Posted on Thu, Mar. 06, 2008
Anonymous Web postings targeted
BILL WOULD REQUIRE NAMES, ADDRESSES
By John Cheves


A bill filed in the House would keep Kentuckians from posting anonymous
comments to Web sites.

House Bill 775, filed Tuesday by Rep. Tim Couch, R-Hyden, would require
anyone who contributes to a Web site to register a real name, address
and e-mail address with that Web site. The person's full name then would
be used whenever he or she posted a comment.

Web site operators who violate the disclosure law would be fined $500
for a first offense and $1,000 for each subsequent offense.

Couch readily acknowledged on Wednesday that his bill raises First
Amendment issues regarding free speech, so he won't be pushing it. But
he wanted to call attention to the phenomenon of unkind and often untrue
comments about people being posted online by Kentuckians hiding behind
the cloak of anonymity.

"Some nasty things have been said about high school kids in my district,
usually by other kids," Couch said. "The adults get in on it, too."

"When you're anonymous, you can say anything you want to about someone,
and nobody knows who you are," he said.

Couch said he, too, has been the subject of anonymous online roasting,
and while he doesn't enjoy it, he doesn't think there's much the
legislature can do about it.

"I think right now (online posting) is pretty much just on its own. It's
a machine that's going to go its own way," Couch said. "The state can
try to pass some rules, but I don't really think it would do anything."
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Not quite my idea for shedding the cloak of anonymity, but it's a start.
I'd love to see usenet require posters to post with their full, real
name and real ISP.