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Bloggers Writing About Florida Governor, Officials, Legislature? You Need to Register w Florida or Face Fines

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https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/florida-bill-would-require-bloggers-who-write-about-governor-to-register-with-the-state/

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Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

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In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.

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If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published.

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For blog posts that “concern an elected member of the legislature” or “an officer of the executive branch,” monthly reports must disclose the amount of compensation received for the coverage, rounded to the nearest $10 value.

If compensation is paid for a series of posts or for a specific amount of time, the blogger would be required to disclose the total amount to be received, upon publication of the first post in said series or timeframe.

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Additional compensation must be disclosed later on.

Failure to file these disclosures or register with state officials, if the bill passes, would lead to daily fines for the bloggers, with a maximum amount per report, not per writer, of $2,500. The per-day fine is $25 per report for each day it’s late. 

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The bill also requires that bloggers file notices of failure to file a timely report the same way that lobbyists file their disclosures and reports on assessed fines. Fines must be paid within 30 days of payment notice, unless an appeal is filed with the appropriate office. Fine payments must be deposited into the Legislative Lobbyist Registration Trust Fund if it concerns an elected member of the legislature.

For writing about members of the executive branch, fines would be made payable to the Executive Branch Lobby Registration Trust Fund or, if it concerns both groups, the fine may be paid to both related trust funds in equal amounts.

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Explicitly, the blogger rule would not apply to newspapers or similar publications, under Brodeur’s proposed legislation.

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In addition to the blogger regulations, the bill also removes provisions of state statutes to require judicial notices of sales to be published on publicly accessible websites, and specifies that a government agency can publish legally required advertisements and public notices on county sites if the cost is not paid by or recovered from an individual.

Should the bill pass, it would take effect immediately upon approval.

Party of Small Government and First Amendment

Happy Don Rickles GIF

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BrickHorn

BrickHorn 18,194

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The First Amendment’s primary purpose is to ensure the unfettered right to express political opinions, which is why corporations can anonymously donate unlimited wads of cash to political candidates. 

Oh also, if an individual American wants to write about politics, they need the government’s explicit approval.

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28,713

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3 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

It's in the OP, and it doesn't change the overall absurdity and jackassery of the bill, but I think it's worth emphasizing that this would apply only to bloggers being paid to post. 

What if they’re paid by a 501(c)(4) and most of what they blog about isn’t political?

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atomheartbevo

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5 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

It's in the OP, and it doesn't change the overall absurdity and jackassery of the bill, but I think it's worth emphasizing that this would apply only to bloggers being paid to post. 

If the blog has advertising or affiliate sales, they are getting compensation for posting.  If it's somebody on a social media platform that has revenue sharing that they partake in, they are getting compensation.   You'd be hard pressed to find political bloggers who are not being compensated in some way, whether it's advertising, subscriptions or mailing lists/Patreon, or whatever revenue model they have to support their endeavors.

The fact that they exclude "newspapers or similar publications" speaks volumes, as the idiots pushing this legislation probably think they can dodge any Freedom of the Press issues.  And really, how much of a difference is there between a writer being paid to write newspaper articles about the legislature or the governor, and a guy taking in advertising revenue when he writes a post on a blog about the legislature or the governor?  At the end of the day, both are getting paid based on what they wrote, and both would not be doing what they are doing if they weren't being compensated.

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TexasHooch

TexasHooch 5,117

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2 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

What if they’re paid by a 501(c)(4) and most of what they blog about isn’t political?

As I understand it, they would only have to declare on months that a political post (specifically about an elected official) is published. 

I'm not sure though, and -true to form- I doubt it's been thought through  I do think that it's smaller in scope than a lot of people will recognize.  But it's a very very bad idea and the slippiest of slopes.

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atomheartbevo

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1 hour ago, Js1 said:

So much freedom! 

15 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Jesus, what a bunch of pussies. 

It's pretty crazy.  If the Democrats had proposed this in Congress, Republicans would be losing their fucking minds over it.

But nope, it's the party of Small Government and Free Speech.

 

 

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bernorange

bernorange 8,348

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11 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

While that legislation may be bad idea jeans in its own right, it is a far cry from Der Jurnalistik Registration Akt. 

