-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Freedom's Just Another Word for Something New to Regulate Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 12:39:09 -0400 From: Sager, Ryan <RSager@private> http://www.techcentralstation.com/060805F.html The fact is that in the debate over extending campaign-finance regulation to the Internet, the so-called "reform community" -- i.e., the front groups for the eight liberal foundations that have been the money behind the clean-government movement since the 1990s -- has yet to offer a compelling rationale for why money spent on politics online needs to be controlled at all. That is, even if one accepts the idea that money spent on TV attack ads and the like is somehow corrupting and destructive, there's no reason to believe that the dynamic is (or will be in the future) the same on the Internet. This isn't because the Internet is some magic place where the rules of the real world don't apply. It's because the Internet is an active medium, whereas most traditional media (at least those which most trouble the reformers) are passive. In other words, while TV and radio ads bombard average Americans while they go about their daily business, people actually have to seek out content online. Given that fundamental difference, one is left to wonder just how monied interests would exert their dreaded "influence" on the Web. Would they buy thousands upon thousands of banner ads? Pop-ups? Pop-unders? Would they set up gigantic Web sites, so attractive, so sprawling, so enticing that hapless Web surfers would be unable to avoid being drawn to them? Would they create extra-spiffy Flash animations? Just how would this influence be wielded? _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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