Think Progress is reporting that Senator and probably 2008 Presidential Republican Candidate John McCain is sponsoring legislation whose intent is to essential shut down blogs. The goal is supposedly the mitigate the influence of sex offenders, but the effect would be to make blogs illegal or at least untenable as a form of communication and conversation.
The highlights of the bill according to the article:
– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”
– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.
— Social networking sites will be forced to take “effective measures” — such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is “associated” with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up for personal diaries.
I am hoping this information is exaggerated or incorrect. Considering that blogs have been credited with changing the political climate against Republicans, this could be an attempt to help smooth some of the bumps for his Presidential run. However, the odds of such a bill passing committee seems remote and he has to know this so that alone makes one wonder at its validity of the existence of this bill.
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