NJ Blog Cops
No anonymous posting in New Jersey if this bill becomes law.
According to news accounts:
A New Jersey politician is hoping to outlaw anonymous speech on the Internet, claiming that civility must be mandatory in political debate.
State Assemblyman Peter J. Biondi, a Republican from Somerset County, recently introduced legislation that would require any "public forum Web site" to solicit the legal name and addresses of everyone who can post messages to it.
What irks Biondi, a top Republican in the state assembly, is the political free-for-all that has grown around the New Jersey Star-Ledger's discussion site at NJ.com. The site's forum for Somerset County--that is, Biondi's home district--is home to a slew of pseudonymous posts that tend to be less than kind to local politicians.
When news reports revealed that Somerset County Sheriff Frank Provenzano appropriated more than $5,000 from a petty cash account to pay for his dry cleaning, the NJ.com posts were not flattering. One message from "nodoubletalk" called Provenzano a "thief, plain and simple," while one from "xyzzy" quipped: "That's what we get for voting Republican."
I hope that never happens in Wisconsin.
Besides personally missing the Internet stylings of "Dennis York," this blog would also suffer.
I mean, how could I go on without being called a racist, a simpleton, a dumbass or a Vikings fans in the comments section all the time.
3 Comments:
I seem to recall the Founding Fathers using pseudonyms in a lot of their writings, including the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. Of course, that's not quite the same as "anonymous".
One thing that WordPress offers that Blogger doesn't is the ability to see the IP address and (alleged) e-mail of who posts. Haven't really had to use it yet (except in the attempts to wipe out spam; WP doesn't offer word verification)).
I read Wigderson Library & Pub all the time. - anonymous
Seriously, given New Jersey's corruption (the Louisiana of the Northeast), a few anonymous blogs are just what the state needs. Of course, the law is unconstitutional, except in the version written by Russ Feingold.
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