Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal
Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online 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.
Sometimes, I find myself wondering when politicians will grasp the technological realities of the Internet…and then it hits me; the answer is “never”. How else can you account for the constant parade of two-bit hack politicians looking to make their mark be regulating a medium inherently immune to regulation?
Trying to regulate the Internet is not unlike trying to herd cats. Couch’s law, even if it becomes law in Kentucky, won’t be worth a tinker’s damn outside the state…and that’s exactly the point. The Internet doesn’t end at the Ohio River. The Internet knows and respects no borders. Not only does no one on the Internet know your a dog, they don’t even know where your kennel is. Even IF Couch’s bill manages to become law, it will have absolutely no impact on a web site based anywhere outside of Kentucky. And what’s to stop a webmaster from moving his operation out of state?
I understand that Couch’s motives are sound and laudable; he wants to put an end to cyberbullying. Who among us doesn’t? Nonetheless, Couch’s law impresses me as being somewhat akin to trying to nail Jello to a wall. The concept might make sense, but the execution? Well, let’s just say that the phrase “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” comes to mind. Should Couch’s law pass, he can run for re-election claiming a victory against cyberbullying, even though exactly nothing is likely to change any time soon. That’s the great thing about politics, I suppose. You can claim victory, or at least progress, while achieving nothing of the sort. Like anyone’s going to think critically enough to question said accomplishments….
Jeebus, apparently Kentucky has solved all it’s other pressing problems, so now legislators are throwing things at the wall in the hope that something…anything…will stick. Your tax dollars at work, Kentucky. Or not.
