Those crazy Senators
 

What is this country coming to? Move your mouse to the end of this sentence and go check out this article.

So, now that you're back, let me just say that I'm fully aware that this is ridiculous, fairly minor in the huge scheme of things, and probably near impossible to enforce. I also realize that yes, this article clearly has a bias.

Regardless, it does raise an interesting question: just what can one get legitimately in trouble for? How much power should any ruling party have over our freedom of speech? And where does freedom of speech begin and end?

It's strange. The more I look at it from a wider perspective, the more we are the "growing pains" of the internet and the digital age.

Yes, it's been a while and we know these things are unfair now, but I think, unfortunately, we're going to have to deal with the bullshit for a while, until people finally wisen up and we look back on this point in history--"remember when digital laws kept getting more and more strict, to the point of absurdity, angering large amounts of internet denizens?" Hell--think of massive amounts of time, years apart, summarized in a Wikipedia article. "In 1995..." "Subsequently, in 2001..."

My point is even though organizations like EFF are valiantly fighting for us, us...'digital abolitionists' will not have influence until it's past our time :P.

In a way, that's kind of exciting. After all, if we're the growing pains, it means that maybe this "internet" thing is even bigger than we can imagine it being, and all it needs is a spark to become fully unleashed. It is essentially the last truly democratic refuge for the masses...

I wonder if there'll be protests? Like, instead of that demonstration where women burned a bra, there's some protest on the front of the capital buildings, where a thousand nerds light up an IBM or something.

Oh, I totally agree about the growing pains--it is exciting. EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow theorizes there will be the Internet will easily snowball into a separate, uncontrollable entity, even a higher 'state' of existence.

I think it is 100% possible--there already hundreds if not thousands of niche online communities for this, and I'm not even talking about random ones: ones specifically devoted to crypto-anarchism, digital lives, etc. I think once the technology becomes more advanced and it involves more of the user 'locking in' (like the Net in Lain), it will start getting really interesting. When we can start making cyberspace, if we so desire, much less impersonal, as in, true VR, we will see a huge swing in the trends. Even the possibilities for anonymity are endless.

Czech it.

Locke, your post is annoying me. I want your real name, address, phone number, credit cards, and your girlfriend, now.

I always find it funny when people think they can control what goes on the internet to such an extent. Morality aside, it's just not possible to police it effectively. If it was, 90% of what's up would either be gone, or very difficult to access. You can get rid of some of the really bad stuff, but that's just because not everyone is doing it.

Even if you could somehow keep an eye on a significant portion, you're still limited to pestering people from your own country. Not to mention the fact that anonymity makes it really hard to charge the right person, even if you can track down the computer.

The biggest problem is probably that you're effectively going up against the entire world, and not one person is going to take this stuff seriously. Hell, even if you make examples of a few people, you're still not going to get others to fall in line; how many people still download music despite the few lawsuits that went out? The fact is that no matter what happens, it's extremely doubtful any significant number of people will ever respect laws like this.

Besides, nine times out of ten XxSSJ11turnksxX is thirteen years old.

Why bother with a sex change when you can log in as a girl? The world's plastic surgeons are in danger! We have to stop the internet now!

It is an interesting thing to think about, and I hope we see this kind of thing sooner than later. It'd be a lot for our culture to adapt to, but there'd be no stopping it.

So does this mean we can sue Neil and Eric Bauman because they annoy so many people? I hope so...

I always dreamt that someday in the future I could force forum trolls to reveal their personal identity and then send an FBI special task force of hard ass educators to their house in order to teach them proper spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and prehaps.. common sense. Failing that, bash up their computers.

Why is the senate wasting time on this? Seriously, there should be laws protecting people against stalking.. even on the internet - but this an absurd unenforcable law - it's like fining people every time they swear in their homes.

Well they're not anonymous so - sad as it is to say - no.

Well, I think many people are misinterpreting it. There is a difference between "something that is annoying" and "something that was made to annoy." So no, you could not simply sue somebody because it annoys you - the difference is what the perpetrator's intent was, as well as what you can do with respect to the annoyer - no lawsuits, just a move to lessen the internet's anonymity. You would not go to jail for intentionally annoying someone under an alias, but simply be pushed to tell the offended who you really are. It's a law that is too broad and would likely not be well enforced...

... of course, that does nothing to make this bill any better. Why did Congress make a bill that uses such an ambiguous term? It's a loose piece of legislation that can be horrendously misinterpreted and abused, both by the law and by other people - that's the problem. Imagine writing a column that annoyed people - you would be annoyed by the threats of legal action by people who don't actually understand the law in the first place.

I would probably support a bill that used the term "harass" instead of "annoy" simply because it is not as loose a term. Harassment is actually a problem on the internet that should be addressed, but the term "annoy" oversimplifies the problem.

Why can't I just be dictator of America? We wouldn't have this bullshit if I was Generalissimo. :yarr: