I wonder if this will affect BlogCritics?
With political fund raising, campaign advertising and organizing taking place in full swing over the Internet, it may just be a matter of time before the Federal Election Commission joins the action. Well, that time may be now.
A recent federal court ruling says the FEC must extend some of the nation's new campaign finance and spending limits to political activity on the Internet.
Excerpted from MyWay: full story
Laura K. Lawless
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Article comments
1 - Mike Kole
I have an opinion on this that I will share with Eric privately.
I'll say it like this here, though. A lot of people thought that the way to make the political process more fair was through the Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). What it will ultimately amount to is restrictions on speech. Hosters of private web pages beware!
2 - Eric Olsen
very interesting - thanks Laura. So far, due to our "eutral" political position, ie, we cover the entire spectrum with individual writers presenting their own views freely, we haven't had any direct political ads that I can think of. And we haven't done any direct fund-raising either - we just cover it all as news.
3 - LKL
OK. It just seems to me that even though we are debating rather than advertising per se, a broad interpretation might lead to attempted regulation of sites like this: must have an equal number of posts pro-Bush and pro-Kerry, etc. I agree with Mike though - yet another encroachment onto freedom of speech.
(I must admit that I'm curious as to why Mike needed to share his pov privately, but I won't pry. :-)
4 - Eric Olsen
the media isn't required to give equal time for news stories, or paid ads (I don't think) - my God, that would be insane intrusion - just on political advocacy. I wouldn't worry too much about that here.
5 - Jim Carruthers
I think this will be as successful as the attempt in Canada to prevent posting election results from the East Coast before polls on West Coast close (nearly four hour time difference, half an hour later in Newfoundland).
What this points out, is you change the system to suit the reality.