A Kentucky lawmaker has filed a bill to make anonymous online posting 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.
If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.
The jerk. This would mean I could no longer post as Meg O’Death, or Evan Delaney. And we’d lose all you Lone Rangers, you masked commenters who drop by here to make me laugh with your comments. Makes me want to go rent V for Vendetta.
Says the Husband: “Eastern Kentucky? They have electricity there?”
But he’s from West Virginia. Of course he’d say that.
And under the proposed bill, calling him the Husband would be illegal. Not only does this stupid, stupid idea almost certainly violate the First Amendment, but how would Kentucky enforce it? Extradite the Husband the next time he’s in Charleston? Send state troopers to my house to impose the fine?
Online anonymity can lead commenters to be rude, cruel, and vulgar. We all know websites with comments sections that are sewers. But this law is a tyrannical, Big Brotherish response to online bullying. Let me handle my own comments section, thank you very much.
And now I would like to thank all of you who contribute to this blog for your incredibly good manners. The comments section here is among the most civil on the net.
(Via Andrew Sullivan.)
15 responses so far ↓
The Husband // March 12, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Ok, so Meg and I are in an uproar about this. How stupid can this guy be? Thank goodness neither this law nor for that matter Kentucky existed in 1776 when Thomas Paine composed Common Sense. Anonymity gave him the opportunity to publish in a world where tyrannical lawmakers were suppressing the will of the people. IMHO the blogger of today is rooted in the fine American tradition of the freedom pamphleteer of the revolution.
Don // March 12, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Well here’s some good news to cheer you two up. OpenID is a new credential standard that is being implemented by a lot of the major websites, including WordPress.
The U.S. government is thinking about creating a national I.D. card based on the standard. And probably enforce its use everywhere, including the web.
Anonymous pseudonym // March 13, 2008 at 12:20 am
And today is Online Free Expression Day, with thousands of people are taking part in “virtual protests” against countries accused of censoring the internet. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7292130.stm
The BBC’s first top tip on how to blog safely if you are afraid that using your real name will put you in danger, is to always use a pseudonym. Perhaps this isn’t necessary in Kentucky (unless you’re a chicken), but I guess Tim Couch doesn’t realise the world extends beyond the borders of the US of A - and it isn’t always a safe place.
DJ
(Doh!)
thymebandit // March 13, 2008 at 12:20 am
Oh the comments are civil are they? Prepares to do my Basil Fawlty impression. Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t do that it doesn’t identify me. Fine. Right. Cybil! You can deal with this.
Snart // March 13, 2008 at 12:26 am
What?! But there are so many facets of my personality…and names to go with them. They want me to narrow myself into ONE identity? Unheard of! Impossible!
Snart must live. As must Muskrat, Impish, Froedel and Blink (okay, so those names just came to me, but they each capture some aspect of my character …for future reference).
Oh, and gang, I think Meg O’Death sounded a bit forlorn that hers is one of the most civil chat rooms on the net.
Perhaps we should shake things up a bit. Here, I’ll start.
Feck (as our Irish friends say), feck those L’Eggs nylons and how they catch on the first burr or thistle that happens to grab a leg as you traipse through the hills on a moonlit night, face blackened and carrying a potato shooter or marshmallow launcher! And double-feck how you can’t possibly stuff a bunny into one of those emptied L’Eggs eggs!
There. Now, DJ or Don or Patti or Susan or any of the other regular lurkers, try to top that!
daveg // March 13, 2008 at 3:07 pm
We sometimes use harder words than ‘feck’ Snart! There’s actually a sliding scale of harshness depending on which vowel you use…
Snart // March 13, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I’ll keep that in mind, Da-veg! I’ll save Fack for something really heinous.
Reese // March 13, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Surely said Kentucky lawmaker has a wee bit too much free time. Any chance there are other issues of more importance in Kentucky like, um, education… Nah…nevermind. I might just have my priorities mixed up.
susan // March 13, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Oh-oh. Does this mean I’d have to come out and post with my real name, Diana Prince?
(um, Snart… I didn’t know they still made L’eggs eggs.)
Name withheld in the interests of anonymity. // March 14, 2008 at 9:38 am
Mankind sent a man to the moon 40 years ago Snart, and has yet to create a runless nylon stocking? It’s all a dastardly plot to seperate ladies from their money.
Meg // March 14, 2008 at 9:46 am
Reese, you want to bet that somebody made fun of said lawmaker on the nasty Interwebs?
Jeff // March 14, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I heard the ACLU chairman say once that when people talk about giving up civil liberties in the interest of security, they really mean to say other people’s liberties.
That explains the law coming from my home state where said lawmaker is probably still trying to get the box to his Commodore 64 open. (I wonder if he bought the optional cassette tape drive.) Ask Walmart not to sell Uzi’s on the other hand and “Well umm… 2nd amendment… well armed militia … DJ Patterson threat…”
But DJ, when you say Tim Couch doesn’t realize there’s a world outside the US, I’m afraid you’re giving him a little too much credit. I’ve been to his district (Hyden) and if there’s a place left in Appalachia where they still handle snakes in church, it’s there (no joke).
As for calling us “civil”, Meg, what a dirty trick! How can I pull out my list of WV jokes now in response to The Husband?
Patti // March 15, 2008 at 2:43 am
…tearing attention away from the highly civilized smashing of curling rocks (”whoa! whoa! hurry! hurry haaaard!”
…
Hmmm, does this mean, Meg, that the truth of your identity might be revealed? The world might know that you are You-Know-Who (nope, not Voldemort).
To get all snarky and Canadian about this fellow from Kentucky (and perhaps even a little uncivil), does he really believe that laws made in the US can govern the rest of the world? Delusions of imperial grandeur make those of us living on the other side of that as-yet undefended but increasingly sticky border a little tense. It might be entertaining, though, to see him galloping over multiple continents to bring this crew of raving bloglodites to justice.
Perhaps His Imperial Majesty is keen on turning online bullying into real-life bullying. Wouldn’t it be grand if every loony-tune with a rage disorder could not just verbally harangue people, but find out easily where their victims live and engage in some non-virtual violence?
Snart, how long did you spend trying to stuff a poor, hapless bunny into one of those l’Eggs eggs?
Susan, er, Diana, your cover will truly be blown if Mr. Couch forces everyone to reveal their taste in jewelry. That big box of bracelets would be a dead giveaway.
Meg // March 15, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Patti, curling? Curling? That mysterious, painstaking, bizarrely hypnotic sport featuring stones and ice and brooms?
You have gifts we have only begun to glimpse.
Patti // March 16, 2008 at 1:06 am
I’m a neophyte, albeit enthusiastic, curler and here in northern Ontario it’s inescapable. My boy has found his sport, though–it’s like chess on ice and there’s lots of smashing, but nobody bashes into you. Since it’s the end of the Brier (national men’s curling championship) the hypnosis is pretty much general over our city.
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