Big Brother is watching. 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 have to be used anytime a comment is posted.
Listen to me, half of the funniest posts I’ve ever read have been signed by anonymous. I don’t need to know who said it.
Look, I know that there’s all sorts of problems out there with anonymity but is this really the way to solve it? 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 but admitted that enforcing this bill if it became law would be a challenge.
I’m now officially starting a new online group. “Anonymouses for Anonymity.”
And in case the bill is passed and there some who can’t stop themselves from posting anonymously I’m starting a help group called “Anonymous Anonymous.”
March 13, 2008 at 3:46 am
Is that why all of a sudden I appear as “Dog”? I kind of like being “Dog,” but I am such a contrarian and so loath to cave in to government demands and interference that I may have to insist on returning to being Anonymous. Of course, Dog isn’t my real name, either, so I guess either way I’m still an outlaw – and loving it. And “Long live the Mouses.”
March 13, 2008 at 3:56 am
I want to Join your anonymous club. I am all for anonymity. We need more of it!
My Name is Eliot Spitzer and I approve this message.
March 15, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Is this for real???
March 15, 2008 at 6:43 pm
sadly, yes.
March 16, 2008 at 11:56 am
I don’t get it? Is it my fault that my dad’s name is Andy Anonymous? Are we to change our name to cater to some drip from Kentucky? Time for the whole Anonymous clan and its cousins, the Anon tribe to make their voices heard!!
March 16, 2008 at 2:07 pm
You’re Anonymous? Your the guy whose written all those poems by “Anonymous.” Or was that your Dad?