Wednesday, Mar 05, 2008 - 11:11 PM Updated: 12:40 PM
By Kellie Wilson
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.
Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.
Action News 36 asked people what they thought about the bill.
Some said they felt it was a violation of First Amendment rights. Others say it is a good tool toward eliminating online harassment.
Represntative Couch says enforcing this bill if it became law would be a challenge.
lol
Set fail for One Piece!
... Online bullying? As if.
SUCK MY ANONYMOUS DICK TIM!!!
That'll never work lol, how would you check that? what possible verification would you use to check this sort of thing. Does that mean every time I put up a little forum, I'll have to collect the social security numbers of every person who joins?
even then you could fake the ss numbers
What's the point of bullying anonymous? Surely if anything, requiring people to be authenticated as real people will mean it's now possible to know who you're bullying, and thus the situation would be worse.
As if people bully on the Internets in the first place.
Yeah right. When there's a problem in the internet why do people have to try to make the most extreme acts? Using real names is a HUGE change and it would have an effect on everything on the internet. Yep, this will never work.
The main effect it would have on the Internet is that people would stop hosting sites in Kentucky.
My real name IS "Unverified Source."
Wow,
As if exposing your identity every time you contribute to the internets is supposed to REDUCE abuse. To think of all the pains I take to try to protect my identity and my name. Good thing this will never pass, but it'd be nice if the people who take it upon themselves to propose laws for the internet actually used it every once in a while.
What kind of retard would actualy think there was even a remote possibility of passing such a ridiculous bill?
Is this guy a scientologist/affliliated with scientology/being paid by scientology?
And now every single hosting company will move overseas right next to our manufacturing base. This country is so awesome and full of good ideas all the time.