Blog regulation.
After last Saturday’s Sorensen Institute Summit on Blogging and Democracy in the Commonwealth, there’s been a great deal of talk about regulation of political blogs. Many people feel, justifiably so, that free expression is free expression, and there’s no need for self-regulation or external regulation. Others feel, just as rightly, that self-regulation would be helpful for us, in the name of credibility individually and for all bloggers.
I want to toss in my $0.02. I completely agree about free expression — I can’t see any way that blog content could be restricted or even regulated. The ways in which it could hypothetically be done in a legal manner are simply unenforceable. That said, the Virginia General Assembly has passed a lot of stupid laws in its time, and there’s nothing keeping them from doing so on this matter. I could easily foresee some onerous restrictions being placed on us. We could kick and scream and file lawsuits, and we may eventually win, but it would be an expensive, disruptive, unpleasant process.
What I would rather see is some very limited self-regulation. A few bloggers have taken a stab at this, but I’d be happy with something as simple as a few paragraphs long, each supporting a single ethical point. Bloggers who agree to abide by this put a little badge on their site linking to the ethical statement. Bloggers who don’t agree to it don’t do so. Those who adopt the standard and subsequently fail to comply are met only with derision by fellow bloggers — nothing more. Newspapers and blogs carry the story that self-regulation has happened. Legislators see that the problem has taken care of itself. Potential problem averted.
The video game industry has gone this route. So has the movie industry. So has the music industry. None of these industries have standards that are consistent or well-enforced, but all have successfully thwarted seemingly-imminent governmental regulation by self-regulating. Virginia bloggers would be wise to emulate this model.