CNET's Declan McCullagh has an interview FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith that raises a bunch of questions about the future of blogging, especially when it comes to political speech.
Q: What rules will apply to the Internet that did not before?[Via JD Lasica]
A: The commission has generally been hands-off on the Internet. We've said, "If you advertise on the Internet, that's an expenditure of money--much like if you were advertising on television or the newspaper."
The real question is: Would a link to a candidate's page be a problem? If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law.
Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption? If we don't give bloggers the press exemption, we have the question of, do we extend this to online-only journals like CNET?
| :: posted by Donald Melanson, 3:35 PM | Comments (0)
Links to this post |
0 Comments:
Post a Comment