislature has belatedly heeded public criticism, and limited the state’s ban on posting images that “cause emotional distress” to comply with the First Amendment.
The U.S. Senate has passed restrictions on speech aimed at cyberbullying and “harassment” that UCLA School of Law’s Eugene Volokh has concluded violate the First Amendment, including an expansion of “stalking” provisions that were used unsuccessfully to prosecute a Twitter user who repeatedly criticized a religious leader. These provisions are contained in the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011, in a version of the bill that has passed the Senate but not the House.
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4 comments:
As we all know, in most cases, these anti-free speech regulations are meant to protect the elected lying crooks themselves, and not anyone else. Those same elected lying crooks know that they can pretty much get away with anything they choose to do to the public, because that public is weaker and more gullible than at any time in our history.
Anyway they can do to control and monitor the internet theyll do it BIG BROTHER IS A PRICK
"Big Brother" is what you get from a weak, gullible, and mindless public, which tolerates these abuses.
History has shown us that almost all so-called democracys eventually disolve because of the weakness and tolerance of the people. The EU, and America, are perfect examples.
From a technical standpoint, this bill may be un-enforceable as it requires commentors to register an IP that corresponds with their home address.
That would eliminate speech from a cyber cafe and other sources. It would eliminate speech who access the net through a cable modem, which issues a new IP each time it is powered off and on.
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