Florida Bill Would Make Bloggers Who Write About Governor Register With State (arstechnica.com) 406
A proposed law in Florida would force bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis and other elected officials to register with a state office and file monthly reports or face fines of $25 per day. The bill was filed in the Florida Senate Tuesday by Senator Jason Brodeur, a Republican. From a report If enacted, the proposed law would likely be challenged in court on grounds that it violates First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and the press. Defending his bill, Brodeur said, "Paid bloggers are lobbyists who write instead of talk. They both are professional electioneers. If lobbyists have to register and report, why shouldn't paid bloggers?" according to the Florida Politics news website.
The bill text defines bloggers as people who write for websites or webpages that are "frequently updated with opinion, commentary, or business content." Websites run by newspapers or "similar publications" are excluded from the definition. The proposed registration requirements apply to bloggers who receive payment in exchange for writing about elected state officers, including "the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature." Bloggers who write about a member of the legislature would have to register with the state Office of Legislative Services, while bloggers who write about the governor or other members of the executive branch would have to register with the Commission on Ethics.
The bill text defines bloggers as people who write for websites or webpages that are "frequently updated with opinion, commentary, or business content." Websites run by newspapers or "similar publications" are excluded from the definition. The proposed registration requirements apply to bloggers who receive payment in exchange for writing about elected state officers, including "the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature." Bloggers who write about a member of the legislature would have to register with the state Office of Legislative Services, while bloggers who write about the governor or other members of the executive branch would have to register with the Commission on Ethics.
Gone batshit? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is it with politicians wasting time with such stupid legislation?!
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That's why we have a legal system separate from legislative or executive to curb such abuses.
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That's why we have a legal system separate from legislative or executive to curb such abuses.
(Rest of World) "Hey uh...just curious. How's that working out for you? Asking for a country..."
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What I'm puzzled about is how our country is pretty much divides right down the middle. I mean, I know we have only the republican and democratic parties (not counting the green party because they may as well be non-existent), but countries are usually as a whole either conservative or libe
Well, we used to (Score:2)
With 1/3 of our government compromised we either take back the other 2/3rds or we sink into a Chinese style totalitarian Klept
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Stop being so damn partisan that you act like the supreme court is incapable of protecting freedoms because it finally leans a direction you don't like. One of the "conservatives" ruled to save the ACA for Pete's sake.
Re:Gone batshit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Culture war politics leads to runaway stupidity escalation like this. The only way to win is to be too smart to fall for/knowingly participate in culture war, which a majority of the Florida electorate is not.
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Culture war politics.
Lead by republicans.
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Re:Gone batshit? (Score:5, Insightful)
For all that I don't mind him curbing disney's power, really.
Except that's not what happened. Once ol' Ronduh realized the mess of debt he'd be getting the state into, he quietly compromised on renaming the district, and appointing a bunch of his donor stooges to the board in charge of taxation. That was it.
He made some announcement recently that his appointed minions are going to "de-woke" the content at Disney, presumably because he hasn't looked at a map recently and realized Disney's actual studios are in California. The park named "Disney's Hollywood Studios" in central Florida is a just tourist attraction, but I can see how Ron could get that confused. The man had a hard time with the second strap on a Covid mask.
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I'd love to see DeSantis pick a fight with a company that has fuck you levels of money.
Re:Imprison Donald Trump, it's our only hope (Score:2)
And then nuke Florida from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Re: Gone batshit? (Score:2, Insightful)
No doubt Lincoln would shoot these fuckers.
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GOP have to copy Xi and Putin, who are their heros.
I'm inclined to believe all the hate coming from them against TikTok is actually jealousy.
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What is it with politicians wasting time with such stupid legislation?!
"Paid bloggers are lobbyists who write instead of talk. They both are professional electioneers. If lobbyists have to register and report, why shouldn't paid bloggers?"
Sometimes laws are drafted to point out the pointless stupidity of current law. Maybe we should see that here. Who exactly do "lobbyists" register and report to? It's fucking hilarious we have any rules governing the most corrupt concept in government. Not like they're doing anything to curtail or prevent abuse.
Personally, I hope this law forces blogging and social media in general to be recognized as the bullshit-fueled wasteland it is instead of Government hypocrites treating fucking tweets like the go
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Who exactly do "lobbyists" register and report to?
This is not a particularly hard question to answer with your favorite search engine. Here are some [house.gov] examples. [senate.gov]
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It gets them in the national spotlight by making the news.
