Legislation In New York To Ban Anonymous Speech Online 398
Fluffeh writes "Republican Assemblyman Jim Conte said, '[this] turns the spotlight on cyberbullies by forcing them to reveal their identity.' Republican Senator Thomas O'Mara added, '[this will] help lend some accountability to the Internet age.' The two are sponsoring a bill that would ban any New York-based websites from allowing comments (or well, anything) to be posted unless the person posting it attaches their name to it. But the bill also goes further, saying New York-based websites, such as blogs and newspapers, must 'remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post.'"
Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
What about CDNs physically located in NY that serve news and video from very popular sites [wikipedia.org]? And how are you going to verify all this information? Like, I go through Tor, I tell you I'm Jim Conte, I give you his home address and then I verify that I'm indeed him and all this time someone on the staff of this news site is ... doing what exactly? Verifying how? Are they calling ISPs and saying "Hey, does this IP address check out for this home address? And how on Earth are they going to be able to afford to do this for anonymous comments?
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
They are technological illiterates like most legislators and belive that human laws work like laws of nature, if you write them down they'll start enforcing themself.
Did i mention they're also first rate morons?
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:4, Interesting)
The New York State Legislature has been a complete retard rodeo for as long as I've been paying attention to it. Anyone with half a brain uses it as a jumping-off point to a better office, i.e. US Congressman, NYS comptroller, lieutenant governor, etc.
Occasionally there will be one smart person who decides to remain there to corral them in and lead them in a solid, purposeful direction. Unfortunately this "one smart person" is often a crook, and the "solid, purposeful direction" is therefore, well, you get the idea. The last one was Joe Bruno; he's currently in prison.
This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument: as bad as the US Congress is, state legislatures are generally solidly worse; they just don't get as much press. Or maybe this is just a New York thing and other states are different, I don't know.
Re: (Score:2)
This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument: as bad as the US Congress is, state legislatures are generally solidly worse; they just don't get as much press. Or maybe this is just a New York thing and other states are different, I don't know.
Illinois, that is all. [msn.com](And I found that article with a twenty second search.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think that's easy, then it's just as easy to move to another country like Canada.
Moron.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"How easy is it to sell your house, find a new house, buy the new house, get a new job, and locate good schools for your children?? "
With the exception of children (as I have none) it hasn't been difficult at all.
Finances, learn how to control them.
If you think it's not easy, I'm willing to bet you aren't taking good care of your finances, savings, etc.
And I've got both dual-state and dual-country citizenship (CA/TN, USA/UK)
Who's the moron, here?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument
As someone living in Wisconsin, I completely agree.
I shudder to think how much worse the fuckheads in this state's government would have screwed us if they'd had more power. They did enough damage with the power they have. We've got a full-blown witch hunt going on right now [todaystmj4.com] over people who signed a recall petition against Governor Walker, our Supreme Court justices are physically assaulting each other [jsonline.com], disenfranchisement efforts are in full swing [thinkprogress.org], and women now have to prove to a doctor they're not being coerced before they're allowed to have an abortion [jsonline.com] (because, you know, there are tons of forced abortions in this country, am I right?) and allowing schools to restrict sex-ed programs to abstinence-only [huffingtonpost.com]...
Luckily we can still recall our reps, although they did everything they could to try and take that right away from us, too. [dailykos.com]
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are saying it is better that those things happen to 300,000,000 people instead of 5,700,000?
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:4, Funny)
The New York State Legislature has been a complete retard rodeo for as long as I've been paying attention to it.
I'm waiting for a flurry of posts all made by "Republican Assemblyman Jim Conte"
Re: (Score:3)
This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument: as bad as the US Congress is, state legislatures are generally solidly worse; they just don't get as much press.
In my opinion, the lack of press coverage is why state legislatures are so bad.
