Lawmakers introduced identical bills in the senate and assembly that would require identification of anonymous commenters.
Online commenters aren’t exactly known for their kind words, but lawmakers in New York want to hold their constituents to a higher standard. A few Empire State lawmakers want to address that problem by doing away with anonymous commenting.
Identical bills in the senate and assembly require anonymous posts to be deleted by administrators of New York-based websites, including “social networks, blog forums, message boards, or any other discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.”
The proposal has the tech and legal communities reeling – if not outright giggling.
“There are lots of good reasons to ban anonymous comments, and also a lot of good reasons to have anonymous comments, and the state assembly weighing on the issue is strange and slightly ridiculous, slightly goofy,” Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia law school, told the Guardian.
“It is hard to imagine the value of a law that would, for example, make Columbia’s course evaluation illegal. Not to mention it’s an obvious first amendment violation.”
If the bills pass, website administrators would be required to provide a contact number or email address for people to request anonymous comment removals. Upon receiving a complaint, the website would then be required to contact the original commenter and give them a 48-hour window to identify their posts.
If the anonymous commenter chooses not to identify themselves by providing their IP address, legal name and home address within the 48-hour slot, the website must delete the comment.
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