Their base loves it (you'd assume they'd be worried about how such a power could be abused the next time the other party is in power, but some people just don't think that far ahead).
By the time it gets shot down in court as unconstitutional, the news has already moved on to something else.
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It's the same tactic used by presidents with Executive actions that are clearly unconstitutional. Do the clearly unconstitutional thing then force people to challenge it. In some cases you can't ever challenge it because no one has "standing". The Florida POS law would see a lot of people with "Standing" though.
Republicans are bad for the economy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not hard to imagine why. The GOP went all in on trickle down and the 1%. They changed the name to "Job Creation" but it's the same argument. Give all the money to the 1% and it'll trickle down (e.g. "make jobs" or whatever).
This doesn't work, and people know it, so the GOP needs another reason for you to vote for them. Hence all the moral panics. Woke, Critical Race Theory, heck there's been a few "Satanic Panics" lately. Beau Of The Fifth column just got done cracking a joke that the right wing would go after Hershey's for having too many pronouns (Her-She-ys, get it?) and a few weeks later Poe's law kicked in and actual right wing influencers got in a tizzy over it for real (or as real as anything gets around there).
And let's not forget Joe Rogan telling his millions of listeners that there are littler boxes for furries in public schools with Zero fact checking until he's called out on it.
This is what the GOP offers you in exchange for all your money and property. And for too many Americans they think it's worth it.
Absolutely none of this is correct (Score:5, Interesting)
When you give all the money in the world to the 1% they use it to buy up all their competitors and then there's no competition. How is capitalism supposed to function without competition?
And after Republicans are done crashing the economy a Democrat comes in and cleans up their mess and right around the time the mess is cleaned up guys like you decide it's time for a change and put a republican in charge just in time to crash the economy again. Lather rinse repeat.
You picked the wrong side. Get over it.
Re:Just clickbait due to indirect DeSantis connect (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is that usually the governor of a state, or other party leaders, can stand in the way of these types of bills from getting anywhere.
Because of DeSantis, we can't trust that in that state anymore. He's a blatant authoritarian who has gotten this legislation to pass some crazy crap already. The implication is that there's nothing in the way of this not passing. Same with the bill that would supposedly ban the Democratic Party. There's nothing in the system to stop them.
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The issue is that usually the governor of a state, or other party leaders, can stand in the way of these types of bills from getting anywhere.
These sort of farcical bills generally die with a whimper without any external efforts.
Because of DeSantis, we can't trust that in that state anymore. He's a blatant authoritarian who has gotten this legislation to pass some crazy crap already.
Such as? I am only familiar with a particular bill that was grossly misrepresented in the press and when one actually reads the bill itself finds it rather modest and includes safeguards/exceptions.
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He's a blatant authoritarian who has gotten this legislation to pass some crazy crap already.
IMHO, the funniest so far was the bill making it legal to hit protesters with your car (but don't even think about it, because it has since been overturned by the courts).
Moral implications of justifiable vehicular homicide aside, were they even aware how most modern cars are constructed when drafting that legislation? I could've at least understood something along the lines of being allowed to shoot the protesters blocking a road, since then you're at least using the proper tool for the job. But hitting
Re: Just clickbait due to indirect DeSantis conne (Score:3)
But letâ(TM)s not ignore what is actually happening⦠Everything DeSantis does - and I mean everything - is no more than virtue signaling to a national audience in preparation for his 2024 or 2028 run for president.
DeSantis is going to run for president (Score:5, Insightful)
You can find video of school libraries without books because DeSantis banned so many they just took them all down rather than risk prosecution. This man is a danger to freedom and a civil democracy and there's no excuse for pretending otherwise. If you want to live in a democracy he and his ilk need to be stopped now.
Re:DeSantis is going to run for president (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to live in a democracy he and his ilk need to be stopped now.
If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.
Don't call right wing extremists conservative (Score:3, Insightful)
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These alt rights aren't really conservatives. Trump certainly was not a conservative. DeSantis maybe started as a conservative but he really does not resemble that anymore Instead these are populists. Rile up the people so that they vote for your and don't bother with any nuanced positions that's likely to go over they head, instead go full out attack mode at all time against invented enemies.
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with a high probability of winning.
Florida annoyingly has closed primaries, so my partner and I have to change our registrations to Republican so we can vote against Ron in the primary.