State and local governments generally have a bigger impact on your day to day life than the federal government, yet no one pays any attention to them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument
And this is exactly why I DO buy the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument. State legislatures can do some pretty stupid things, true. But the damage they can do is limited and localized for the most part.
Just wait until the US Congress hears about this proposed law and starts salivating at the prospects. I'd rather have New York websites instead of all US websites on my "do not visit" list.
Posted anonymously just because I can (for now).
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Informative)
When you give power to the local states, you're not making it smaller, you're just shifting the power to someone else who is just as corrupt and gets less media attention.
and lives close to you, where you can make your opinion heard. Not to mention their sphere of influence is smaller. The point in having people with the power to do things that affect you most, closer to you, and on a smaller scale, is obvious (or at least, it should be). Besides, if they are all morons, why don't you run against them next election and win. It's easier on a local/state scale than on the federal level (which is why you don't want everything handled at the federal level).
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you shitting me? I sit on an HOA Board of Directors for only one reason: no one else wants to do the job. My predecessor *died* and I was brought in because they needed to prevent receivership and loss of property value for everyone that would entail. I do my best to avoid as much of it as I can.
Let me make this clear. HOAs may seem like they are not accountable. I have joked that I could spend money building a statue of myself in the common area and no one could stop us, but do you know why? Because no one can be bothered to actually a) go to meetings, b) read the shit we send them, c) vote. That doesn't mean, however, that I am less accountable. I am a lot more accountable than some senator or representative. I "represent" only 200 households, not 300,000. And all of those people know where I live. When I take a walk, I invariably pass their houses. The thing is, no one is holding me accountable for anything. The most we get are people bitching at us at hearings when they didn't read the rules and painted their deck puke green and now they have to fix it. And I wouldn't even care about that as much, except as a Director, I have a legal obligation to act in the best interests of the community and according to it's legally enacted rules and covenants.
We literally have to collect proxies and elect ourselves at the annual meeting. If that's a tyranny, then it is one that is being run with the fullest cooperation of the tyrannized.
There is no reason this has to be, except the fact that no one wants to bother. And I don't blame them. Being on an HOA Board isn't privilege, it's work. If you wanted to move to my community and get elected to the board, I will be happy to step down. Of course, I will move from the community as soon as I can if you are a moron and enforce nothing, but please don't get the idea that there is no accountability. There is plenty, it's just that no one bothers to care.
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:4, Informative)
No research says marijuana is addictive. Show me a single case of anyone going to the ER for pot. It IS total bullshit, fucking lies.
Look at the Partnership For A Drug Free Anerica's web site. They claimed for years that marijuana was carcinogous, until a cople of years ago when they were trying to demonstrate its link to cancer and found that there was no statistical difference in cancer rates between pot smokers and nonsmokers (and the pot smokers had fewer cancers than nonsmokers), and that cigarette smokers who also smoked pot had half as many cancers as those who only smoked cigs.
Now the site says "marijuana contains carcinogens". Fucking morons, PFADFA lies about marijuana, then when the dumb kids find out that they've been lied to about pot, they don't believe them about crack and heroin, ahich ARE addictive. They're contributing to the very drug abuse they're trying to stop!
And who is behind this "partnership"? The drug lords have apparently been bribing every damned politician in the country.
Re: (Score:3)
So then surely countries are a relic as well. One world government, eh?
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:4, Funny)
Having been to Albany to talk to state legislators a few times, they are mostly idiots. There's a few of them wouldn't even give us a meeting unless they knew we were bringing "a gift." That said, not all of them are idiots. I've gone to a baseball game or two with one of the reps from where I grew up... unfortunately, the smart ones usually stay away from technology issues simply because they know that they don't know enough to make any laws about it.
Also, I didn't know laws of nature needed to be written down to be in effect. If we burn every book mentioning gravity, maybe we can get flying cars fast!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hello? Thomas Paine published Common Sense anonymously. James Madison published The Federalist Papers anonymously, and Ben Franklin published a whole host of material anonymously. Anonymous political discourse was absolutely instrumental in creating the United States.
