Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has proposed legislation that would place a heavy–some would say undue–burden on bloggers and social networks to take responsibility for the consequences of user-generated content.
This legislation could be a major blow to the health and vitality of the blogosphere. It comes on the heels of a decision by the California Supreme Court which held that bloggers could not be held responsible for defamatory content that they did not personally create.
Andy has pointed out to me that this is a terrible move for McCain’s 2008 presidential hopes. After all, there’s no worse blogger relations move than to support legislation that would cost them as much as $300,000 if they allow a single potentially defamatory comment to be posted and potentially stifle open public communication on the Web.
Via TailRank.
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