Might actually be the only time I'll ever cast a vote for Trump. It's awful to have to say Trump is the lesser evil in this case, but he is. Trump is in love with himself, Ron is in love with power.
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"DeSantis is going to run for president with a high probability of winning"
Is that so?
He looked pretty fucking weak when he sent security to prevent a handful of Trump supporters from entering his book signing.
If i were a Trump strategist I would make damn sure there were hundreds of Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats at every DeSantis event from here on in.
Not to mention Fox News sent Brian Kilmeade to a diner full of white people & he could not find a single person who clearly picks DeSantis over Trum
Re:DeSantis is going to run for president (Score:5, Informative)
You know your party spokespeople just got caught red handed lying to you for profit right?
Did you catch how the Trump team spent an entire year fleecing it's supporters?
You're tracking how republican rollcall sounds like child molester bingo?
Notice how your leaders keep throwing supporters and allies under the bus every time it's time to pay the piper?
Did you see the latest GOP call for civil war?
I especially enjoyed the party of small government telling the world how it's gonna dictate how Disney makes childrens cartoons.
Since you asked, here's the list of books your hero is trying to ban. [clickorlando.com]
How do you think this plays out for YOU?
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" It's the kind of thing the Iranians do, not Americans"
You may have strayed into "no true Scotsman" fallacy territory.
There is no shortage of this being done in America, for longer than our collective years of being alive
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We live in a Republic, or at least, are supposed to. Democracies always tends towards mob rule, and eventually into tyranny. Don't get me wrong, republics don't last forever either as there tends to be eroding of enshrined rights by people who are ignorant of why we have rights that need defending.
People love Democracies until others enslave them by a democratic vote. This is the purpose of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, to enshrine the RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE to speak freely and defend themselves against the mob.
Re:Just clickbait due to indirect DeSantis connect (Score:5, Insightful)
Every party has one or two of these in the various state and federal legislatures.
Stop with the "both sides" bullshit. This is the same state that pulled every school library book to to be reviewed by the republican appointed committee. Apparently baseball is too controversial. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/l... [nbcnews.com]
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Stop with the "both sides" bullshit. This is the same state that pulled every school library book to to be reviewed by the republican appointed committee. Apparently baseball is too controversial. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/l... [nbcnews.com]
Well, the state did not pull the books. The library pulled them to "review for compliance". If you remember, some libraries also pulled Dr Seuss books [nbcchicago.com] couple years back. "Both sides bullshit" has some merit.
You are lying by omission (Score:5, Insightful)
DeSantis is acting like an Iranian Ayatollah. Unless you're willing and ready to die you don't go up against somebody like that if you're trapped under the regime.
Re:You are lying by omission (Score:4, Funny)
I hope you worship the right God comrade. Because if you don't DeSantis is going to throw you in prison until you do.
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And dems had mark twain removed from my school library. Do you have any other cherry pickings to offer?
Emptying a library so every book can be reviewed for content that makes republicans uncomfortable isn't cherry picking. https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com]
Re:Just clickbait due to indirect DeSantis connect (Score:5, Informative)
The Democrats who removed Mark Twain are now the Repuiblicans in the South today. THE SAME. The party names may be the different but their pro-segregation and racist nature migrated away from Democrats once the national party supported civil rights and migrated to the Republicans (the elite industrialists from the north). The liberal abolitionists and their descendants never banned Mark Twain or books about race.
Why is it that slashdotters do not understand how political parties work and how voters are free to migrate to other parties, or that parties will change their platforms and stances? Ie, Republicans, the party of Lincoln, the party which freed the slaves and kept states from seceding now has members who are suggesting openly that a second secession should occur. Maybe they don't even remember that when the country started it was "Federalist" party versus "Democratic-Republican" party - that is, Democratic-Republican was a single party, not two allied parties.
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And dems had mark twain removed from my school library.
You are lying.
Nope. California. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, ...
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Every party has one or two of these in the various state and federal legislatures.
We usually only hear about their nonsense when it touches some other controversial politician or issue. Here it touches on DeSantis, and the headline fashioned to mention DeSantis as clickbait even though its not his bill.
Probably, I think this bill is too obviously a violation of the 1st amendment to pass. Of course that didn't stop the Disney or social media bills but those were more central to the culture war.
Either way, it does fit with the template DeSantis has been using [wikipedia.org]. I don't think it will pass, but this is less an outlier and more part of a larger trend.