Re: (Score:3)
Hello? Thomas Paine published Common Sense anonymously. James Madison published The Federalist Papers anonymously, and Ben Franklin published a whole host of material anonymously. Anonymous political discourse was absolutely instrumental in creating the United States.
This. Grandparent post is mostly wrong. Sure people standing up and being held accountable for their view point certainly helped change the world, but before that flash point were many anonymous letters and meetings...
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
so then, how is it you know these people published anonymously...and exactly what it was they had published? seems it wasn't so anonymous.
Because they won.
Re: (Score:2)
So people in the 1700s didn't write anonymous letters ? These letters were not frequently circulated, published by newspapers and such ?
Strange how you seem to know something that every other historian on earth doesn't. I'll look forward to reading your published research paper which should earn you quite a few honorary PHDs at the very least !
Re: (Score:2)
Has anonymous letters in newspapers changed anything?
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Informative)
The Federalist Papers, you moron.
Fucking hell but it's a sad testament to the American education system that you could say something like that.
Re: (Score:3)
>I agree with the Parent that Martin Luther King would not be as effective today hiding behind a pseudonym and a faceless blog as he was when he took the National Mall
As I stated in my other post, how effective anonymous speech may or may not be at any given goal is not relevant to the question of whether it is a valid and protected form of free speech. The claims by the OP that the first amendment does not apply to anonymous speech since it didn't exist at the time are ludicrous and easily disproven - s
Re: (Score:3)
Applying the summary judgement standard described above, the judgement of the superior court was reversed, the case was remanded back to the superior court with instructions to dismiss the plaintiff's claim with prejudice. Therefore, Doe was permitted to remain anonymous. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
>You could hand write everything, but making copies would be very troublesome and time consuming.
Oh and this line... guess those historians also got wrong the date of the invention of the printing press - since this event which changed the world forever is supposed to have happened a long time before the U.S. constitution got it's first amendment.
Wait... didn't Benjamin Franklin use to run a newspaper ? With a printing press ?
If anything we have LESS anonymity now than we had back then. Nobody 400 years ago could actually prove beyond a reasonable doubt which printing press produced a copy, or where it was originally typeset.
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, when the first amendment was written, pretty much all speech was not anonymous. The first amendment was passed in 1789. ... . The people who have caused political change have done so by being intentionally not anonymous.
Wrong. Very wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Where I work, I see that people further down the chain are being trained to do this, and to not answer questions with any sort of real answer. Its quite depressing to see us advance in the wrong direction.
Re: (Score:3)
I know, right? And the few times they get somebody in office that doesn't seem to be a complete moron, does a decent job, he does something like pay a hooker with a personal check, proving that he is indeed a first-rate moron.
Of course, being the highly moral people we are, we cannot tolerate someone who visits prostitutes. Lying to start phony wars or trading weapons to Iranians for hostages is no problem, but you better not do anything, y
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
they can't, that's the point. So anon comments will effectively be banned.
since verifying the person is who they say they are is prohibitively hard it'll also do away with user generated content and we can go back to the way things were in the good old days with massive media companies telling us what to think without every tom dick and harry giving their opinion.
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it is impossible to enforce. But please don't think for a second that the people writing these "laws" are just stupid, that would be dangerous.
The intention behind this move is simply to create a legal framework which allows those in control to censor ANY comment which is contrary to propagandised opinion.
If you or I make a valid yet controversial comment on a website based in NY, the appropriate people will be alerted, the comment will be taken down, and a statement will be issued in its place:
"This commenters identification could not be verified."
Re: (Score:2)
"please don't think for a second that the people writing these "laws" are just stupid, that would be dangerous."
Precisely. The actions of government (like the scum in Washington D.C.) only appear idiotic when you assume that they are attempting to act in the best interests of the vast majority of the citizens.
We shouldn't mistake evil for stupidity.
