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March 10, 2008
Kentucky fried free speech?
This morning I read something nice about blogging -- that it -- along with Google, Starbucks, domain names, Spam (the meat, not the digital junk), professional wrestling, lingerie and teenagers -- may be a recession proof industry. I like that, as I'd hate to think that "the economy" and what it allegedly is going to do might affect my ability to blog (to say nothing of the ability of readers to read stuff which costs them absolutely nothing). The only way blogging would suffer from an economic downturn would be if a blogger had to spend more time working off line. I suppose that if things got really and unthinkably nasty, and the power grid got shut down, then blogging might be affected, but otherwise, I think blogging is generally recession-proof. Unfortunately, blogging is not government-proof. Despite the First Amendment (and its counterparts in every state), there's no end to attempts to regulate free speech online. In the latest bit of legislative idiocy, Kentucky Representative Tim Couch proposes criminalizing anonymous postings and comments: Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.According to another report, Couch has also been the "the subject of anonymous online roasting," which means the bill may represent a personal motivation. I think it's not only unconstitutional, but it flies in the face of this country's founding, and notably the Federalist Papers, which were anonymous postings. (Yeah, they had no Internet, so they printed them up and handed them out or posted them on walls and poles.) This idea that the Internet is more evil than other forms of human communication never ceases to amaze me, and this is a typical example. This comes on the heels of an ongoing threat to blogging -- the use of copyright laws to defeat free speech. The most recent example was the AP suing to shut down SnappedShot.com -- a blog which parodied and criticized misleading or dishonest AP photos. Glenn Reynolds linked Jules Crittenden's extensive roundup of negative reactions like this: ...if this tactic works, can it not be used by every mainstream news source out there to silence criticism of them?All written MSM text is copyrighted too. Which means that by logical extension, bloggers could be dragged into court for the practice of "Fisking" news editorials and articles, because of course it is necessary to quote text in order to criticize it. Al Franken and Michael Savage maintained that there was no right to criticize them if the criticism involved using their names. (And of course the Saudis have a well-oiled (!) legal network which uses the legal system to defeat the First Amendment rights of critics in other ominous ways.) I've complained about these things for years, and it reminds me of the Che Guevara parody issue. Ridicule Communist propaganda, and the Commies will haul you into a capitalist court -- alleging infringement of their "property rights." Read together in the context of blogs, the emerging doctrine is that you have no right to criticize anyone anonymously, and no right to criticize or ridicule copyrighted material by citing it. Which would mean an end to blogging as we know it. It's easy to dismiss a silly law by a kooky legislator in Kentucky along the lines of "I'd never move there, so what do I care?" Dr. Helen recently observed that she wouldn't fit in this town, which wants to prohibit offensive speech. A growing number of universities do the same thing, and the argument could be made that no one is forced to go to any of them. But with blogging being online means being everywhere. So Kentucky can reach out and touch you. So can the AP, and so can the Saudis. It's easy for a hard core constitutional literalist like me to scream "What part of make no law don't they understand?" but that won't stop them. Which means that for most bloggers, mass defiance is probably the best approach. I have long resisted the temptation of requiring commenters to identify themselves, and Representative Couch has given me an excellent reason to never change my position. This is not to say that anonymous commenters are entitled to any more respect than identified commenters, or that rude or insulting comments are of any particular value; only that it's my own damned choice whether to allow them, just as it is my choice whether to read them, respond to them, or delete them. The latter is something I rarely if ever do, because comments speak for themselves, not for me or this blog, and I deeply resent any outside authority telling me what to do here. If they don't like this blog, they can start their own. If they don't like a comment left here, leave another comment criticizing it! But to use any form of government to tell me what to do is an outrageous violation of the First Amendment. So, I'll continue to parody whatever I want to parody, and as to my anonymous commenters, the nanny state can't take them away. I will not rewrite this blog's software on their say-so. Let them try to make me do it. They'll have to get past my first line of defense, a firewall named Coco. And if they manage to get past her, my fingers won't be cold and dead. UPDATE: My thanks to Jules Crittenden for linking this post, and especially for saying this: ...abusing legal processes to stifle criticism in a free society is wrong. Criticism of the powers that be, in America, is a classical value.
posted by Eric on 03.10.08 at 10:30 AM
Comments
Does this guy have a D or R in front of his name? shunha7878 · March 10, 2008 03:59 PM Amen! RebeccaH · March 10, 2008 06:38 PM Legislators have too much time on their hands. anonymous · March 10, 2008 11:45 PM Don't lawyers study law? Is the Constitution even discussed? If so, how can someone who has been to law school even propose a law that is clearly unconstitutional? I'm just asking... BackwardsBoy · March 11, 2008 01:06 PM Hmm, for some reason it took a bit of digging, but it didn't surprise me that he is a Republican. mockum · March 13, 2008 12:59 AM Post a comment
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