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Kentucky Bill: Wait an Hour Before Posting Injuries To Social Media (kentucky.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A Kentucky state representative is developing an unusual piece of legislation. It would impose a delay on people posting about an event on social media if the event resulted in serious injury. Users caught violating this law would face fines ranging from $20-$100. It wouldn't restrict media, victims, or first responders — just bystanders. Representative John Carney says, "It's purely my intent to get a discussion going out there, asking people to be more respectful about what they put on social media. We've had some incidents, including one in my community, and I'd hate for anyone to learn about the loss of a loved one through social media."
Opponents of the bill point out the difficulty in determining who qualifies as "media" in the age of social networks, not to mention the potential conflict with the First Amendment. Carney recognizes the difficulty, and says he doesn't intend to push the bill immediately, but notes that he's trying to solve a real problem. Tiger Robinson, a local public safety director, said, "There have been times we've been pulling bodies out of cars and these people are standing there, snapping pictures on their phones to post on Facebook. It's just not right."
Opponents of the bill point out the difficulty in determining who qualifies as "media" in the age of social networks, not to mention the potential conflict with the First Amendment. Carney recognizes the difficulty, and says he doesn't intend to push the bill immediately, but notes that he's trying to solve a real problem. Tiger Robinson, a local public safety director, said, "There have been times we've been pulling bodies out of cars and these people are standing there, snapping pictures on their phones to post on Facebook. It's just not right."
Well, copyright law already infringes on the freedom of the press, so there's obviously some ground for a restriction (yes, they're both in the constitution). However, there may be a case for assigning civil liability to the presumed harm done by posting photos before notification of the next of kin has been made, and a much stronger case for assigning civil liability in the case that the next of kin sees the photos before civil authorities do a next of kin notification.
The guy is right, what have we become?
Agreed AC.
Its hard to imagine how this could *ever* be a law I would support; due to my support for free speech and other principles.
But at the same time, I know that in most cases the posting photos of accident victims, and accidents etc to facebook and twitter is supremely disrespectful and only serves to fulfill the posters own ego and thirst for attention. Its morally indefensible.
It depends. What if those "victims" were shot recently by police? Now it changes, "Oh that could be evidence of police brutality!" What if you're filming people running out of a burning building? Wouldn't YOU like to see YOUR relatives getting out, rather than wondering if they did? What if they are recording medical malpractice on YOUR daughter being handled, wouldn't you rather see/know that than only here "There's nothing we could have done"?
Generally, when there is a ton of injuries, it is a natural disaster or an act of man, either way it is better documented by civilians. This law is basically to create an elite media, call it a "Ministry of Truth", which is only allowed to do first-responding documentation.
Unrestricted freedom of the press would include the freedom to print what someone else wrote. So yes, copyright is a restriction of that freedom.