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
What about CDNs physically located in NY that serve news and video from very popular sites [wikipedia.org]? And how are you going to verify all this information? Like, I go through Tor, I tell you I'm Jim Conte, I give you his home address and then I verify that I'm indeed him and all this time someone on the staff of this news site is ... doing what exactly? Verifying how? Are they calling ISPs and saying "Hey, does this IP address check out for this home address? And how on Earth are they going to be able to afford to do this for anonymous comments?
Show me you palm, Jim Conte. Hmmm... yes, yes... see that line there? I can tell you by the look of it: your wish will be granted, in a very near future, no Websites will be hosted and no CDN-es will have presence in NY... but when it happens, if you'll remind your voters about your success, they'll throw rotten eggs at you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ridiculous, Impossible, Etc. (Score:4, Funny)
/20, /21 - whatever it takes...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What about CDNs physically located in NY that serve news and video from very popular sites [wikipedia.org]? And how are you going to verify all this information? Like, I go through Tor, I tell you I'm Jim Conte, I give you his home address and then I verify that I'm indeed him and all this time someone on the staff of this news site is ... doing what exactly? Verifying how? Are they calling ISPs and saying "Hey, does this IP address check out for this home address? And how on Earth are they going to be able to afford to do this for anonymous comments?
Adding to that, how does this measure stop anonymous posting or increases accountability?
My details:
John Smith
(917) 345-3445
59 W 46th St
New York, NY 10036
Prove it isn't me.
As usual (Score:3, Insightful)
Fucking retarded... (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess I won't be posting on any more websites hosted in New York.
What a great way to drive business away from your state. How long before they're all relocated in Jersey? Days?
Anonymous Coward Anonymous Hacker (Score:2)
Stupid lawmakers don't understand the difference between anonymous individuals online, and an organized bunch of hackers.
I propose an alternative law ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course this probably has nothing to do with cyber-bulling or trolling and likely has everything to do with stopping leaks, dissent and general repression of free speech. After all, there is no speech more free than anonymous speech. Are they banning anon tips to the police and anon letters to the editor as well?
Re: (Score:2)
You might feel very different if your child was being harassed online.
However I find this law to be useless, and I agree that its just a law designed to shit all over free speech, under the guise "For the children"
I'm all for anti bullying laws, as long as they are laws that protect children in REALITY, in their schools from endless harassment and violence. Free speech, and anonymous speech should never be illegal. Our government has no right to make such a law as this... and it will not pass.
However I woul
Re:I propose an alternative law ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why children generally shouldn't be online unsupervised any more than they should be wandering the town unsupervised. By the time they're old enough to do that, they're usually old enough to cope with a little cyber bullying.
Re:I propose an alternative law ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I propose an alternative law ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone had to deal with this type of stuff growing up in one way or another. How one dealt with it says quite a lot about their character or lack there of. Dealing with assholes is a fact of life that will never go away and a life skill that we all sadly must learn. Thankfully my daughter is only 3 and I've got a while before I need to deal with this type stuff.
I very much agree that there is currently a large failure in schools to mitigate these situations in meatspace. I really think they're harping about the "cyber" part of it because there's a paper trail for them to fall back on.
Federalist Papers (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
We don't have laws like this now. It's only a proposal; it will fail, for a variety of reasons.
As much as I hate the idea of this law, it is probably a positive thing to raise the subject for public discussion. That way we can remind ourselves and our legislators that free speech still matters, and we still care.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I had mod points. I think *THIS* is the primary problem here.
The Declaration of Independence is also a good example of the importance of free speech rights even in the era or the Internet. On July 4, 1776 the original declaration of Independence was signed by only two people, Charles Thomson as Secretary and John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress.
Unenforceable. (Score:2)
Three things:
* So if the comments are really anonymous, whom do they prosecute?
* If the comments and/or the websites originate from outside the jurisdiction...?
* The First Amendment.
