Here’s the summary from Slashdot:
“Republican Assemblyman Jim Conte said, ‘[this] turns the spotlight on cyberbullies by forcing them to reveal their identity.’ Republican Senator Thomas O’Mara added, ‘[this will] help lend some accountability to the Internet age.’ The two are sponsoring a bill that would ban any New York-based websites from allowing comments (or well, anything) to be posted unless the person posting it attaches their name to it. But the bill also goes further, saying New York-based websites, such as blogs and newspapers, must ‘remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post.'”
What strikes me as highly interesting with this is that Republicans are always against actual anti-bullying legislation. They always consider it part of a nanny state type conspiracy. But now we have them going after bullying online, so long as it’s done anonymously.
Are they really this stupid?
First off, nothing you do online is really anonymous. There are IP logs that always trace back to you. Thinking you are really anonymous is really lying to yourself.
Secondly, what prevents people from posting a fake name? Because a form says “enter your real name”, does that mean people are going to? Not necessarily. Sure it gives law enforcement a new statute to charge, but it’s not going to prevent anything.
This really sounds like some politicians have been hit by Twitter or commenting firestorms and now are hurt over it, so they are going to make it hard on everyone else. Typical from any politician, but highly hypocritical from politicians who are in the party that opposes legislation to stop kids from bullying other kids because of their race, religion or sexual orientation, that has been known to lead to suicide.