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Not really. DeSantis targeted one privileged company that decided to engage in politics rather than business. If you actually read the underlying bill that caused all the uproar it was grossly misrepresented, including by that company. The bill was short, toss the boilerplate and there is only about two pages. All it says is that certain sexual topics needs to be discussed in age appropriate manners. And that parents must be informed of medical or psychological issues involving their child, with safeguards/exceptions in the case of likely child abuse. Again, read it for yourself, its very different than commonly represented.
So he's a snowflake then, understood.
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Not really. DeSantis targeted one privileged company that decided to engage in politics rather than business. If you actually read the underlying bill that caused all the uproar it was grossly misrepresented, including by that company. The bill was short, toss the boilerplate and there is only about two pages. All it says is that certain sexual topics needs to be discussed in age appropriate manners. And that parents must be informed of medical or psychological issues involving their child, with safeguards/exceptions in the case of likely child abuse. Again, read it for yourself, its very different than commonly represented.
So he's a snowflake then, understood.
Nope. Read the legislation for yourself. It addressed real issues.
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Every party has one or two of these in the various state and federal legislatures. We usually only hear about their nonsense when it touches some other controversial politician or issue. Here it touches on DeSantis, and the headline fashioned to mention DeSantis as clickbait even though its not his bill.
I appreciate the explanation, but am left with one question.
If that's true, then what is Slasdot's excuse again?
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If that's true, then what is Slasdot's excuse again?
Slashdot picking its own clickbait among the suggestions of its own partisan readers hoping to be influencers.
ThE PaRtY oF FrEeDoM (Score:2)
Bloggers who write about a member of the legislature would have to register with the state Office of Legislative Services, while bloggers who write about the governor or other members of the executive branch would have to register with the Commission on Ethics.
According to a lot of boasting I've heard over the last two decades, a lot of people voting a certain way should be really really really opposed to this. Then again recent book-bannings didn't raise a fuss.
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Between the book bans, the government control of school programs, and the Florida government punishing Disney for supporting non-cis-het. rights, and perhaps next requiring journalists to register with the government to speak about the governor, pretty soon DeSantis won't have any cover for the very specific freedoms of speech he's trying to support in clamping down on all this speech...
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That's because they're full of shit. Remember how Twitter removing a verified mark from someone who used it to harass an actress was eXtReMe cEnSoRsHiP because the harasser was none other than popular right wing activist and pedophilia advocate Milo Yiannopoulos?
When Twitter was taken over by The World's Greatest Billionaire, Twitter kicked off journalists, critics, people who documented the behavior of the extreme right, and also fired employees who dared contradict obvious bullshit from his Muskiness on Twitter. Do you remember a single right winger of the kind who was infuriated by Yiannopoulos losing his verified mark criticizing Musk for any of these actions?
No. Because it's never been about "freedom" or "censorship", it's about a political ideology that believes their "in group" should have special rights, and the everyone else shouldn't. And it's always been like that. Always. It's just the mainstream media went with the "Freedom!" narrative for... decades, maybe even 40 years or so, because they're too fucking scared of the right wing to tell the truth.
Yes. Kind of sad that it took you until you for once ended up on the receiving end of the stick to notice that it *just might* be wrong.
1984 (Score:3)
War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.
Somehow, I doubt even if the book was required reading that the average Floridian would make the connection. This state sucks.
Do you not know or do you support it? (Score:2)
"Quick, look away from the several states in the USA passing book-banning laws!"
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That's because the activists wanting JK Rowling and Harry Potter banned are so far out there they are even ignored by most people in the community they purport to represent.
Nobody was calling for the ban of Harry Potter. Most people just called JK Rowling an asshole and moved on.
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To be fair Harry Potter has been banned in some places around the world. But that's not because of JKR's politics, but because the books were seen as promoting black magic, sorcery, and wizardry. And you can take 3 guesses which kind of political leaning the people behind that had.
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...but because the books were seen as promoting black magic, sorcery, and wizardry. And you can take 3 guesses which kind of political leaning the people behind that had.
Heh. I actually heard someone ask one of these peeps if they had read the book. "Of course not, I'm too smart to let myself get corrupted!"
Re: Book banning by loud but few extremists ... (Score:5, Informative)
Try to pick up Dr. Suess 'I saw it on mulberry lane' or a Blu-ray of 'song of the south's. And now many are fighting against gone with the wind.