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds like they'll be holding the owners of the sites (whom are generally not anonymous) responsible if they don't delete all anonymous posts. This affects sites hosted in NY - they really don't care where the poster is located.
Re: (Score:2)
New York (Score:3)
If there's one thing New York is good at, it's driving away businesses. I've watched cities around the state raise commercial taxes claiming it will bring in businesses, vote down major infrastructure improvements because it would "hurt businesses" and try to turn already clogged five lane avenues into two lane streets to "force people to slow down so they will see all of the businesses along that road".
Re: (Score:2)
...and turn already clogged five lane avenues into two lane streets to "force people to slow down so they will see all of the businesses along that road".
All in the name of "bike lanes" utilized by less than .0001% of the population and only when it's 80+ degrees and not raining. Yes we need to cater to those very important people by removing two of five lanes. Oh wait, we also need express bus lanes even though the buses don't use them. Bus time improved by 1% per bus per day - saving the city billions! There goes another lane. No standing on the only available side but there's always a truck there unloading so now there's 1 lane left (the fire lane). It's
So maybe now... (Score:4, Funny)
you fuckers will start treating AC posts with some respect!
Another reason not to live in New York (Score:5, Interesting)
This will probably cost New York a pretty penny if it passes and they get sued over it.
Fortunately, crap like this wouldn't even make it out of the gate in New Hampshire, where I live, not after our legislature created a "constitutional review" standing committee a couple years ago. Any bill that a legislator believes to be possibly unconstitutional gets referred to that committee after coming out of its first committee, and they get to attach their recommendation when the bill gets voted on by the full legislature.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The New Hampshire House is probably the most functional state legislature in the country, for 2 major reasons:
1. Each representative only represents about 4,000 people, so their constituents usually either know them or know somebody who knows them. (When I was growing up in NH, I knew about a half-dozen)
2. They get paid $100 per year. That means everybody in the House is really your everyday citizen, and not a professional politician. For instance, a former Speaker runs a day care center, another rep I knew
Amusingly... (Score:2)
Out of touch legislators (Score:3, Insightful)
They're so disconnected from reality (i.e. the normal lives of their constituents) that it's like being ruled by space aliens.
Re: (Score:2)
Shhhhhhhh! Don't let the aliens know that you're on to them !!!
Anonymity = Free Speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Anonymity is necessary for Joe Public to exercise his right to free speech. The rich and powerful can't crush him like a bug if they don't know who he is.
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. What they really want is SLAPP [wikipedia.org] suit fodder. If you criticize them (the politicians and the interests lining their pockets), they want to be able to make you to sit down and shut the fuck up, and also make it painful enough that you won't DARE do it again.
John Doe (Score:2)
anonymous? (Score:2)
The definition of an anonymous poster
Eradication of whistle blowers, opinions and free speech in general? Nice move.
Ok this is stupid (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The politicians themselves.... it's a "let's protect the children" issue, so the voters keep them in office. Re-elections are one of the few things politicians do without a direct money trail being involved... because staying in power is what keeps all of the rest of the money coming in.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
(R)s in the northeast are (D) wanna-bes
Re: (Score:3)
Don't panic.. (Score:2)
It'll never get anywhere. Yes, it's awful that someone even thought of it, but the whole thing is so ludicrous and impractical (never mind the 1st amendment issue) that it'll never go much further than this stage.
Sometimes it pays to remember that politicians are often monumentally stupid.
Re: (Score:3)
It might not get anywhere, but pieces of legislation like this give us a glimpse of what certain legislators would pass if they got the chance. Reason enough to vote them out so they never get the chance.
Consider... (Score:3, Funny)
Listen, I'm not saying that anyone who posts anonymously is definitely racist, I'm just saying that we can't currently prove that they aren't.
- MickB1942.
