IN THIS ISSUE:

• Bloggers Could Be Jailed For Their Opinions
• Can Reliance on Twitter Make Emotional Cripples of Us All?
• Watch Out Google, Obama’s Antitrust Chief Is Looking To Make An Example Out Of You

BLOGGERS COULD BE JAILED FOR THEIR OPINIONS

by Orlando

Democrat Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others are proposing a House of Representatives bill (H. R. 1966), that could be interpreted to put bloggers and others in jail for voicing their opinions. Here is the relevant text:

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both….

["Communication"] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; …

["Electronic means"] means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.

The measure, H.R. 1966, is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act. It’s intention is to prevent the behavior that led to last year’s suicide of the 13-year-old Meier who was harassed on MySpace.com.

Despite the good intentions, the language can be interpreted by any person or lawyer to fine or jail bloggers if someone believes they are caused “emotional distress.” A blog like Ft. Hard Knox or others could be imprisonment under this loose interpretation. The problem with the bill is not its intent, but its vague wording that can be used by any liberal group who thinks they are being harassed, intimidated, or distressed. It is cause for concern that our First Amendment rights could be violated.

• Also see: TechDirt - What is Cyberbullying Anyway?

CAN RELIANCE ON TWITTER MAKE EMOTIONAL CRIPPLES OF US ALL?

The following is an interesting perspective on the potential dangers of an overreliance on micro-blogging sites like Twitter.com:

By Jackie O’Neal

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ (ANS) — Among the most important voices suggesting Twitter has the potential to numb human senses and create indifference to human suffering is University of Southern California researcher, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.

Her inquiry into the dangers of Twitter is worth exploring. Most people when confronted with moral decision making need time to digest the information in order to reflect. But the fast pace of Twitter, the researchers say, can cause harm.

What is most interesting is that the study’s new findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites like Twitter are too fast and furious for the brain’s “moral compass” to process , and could have a deleterious effect on young people’s emotional development. Like most people, I believed Twitter was a great way to stay in touch with friends and colleagues and get news updates, although I quickly found it time consuming. And as Christians, God intends for us to submit our wills to Him, as well as not be influenced by the “spirit of the age.”

Is it possible as the researchers say, that before the brain can fully grasp the anguish of a news story, it is too swiftly being inundated by the latest Twitter update and thereby be impeding an emotional response?

The unanswered question is whether there is a high emotional cost when one relies too heavily on being swept up in an ocean of news delivered by Twitter or online feeds.

A surprising idea emerges as well, because Twittering allows users to exchange messages of 140-characters or less, and the creators intended Twitter to be a solution to information overload.

On balance, the most convincing point made by researchers is that we still need to work on understanding how “social experience shapes interactions between the body and mind, to produce citizens with a strong moral compass,” as Immordino-Yang put it, lest we become a society emotionally dead in a world of fast news delivery.

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Jackie O’Neal is a freelance writer and regular contributor to The Press of Atlantic City and she also wrote for The New York Amsterdam News among others. She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry and Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. O’Neal teaches Developmental Writing as a Senior adjunct professor at Atlantic Cape Community College where she was nominated for an Excellence in Teaching Award 2007. Originally from New York, O’Neal taught at York College, C.U.N.Y. for several years. Currently, she is an ordained priest and the only woman in 126 years to be nominated at her former parish, The Church of the Ascension in Atlantic City, N.J. She recently expanded her business and opened O’Neal Media Group to offer non-profits and small business affordable public relations services. She is engaged in several pro-bono projects via Nabuur.com. To learn more, search Google for ONealMediaGroup.info

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WATCH OUT GOOGLE, OBAMA'S ANTITRUST CHIEF IS LOOKING TO MAKE AND EXAMPLE OUT OF YOU

by Erick Shonfeld, of TechCrunch

The Obama Administration’s new chief antitrust enforcer at the Department of Justice, Christine Varney, is making it very clear that she is going to be much more aggressive in bringing antitrust actions against large, American corporations. The Bush Administration took a hands-off approach to antitrust enforcement, and that is about to change. Varney needs a high-profile case to make her name, and all indications are that she is eying Google. After all she needs to make an example out of a big powerful corporate “predator” and in this limping econmy there simply aren’t that many powerful companies to chose from.

Google, quite literally, is the new Microsoft when it comes to antitrust scrutiny (although, Microsoft itself is also still under the magnifying glass, as is Intel, at least in Europe). Even under the Bush Justice Department, last year Google had to drop its advertising deal with Yahoo because of antitrust issues. Today, Google is dealing with an antitrust investigation over to its book-scanning settlement, the newspaper and magazine industries are rattling their sabers, and every other industry facing disruption by the internet is lining up to blame Google for their woes. Varney will be encouraging competitors of all potential antitrust targets to f ile more complaints, so you can be sure that anti-Google lobby will grow.

Google makes a nice, juicy target and it is one of the few companies with cash on hand to pay a large fine...Continue reading on TechCrunch >>

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