The group who owns the rights to Dr. Seuss decided on their own to stop publishing certain titles. No outside group or government official coerced them. Same with Song Of The South. I haven't heard of any controversy about Gone With The Wind. In fact you can watch it right now on HBO Max and Apple TV. https://www.justwatch.com/us/m... [justwatch.com]
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...a Blu-ray of 'song of the south'
You don't need a BluRay of Song of the South. Disney let the copyright lapse. It's available for free download from archive.org [archive.org] in various editions.
I remember Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear, and Brer Fox from a read-along story book and phonograph record from the '80s. Even then, Disney had excised James Franklin Baskett's performance of Uncle Remus.
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...and even land o' lake Indian girl, even though these were real ppl ...
I don't think land o' lakes girl was real. However I think the company originally hired a Native American artist back in the day so they could have non-controversial and respectful artwork.
Florida (Score:2)
This is wrong in so many ways (Score:2)
Paid bloggers != all bloggers (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea of the merits of this bill, or lack thereof, but the article and title were seemingly deliberately crafted to mislead. As you can see later in the summary, it applies to “paid” bloggers. Without having RTFA (this is Slashdot, after all) I would therefore it applies to people who are being paid to perform political hit jobs against a politician.
That may or may not be 1A acceptable, but it’s a far cry from all bloggers.
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I have no idea of the merits of this bill, or lack thereof, but the article and title were seemingly deliberately crafted to mislead. As you can see later in the summary, it applies to “paid” bloggers..
Does getting page view advertisement revenue count as being paid? I suspect it would be interpreted as being paid by at least some judges in FL as such revenue is reported to the taxing agencies. So, now, many (if not all) bloggers are going to be considered paid.
Re: Paid bloggers != all bloggers (Score:2)
Re:Paid bloggers != all bloggers (Score:5, Interesting)
That may or may not be 1A acceptable, but it’s a far cry from all bloggers.
Please point out the part in the first amendment where it makes the distinction between for-profit speech and speech written of someone's own accord. I'll wait.
Keep in mind the same people who are for this abuse of freedom would raise high holy hell when it's an issue of the second amendment being narrowly interpreted.
Re:Paid bloggers != all bloggers (Score:5, Informative)
Relevant text from the bill:
Compensation is defined here:
This could even include receiving free hosting as that is something of value, but at the very least would include receiving any ad revenue even if it is just a few cents.
Freedom!!! (Score:2)
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At this rate, the world will be free of humans by 2100. And I think the GOP likes that idea.
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But in the GOP they worship and promote the loose cannons, and kick out the saner conservatives like Liz Cheney.
Surprised... (Score:2)
I am surprised. I went to middle school with Jason Brodeur and I remember him being one of the smartest in the class. I'm genuinely surprised he'd be foolish enough to think this would pass constitutional muster. Haven't even thought of the guy in ~35 years. So weird.
The target is not the 1st amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly it violates the 1st amendment. But the 1st is not the target.
What they want to break is the 14th. They want to undo the Civil War's peace treaty (the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments) in its entirety. So they want things to go to this biased court in order to declare the 14th never meant what we've thought it did for the last 150 years.
The target is progressives (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword..."
So, it would follow logically that free speech is more dangerous than a firearm. Consequently, if you can require background checks for gun owners, and registering guns with the government, for the purpose of exercising a constitutional right, why not do the same to those who want to exercise their first amendment rights?
If the "shall not be infringed" interpretation of the 2nd amendment was applied to the first:
While I may personally think the above list is ridiculous, the UK has actually arrested and prosecuted people for making postings which, in the government's view, are offensive. Last year, they arrested 3300 people for this; if you're interested in seeing how ridiculously pedantic the English can be, you can look up the cases of Chelsea Russell, Count Dankula, and the footballer charged for making a "nazi salute" because a photographer caught his hand in a rather unfortunate position whilst trying to get his mates' attention.
Find the Fascists (Score:5, Insightful)
You can find the fascists because they are the ones spouting apologia on this by saying it only effects "paid bloggers". This would be anyone who has ads on their blog. This is exactly what it looks like, it is a move to create a government list of enemies to be further harassed and/or rounded up once they have more thoroughly consolidated power.
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https://www.boredpanda.com/sig... [boredpanda.com]
I mean literally this is the checklist for the republican party today.
Paid? (Score:2)
Paid bloggers are lobbyists who write instead of talk
Yep, good think those weirdos at Fox News and MSNBC work for free!
Um, Florida? You sure? (Score:2)
I've never wanted someone to keel over fucking dead as much as I do Ron DeSantis on a daily basis.