My name is Jim Conte and I'm a clueless legislator (Score:4, Funny)
I'm Jim Conte, you're Jim Conte, we're all JC. If this bill passes, I propose that slashdot change "Anonymous Coward" to "Jim Conte" (Oh, I see, he just wants to go down in history with Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens, and Santorum)
Re:My name is Jim Conte and I'm a clueless legisla (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Who could have foreseen? (Score:3)
One must bear in mind that this was back when private companies still had a shot at establishing the network effect now realized by the Internet.
A new era dawns (Score:2)
Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
This law would likely do exactly the opposite of what it's theoretically intended to do. When someone posts something that you don't like, you'll have all the information you need to stalk and harass the poster. Forget online bullying, this would enable physical bullying.
This won't take long (Score:5, Informative)
In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, a 1995 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court found that "Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Also see Talley v California, a 1960 US Supreme Court decision declaring that a local ordinance banning the posting of anonymous handbills was unconstitutional. The Court said:
"There can be no doubt that such an identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression. "Liberty of circulating is as essential to that freedom as liberty of publishing; indeed, without the circulation, the publication would be of little value." Lovell v. Griffin, 303
What could possibly go wrong?! (Score:3)
How does this alleviate bullying, again?
I assume that the 'deanonymized' data would not be shown for most people, but it must be for the site owner (apparently), so even if it's not hacked and exposed, the site owner is now a target for social engineering or direct manipulation or even bullying
Oh please...please... (Score:3)
...let Anonymous kindly step in and do its thing with Mr. Conte/O'Mara...that would be a nice ironic touch here.
I love when politicians bring forth these kinds of "true identity" issues, for they are usually the LAST ones who wish to have certain activities tied to them. Perhaps feeding them a dose of their own medicine would shift opinion.
How to do this properly (Score:2)
Assuming one wanted to be able to identify people, the correct way to do this would be for the government to set up an openid host and give an account to every citizen, much like an id card. Third-party websites could then ask users to log in through their government account, the government openid host guaranteeing the identity of the person to the third party.
Re: (Score:2)
In one way it sucks this will die so soon (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:3)
... colocation facilities in New Jersey and Connecticut see a rise in business.
Do these idiots know that electrons don't care about state boundaries?
Didn't happen in Enders Game (Score:2)
What about pseudonyms (Score:2)
I live in New York. I also blog under a pseudonym and don't reveal my real name on there. Would my blog postings run afoul of this law? What about my commenters that use pseudonyms? If "BloggerGuy" leaves a comment on one of my posts, has this broken the law? Or is it only if he leaves the comment as "Anonymous"?
Given that I know a bunch of bloggers in New York, I think I'll rally the troops (so to speak) and work against this law. I'm a big fan of preventing bullying, but not at the expense of everyo
Evil but not ridiculous (Score:3)
that's backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
'[this will] help lend some accountability to the Internet age.'
Why don't we focus on transparency and accountability in our leadership first?
How could the problems caused by any individual even begin to compare to the damage government failures cause?
Works for me, if they... (Score:4, Insightful)
apply this to all media, including print and radio.
What? You can't really verify someone's identity when they call in to a radio show? And those letters to-the-editor are similarly also difficult to ascertain the true authorship of?
Oh my, we've NEVER had any way to do this? The horror!
Re: (Score:2)
Which isn't a big deal... It is too expensive to host a company in New York. You host it in an other state.
Re:Hi, I'm Anonymous Coward... (Score:5, Funny)
Something tells me "Jim Conte" and "Thomas O'Mara" will be doing a lot of comment posting if this goes through...
Re:So now you guys LIKE Anonymous Cowards? (Score:4, Insightful)
Many Slashdotters might not read or reply to Anonymous Cowards as a general rule, but they'll defend their right to comment!
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, so there are anonymous douchebags. That doesn't mean anonymity should be banned. There's no way you can craft a law which would effectively ban anonymity in the case of slander of private parties, and not end up with a law which would be mostly used for banning anonymity in other cases. First thing they'd use it for in NYC is going after anyone who anonymously wrote