Will Political Bloggers Be Regulated?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Blogging, ElectionsYou knew it had to happen sooner or later.
Basically, the guys in Washington are threatening extend campaign finance laws to the blogosphere. Both sides of the blogging aisle are chiming in on this one. From the AP:
“We have a democratic medium that allows anyone to have true freedom of the press. We have average citizens publishing their thoughts through research, through journalism, their activism and encouraging others to do the same,” [Daily Kos founder Markos] Moulitsas told commissioners.Moulitsas also is working with a lawyer who volunteered to help bloggers fight new government regulations and whose efforts were promoted in a PR firm press release Monday. Moulitsas is prepared to lobby Congress himself if necessary, and he is the treasurer of BlogPac, a political action committee formed last year by bloggers.
I agree with Kos. Thought should not be regulated. Paid political advertising should be regulated and that’s it. Sure, will bloggers be able to swing some elections? Yes. But so would John McCain coming out and endorsing John Kerry. That’s free speech and we can’t put limits on that.
More on that from Krempasky of RedState:
Another witness, Michael Krempasky, founder of RedState.org, a pro-Republican blog, called bloggers “citizen journalists” and said that like traditional media, they should get an exemption from campaign finance regulation.“What goal would be served by protecting Rush Limbaugh’s multimillion-dollar talk radio program, but not a self-published blogger with a fraction of the audience?” Krempasky asked the commission.
Yes, yes…a thousand times yes. You can’t regulate us because blogging is free speech in its purest form.
But what’s this all about? That’s right…money:
Acknowledging the Internet’s growth, a federal judge last year ordered the FEC to extend some of the nation’s campaign finance and spending limits to political activity on the Web.Bloggers fear that will mean new, unique limits on their activities, even though several of the commission’s six members have indicated they have no desire to go beyond what the judge ordered.
The FEC plans to decide this summer how far to go. Bloggers view whatever the commission decides as just the first step in their quest to remain free of government oversight.
Thanks for the heads up Micro Persuasion!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 and is filed under Blogging, Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
