McCain hates blogs.

source:Think Progress url: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on-blogs/

"John McCain’s War On Blogs
John McCain has made clear that he doesn’t like the blogosphere.

Now he has introduced legislation that would treat blogs like Internet service providers and hold them responsible for all activity in the comments sections and user profiles. Some highlights of the legislation:

– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”

– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.

— Social networking sites will be forced to take “effective measures” — such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is “associated” with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up for personal diaries.

Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that this proposal may be based more “on fear or political considerations rather than on the facts.” When he introduced his legislation to the Senate, McCain offered no evidence that children are being victimized by people who post comments on blogs.

McCain’s legislation could deal a serious blow to the blogosphere. Lacking resources to police their sites, many individual blogs may have to shut down open discussion."

$300,000 in fines if you do not report illegal comments made on your blog by others?? That is some serious responsiblity. If this passes, I would be too scared of getting fined. Who knows how much of what I post is considered illegal because I am reposting. Not to mention that I cannot even imagine how many blogs and site and users would be deleted because of this. Its one things to have some controls, but is it another users responsibility to censor others???