There's really no comparison. 

They both have the aim to chill or censor internet speech.  The Florida bill seems more Draconian and stupidly focused on political speech directed at a very narrow audience. The Senate bill would actually be more damaging to free speech across the board.

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hpslugga

hpslugga 4,044

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5 hours ago, hobbes2702 said:

Florida did that by itself. The people there are the disease, ole Ron is just a symptom

Yeah Florida wasn’t exactly the intellectual capital of the country before little Ronnie came along.

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23,394

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

While that legislation may be bad idea jeans in its own right, it is a far cry from Der Jurnalistik Registration Akt. 

There's really no comparison. 

It seems like a pretty clear cut violation of the first amendment, no?

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31,283

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49 minutes ago, bernorange said:

They both have the aim to chill or censor internet speech.  The Florida bill seems more Draconian and stupidly focused on political speech directed at a very narrow audience. The Senate bill would actually be more damaging to free speech across the board.

Well, the intention of that amendment to 230 is to take "paid speech" out of the protection of 230, just like an Interactive Computer Service has no protection for its own speech as opposed to that of third parties.

It may be beset with unintended consequences, but the idea that an Internet Computer Service has pretty complete control over content it pays or receives payment for and maybe ought to be liable for whatever damage it causes is not in any way outrageous.  The government isn't hardly involved at all other than by amending the statute.

Besides, we're not really talking censorship in that amendment to 230, we're talking mostly about liability for defamation.  Despite right wing claims to the contrary, only the government censors, what private parties do and defamation suits are not censorship. The Florida bill directly injects the government into the affairs of publishers.  It doesn't censor anything, but it sure sets things up for it nicely.

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Longhorn_Fan68

Longhorn_Fan68 33,843

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7 minutes ago, bernorange said:

The Senate Amendment would open up Immamac to liability for shit posted on surly.  Every forum that has members paying a nominal fee or running ads on the site will face the same liability.  That's going to chill a lot of speech.

nah, fuck them. come at me.

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South Austin

South Austin 52,148

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7 minutes ago, bernorange said:

The Senate Amendment would open up Immamac to liability for shit posted on surly.  Every forum that has members paying a nominal fee or running ads on the site will face the same liability.  That's going to chill a lot of speech.

Then maybe you fuckers will finally stop talking about my poor mom.

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BevoAbyss

BevoAbyss 2,057

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Just wait till they come after the rest of the First Amendment, which protects six rights.

1) The right to have no religious belief 

2) Freedom of religious belief

3) Freedom of speech

4) Freedom of press

5) Right to peacefully assemble

6) Right to peacefully protest

Given the fascist-theocrats on the Supreme Court and various lower courts, few of these rights are safe. Especially the one at the very top. Yeah, the very first one atop all the Bill of Rights—the right to no religious belief. That first right is the basis of the Establishment Clause, the "wall" separating church and state. That will be attacked sooner or later by the GQP fascist theocrats. Count on it. 

 

FirstAmendment.jpg

Edited by BevoAbyss
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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89,450

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4 hours ago, DaysOff said:

We all still live in Texas, right?

Louisiana wants its residents to show their government ID digitally to porn sites to access porn, and the Texas legislature is probably taking notes, so keep an eye out.

1 hour ago, bernorange said:

They both have the aim to chill or censor internet speech.  The Florida bill seems more Draconian and stupidly focused on political speech directed at a very narrow audience. The Senate bill would actually be more damaging to free speech across the board.

The Senate bill won't happen though.

This hopefully won't happen, because it appears that other "conservatives" realize that this is bad, really bad, and that Brodeur is most likely butt-hurt over something somebody wrote about him - I  would imagine that the purpose of this, is to reveal the identities of bloggers, and build up a database of individuals and their revenue, that will most likely be made public information, which will then see MAGA jumping all over them and their advertisers.

 

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Gil Bang

Gil Bang 25,898

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3 hours ago, Nivek said:

I remember when republicans on the old sites (HF, Shaggy) used to say this:

 

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

 

 

they all left Bugtussle and moved to The Villages. 

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