Exactly. There is a real threat to people's rights with respect to blogging, but it's not from companies; it's from the government -- in particular, from Campaign Finance Reform. According to an article at news.com (The coming crackdown on blogging), the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (aka McCain-Feingold) could, for example, make a link from a blog to a candidate's site count as a contribution to that candidate's campaign, and therefore subject to regulation.
Libertarians and other proponents of small government are against regulation. It is regulation, not large media companies, that threatens civil liberties.
The old regulation prevented a media company from owning stations that reached 35% of U.S. households. The FCC's regulation, which the House overturned, would raise this limit to 45%. Note that this does not mean that 35% of U.S. households actually watched those stations. It means, simply, that 35% would have access to those stations, if they wanted to watch them. To put that in rough internet terms, that would be like the government saying that only people with IP addresses (ignoring, for simplicity, reserved addresses) through 89.153.153.153 could access/.
This type of regulation is anything but a protection of free speech. The ownership rule should be erased altogether.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. There is a real threat to people's rights with respect to blogging, but it's not from companies; it's from the government -- in particular, from Campaign Finance Reform. According to an article at news.com (The coming crackdown on blogging), the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (aka McCain-Feingold) could, for example, make a link from a blog to a candidate's site count as a contribution to that candidate's campaign, and therefore subject to regulation.
Libertarians and other proponents of small government are against regulation. It is regulation, not large media companies, that threatens civil liberties.
/.
The old regulation prevented a media company from owning stations that reached 35% of U.S. households. The FCC's regulation, which the House overturned, would raise this limit to 45%. Note that this does not mean that 35% of U.S. households actually watched those stations. It means, simply, that 35% would have access to those stations, if they wanted to watch them. To put that in rough internet terms, that would be like the government saying that only people with IP addresses (ignoring, for simplicity, reserved addresses) through 89.153.153.153 could access
This type of regulation is anything but a protection of free speech. The ownership rule should be erased altogether.