The market will respond like usual, and every ip address on the internet will be given a truth and troll credit score, so site owners like Radley can decide to risk allowing them to post on his site or not.

That being said, I’ve recently signed up for a dating website. The DOJ should have a field day prosecuting all of the women on there self categorized as slim and trim, while their photos reveal multiple chins and overhanging bellies. Bring in the swat team. Some of them have puppies.

Nobody ever reads them. But someone (Facebook, the MPAA, the feds) wants the ability to turn those terms of service which nobody reads and which are designed to be very hard to read or understand into something with the force of law.

This will be a great way of making almost everyone subject to selective prosecution. And given the way things work in America, that will mean that people who are overly annoying to the powers that be (say, Wikileaks supporters or whistleblowers who post something under a pseudonym) will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, while people who are supportive to the powers that be (say, astroturfers working for an establishment political campaign or PR firm) will of course face no legal consequences.

-jcr

-whew-

Facebook recently booted Salman Rushdie out of his account, on the grounds that they don’t allow accounts named after celebrities, unless that actually is the celebrity in question. The fact that he really IS the famous Salman Rushdie didn’t seem to matter to Facebook. Then when Facebook realized their error, they reinstated his account using his first name, which he never uses, except on his passport where his full name is written. Thus Salman Rushdie got edited into Ahmed Rushdie.

That sort of thing is bad enough. But if violating ToS becomes a criminal offense, it could be even worse. The first sign the man might have had that Facebook thought he was using someone else’s name, might have been police arriving to haul him off in handcuffs. Then on top of having to prove his identity to Facebook in order to not lose his account, he’d be facing felony charges in federal court, to simply prove he owns his name, and if the court disagreed with him, he’d go to prison for computer hacking.

Now, it’s true that if such a thing passes and people take it seriously, then lots of people will be looking to find different outlets for interaction on the internet, outlets that have less restrictive TOS agreements. If it looks like being on facebook can result in criminal jeopardy for giving the wrong age or fibbing about relationship status, then fewer people will want to be on facebook and facebook will likely change its TOS.

And, really, that points to another significant danger of such a law. Facebook (for example) isn’t going to want to get a reputation for getting its members into trouble with the law, so they will only sic the government on people who have done something that is unpopular. In other words, they will pick and choose who to go after and that will add another layer of arbitrary, capricious, and potentially vindictive prosecutions to the law.

Or at least enjoy the sight of fat congresscritters trying to outrun the lynch mobs.

Great idea. You and what army?

Yupp, that about covers it.

Did you really think we want those laws observed? said Dr. Ferris. We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be
much easier to deal with. (‘Atlas Shrugged’ 1957)

Which effectively gives any ISP, social site, or even most software vendors, the power to pass laws and have them enforced by the Federal government. “Well, LGF’s terms of service state that you may never demean the Republican Party, nor receive welfare from any source. In order to post the comment in evidence, you had to click on the button stating that you agreed to their TOS in its entirety…..”

now the question is, why would they fear “unregulated” media? how could that *possibly* hurt them? hmmm…..