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Monday, March 06, 2023

Bloggers must register to criticize a politician

I wish the title was a joke but it isn't. Sen. Jason Brodeur's, of Florida, introduced bill SB 1316, titled "Information Dissemination," would also require bloggers to disclose who's paying them for their posts about certain elected officials and how much.


So in other words... If I as a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation ( I'm assuming that means cash) for that post, I must register with the appropriate office within five days of the post. 

What if somebody gave me a sandwich with that count as compensation? If I received a car with that count is compensation? The proposed bill states that bloggers' disclosure to the state "must include" the "individual or entity that compensated the blogger for the blog post, and the amount of compensation received from the individual or entity. So again I assume this means only cash money.

They're loose definition of a blog or weblog as a 
"a website or webpage that hosts any blogger and is frequently updated with opinion, commentary, or business content". It seems that a well papers news site is exempt from this rule. It also doesn't make clear if that includes bloggers who don't reside in the state. I mean I don't get "compensation" for writing anything on here, but still that propose law makes no sense. It just looks like another misguided attempt to intimidate people that disagree with policies that the state is proposing on a regular basis. 

I mean in reality I can't see how any proposed law like that could stand up to any type of supreme Court challenge. I never heard of registering journalists. People who write cannot be forced to register. Or can they?

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