this, otoh? not so much

[somedaybitch]

McCain-Feingold seeks to regulate blogging

Q: Why wouldn't the news exemption cover bloggers and online media?

A: Because the statute refers to periodicals or broadcast, and it's not clear the Internet is either of those. Second, because there's no standard for being a blogger, anyone can claim to be one, and we're back to the deregulated Internet that the judge objected to. Also I think some of my colleagues on the commission would be uncomfortable with that kind of blanket exemption.

somebody tried that once here. i believe it was the British, in oh, the late 1700's? we kicked their asses back across the pond. and both of us were better for it. (hugs the Brits.)


i can't speak to how disappointed i am in John McCain. i thought he had more sense.

speech is unregulated for a reason, Senator. you're going after the Internet just proves to me that even you believe that the MSM is ineffective and you're targeting the 'net because it isn't, because we are using it to educate ourselves, think for ourselves, and we're coming to our own conclusions because the information is out there.

you sir, can kiss my ass.



hat tip to the Democracy Project.
Instapundit has blogosphere reactions linked here.

be sure to scroll all the way down and catch Democracy-Project's updates, especially this one by Tom West. it's worth reading all by itself.

to wit:

Applied to free speech, the liberal view leads to the conclusion that government must limit spending by those who can afford to publish or broadcast their views. As University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein writes, the traditional autonomy of newspapers "may itself be an abridgment of the free speech right." Government interference with broadcasting content through FCC licensing is from this standpoint a positive good for free speech. Without it, rich white males will dominate, and the poor, women and minorities will be marginalized and silenced. Therefore, in the liberal view, speech rights must be redistributed from the rich and privileged to the poor and excluded.

kinda makes ya'll hypocritical now, doesn't it?

University of Maryland professor Mark Graber endorses this view: "Affluent Americans," he writes, "have no First Amendment right that permits them to achieve political success through constant repetition of relatively unwanted ideas." In other words, if you publish or broadcast "too much," government has the right, and the duty, to silence you. Yale law professor Stephen Carter agrees: "Left unregulated, the modern media could present serious threats to democracy." Sunstein calls for a "New Deal for Speech," in which government will treat speech in exactly the same way as it already treats property, namely, as something that is really owned by government, and which citizens are only permitted to use or engage in when they meet conditions established by government to promote fairness and justice.

uhm, no.

Arguments like these are the deepest reason that liberals no longer follow the Constitution, and why Americans today no longer know what the free speech clause really means.

well, yeah. in the case of the far left, why would a socialist follow the Constitution?

Comments

hhmmm welcome to a tar-baby of a problem...

[arthurfrdent.livejournal.com]

I have a bit of a different take on this if I may. The REAL problem [IMHO natch] is how Political Free Speech and Political Campaigning relate to each other. In order to regulate campaigns you have to know the costs of advertising, so that bill gates can't easily buy himself an election by simply advertising as much as he wishes. This makes sense for traditional advertising media... The problem is that the 'net is a horse of a WHOLLY different colour. It exists almost as an alternate reality of flowing ideas. Pretty ideas that are often at no cost unlike print, and are much more individualized unlike TV. Now you could go out with breadboard and stump for a candidate and reach many people. You are an individual, as long as local ordinance is compliant, you're cool. You are gicving your opinion to help a candidate you believe in.

Now what if being net savvy and having a few tools laying around, you make the next killer APP. A nice slick popunder that hits the net and since you added a,b,c, new technologies to it, it gets on everyone's computer. Naturally it will be ignored by many, reviled by many, etc. But in essence it has become ADVERTISING, because you are able to target SO MANY people. People that normally you WOULDN'T be able to target WITHOUT advertising in a traditional way. Has that provided a value to the candidate that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get without spending money? Is the value LARGE in relation to the other things they are doing?

So when is a blogger advertising his or her chosen candidate, and how much should that be worth. If the time isn't charged to the candidate, could you call that a public service announcement, and does the other candidate get equal time? See where I'm going with all this? I don't think the question is nearly as straightforward as it appears, because the Value of an Idea is generally not looked at as commodity on an individual's level. There are 300mil in the US, so obviously popular support is only apparent en masse. With the web one person can do things en masse by themselves, BECAUSE of the inherent power of the technology.

The reason this hasn't happened yet [spam attack from dean, coul be someday] is that many people look at the net in a confused way. It acts SO different, and it's IMMEDIATE, so no one knows what to do. Now I certainly don't think there IS a way to actually regulate this, I think they're full of it on that, still, are we working toward the candidate with the best IT winning? MORE SPam email every season?

The net is our own little playground, but it can be a VERY commercial place, and the first party to figure on exploiting THAT, across the net may well win. Think if all the deaniacs, had started their own savvy LJ's? linking and cross linking to normal stuff, but always with a bit of dean attached. How ubiquitous does he become, with practically NO capital outlay...

There is a line between your individual belief and advertising... but it is uncertain where it is and to what degree. and each day gets a bit blurrier.

hope that makes some sense, cuz y'know it ME after all ;) AFD

Re: hhmmm welcome to a tar-baby of a problem...

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

Now what if being net savvy and having a few tools laying around, you make the next killer APP

an APP isn't a blog. there is a world of difference between someone actively using the internet to advertise for a political candidate and someone forwarding a link from a political candidate's site to one's personal email list, or soundly thumping a political candidate's recent stupid statement on one's blog. Glenn Reynolds doesn't advertise. he does have a blog that has gazillions of readers, and when he expresses an opinion, it reaches half the freakin' planet. but that's not him advertising for a candidate. that's him expressing his personal political opinion about something.

not the same thing.

Re: hhmmm welcome to a tar-baby of a problem...

[arthurfrdent.livejournal.com]

'tis true... but the murky part is...what happens if someone was to pay Glenn [someone like him: really can't imagine he'd violate his own conscience, but I'm a terrible character judge] to put out a specific point of view? or to smear a particular point? Does it matter to the free speech argument if this is done? It isn't a stretch to see that being a problem.

This is precisely where I feel legislating this will fail. Seems like pure market dynamics to me. You throw up a Liberal blog, and you immediately have something in opposition, and prolly one thinking BOTH are wrong. because of the tchnology it is virtually impossible to make one quiet without some dirty tricks of course. I can see the arguments for and aginst finance reform, this is no easy question. Some of the presuppositions are faulty though. The power I was talking about above and in the previous comment are the power that one person or idea can field against many. This is what lawmakers seem to be talking of, so I get their point, I just think it's wrong. the net is far more than a 2 way street, and every opinion can be heard EVEN IF one was to spam everyone with their own, opposition would too. So it would find a balance. But I don't believe M/F and their advisors are looking at it that way. That is why bloggers are in the cat-bird seat for this. There is the impression that the blogsphere is another conduit for news. But M/F know it isn't gov't regulated, so they figure it may not be a level field, and they want to make it so. Broadcast News talks about Cands. but not TOO them unless it is equal for all, because of the election commision rules. Bloggers inherently don't do that. BUT! They also don't NEED to, because there is always another blogger who will talk with the other candidate, expose impropriety or whathaveyou.

I guess that's a long rambly way of saying that all M/F understand is the scope of possiblity of NET, but NOT useage.

That is why I emntioned the Killer APP too. That is the NEXT level beyond a blogger. A blogger states an opinion that followers come and GET. What of someone who can essentially force their opinion on you? If you establish the Blogger as regulatable, then you have the prescedence to extend that to the next level and say "well bloggers are pseudo news orgs, and these new punks aren't quite bloggers BUT they are close and SO we can regulate them because..." QED

may or may not make sense... mostly cuz, frell the spelling OI, and the brain right behind it...

[gingerwood.livejournal.com]

Ok, my question has to do with this line.
Second, because there's no standard for being a blogger, anyone can claim to be one,

What's the standard for being a journalist? I honestly thought that anyone [b]could[/b] claim to be one.

but at least there used to be a test for that...

[arthurfrdent.livejournal.com]

do you get paid to do that. Now... mmm dunno.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

What's the standard for being a journalist?

i find that journalism exclusion interesting. i'd wager that they wouldn't have made it if the MSM was conservative.