Make me register for saying that, you backwater Nazi cunts.
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Serves Its Purpose (Score:3)
For those of you struggling to understand why this happens, it is because conservative politicians get rewarded for it.
I don't know but I would bet the author has a pretty good understanding that there is no way that this would be upheld by even the Roberts/Thomas/Alito court even if it did make it into law, which is doubtful.
But come campaign season there is credit to be had for owning the libs and sticking it to the "woke" crowd. And it comes at negligible cost compared to campaign ads.
After watching how they took down roe v Wade (Score:3)
Disturbing, even if minority opinion (Score:2)
FUD (Score:2)
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Because "FREEDOM" (Score:3)
Certainly not for Democracy, not for freedom, not for freedom of the press.
THEN its time to get rid of the R/D divide and vote for people who actually care about REAL freedom, not just their perverted view of it.
Goes too far, past party/candidate stooges (Score:2)
I think it's healthier for the political system overall if paid lobbyists are identified ...
And the unpaid volunteering for a party or candidate.
But that is not what this bill does, it goes beyond actual party/canidate stooges and touches on regular citizens with an opinion. Hence its likely unconstitutional nature and general foul smell.
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it goes beyond actual party/canidate stooges and touches on regular citizens with an opinion. Hence its likely unconstitutional nature and general foul smell.
Paid opinion is no longer your opinion so disclosing who paid for "the opinion" is honest and prudent thing to do.
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it goes beyond actual party/canidate stooges and touches on regular citizens with an opinion. Hence its likely unconstitutional nature and general foul smell.
Paid opinion is no longer your opinion so disclosing who paid for "the opinion" is honest and prudent thing to do.
Those paid folks are among the stooges I was referring to.
Re: Sounds like a good bill for both political sid (Score:3)
They're speaking into the ether, not lobbying. Lobbying is a special interest group specifically speaking to lawmakers and policy setters to set policy. Registering is an anti-corruption measure and it's aimed at both the policymakers and lobbyists.
While it might benefit to require a minimal amount of truth on blogs purporting to carry news, this bill is burdensome and chilling.
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"Publishing a blog entry" is very dissimilar to "lobbying in person". Try not to change the subject.
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The biggest difference is that professional lobbyists have a large war chest to promote their agenda, they can take the congress critter to lunch, or write them every day, maybe even give them certain financial benefits and regardless of who you think you are, people naturally form bonds with people they see regularly, they treat them nicer, listen to them and may even follow their advice.
Studies have shown that the ROI for lobbying politicians can be up to 22,000%. That's kind of mindboggling and it shows how corrupt the system is for lobbying politicians directly, but a blogger having a paid opinion will never see that kind of money or effect. The proposed law is all about either silencing critics or forcing them out into the open, it's a precursor to politicians lese majeste.
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This is a ridiculous bill, and flies in the face of the first amendment. It is entirely at odds with constitutional conservatism - and shame on any conservative that doesn't oppose it.
Re: Sounds like a good bill for both political sid (Score:2)
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Now, who has to pay the fine. Did the state of Florida going to treat me as a slave and demand that another state extradite me to Florida even though I am a free man in their state i live? Will it fine /. Will it fine any server c
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Now, who has to pay the fine.
If section 230 goes away, the site hosting your speech will be liable. But don't worry, they won't want that risk in the first place, so you won't be allowed to post anon.
Scary times.
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That's not what lobbying is though. Lobbying is being paid to communicate directly with politicians in order to try to influence them, on behalf of another party who is paying you to specifically do that. Blogging/journalism on the other hand is factual or opinion based reporting to the general public about what politicians are doing, and is precisely the kind of thing was intended to be protected most strongly by the First Amendment. The kind of chilling effect on journalism that this would cause should ca
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Healthier how?
Every law that was passed to disclose lobbying has only made lobbying easier to hide.
Free speech should not be impeded, even if someone wants to yell fire in a theater.
I agree completely. And per usual the public is misled to think that a law does one thing when in reality it has a completely different effect.
Also, a case could be made that many of the press/journalists out there are just as much of a paid shrill as the lobbyists and bloggers out there. I'm *not* suggesting that they pay too. Not at all. Free speech is free speech. Having to register is a clear violation of the 1st amendment.
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OMG, if Florida sinks, Florida man is moving into YOUR neighborhood!
If that's not enough reason to fight global warming, what is?