On The Third Hand

This time from “down under,” land of kangaroos, blonde hotties, great beer, and “hey you, better ’sign’ that blog!”

Bloggers and spammers could be forced to put their names to political commentary in a bid to close a loophole in the nation’s electoral laws.

Roused by last year’s furore over anonymous political websites such as www.johnhowardlies.com, the Howard Government plans to clamp down on web publishers who refuse to identify a person who authorises their content.

Special Minister of State Eric Abetz told The Age that the move would ensure internet publishers were bound by the same rules as television, radio and print.

Australia’s electoral laws force publishers of any electoral material to identify a person who agrees to authorise the content. But the laws do not say whether online publications must also comply.

Anonymous? How anonymous is it when a simple search via internet or NeoTrace (as one example of many such programs) locates both the ISP and the registered owner of the site?

Oh, sorry, silly me I forgot. It’s a prerequsite to have a working knowledge of the internet and those “Demon Blogs.” Something these people are sadly lacking. But before I go off on an uncontrollable rage over these idiots, I offer this cluebat, in the words of the father of one of the biggest blog tracking services, Technorati:

Technorati is now tracking over 7.8 million weblogs, and 937 million links. That’s just about double the number of weblogs tracked in October 2004. In fact, the blogosphere is doubling in size about once every 5 months. It has already done so at this pace four times, which means that in the last 20 months, the blogosphere has increased in size by over 16 times.

While that doesn’t breakout the number of Australian blogs, you can bet it’s a fairly large number. Any attempt to stop, or regulate, that flow would be like standing at the foot of Wallaman Falls, tea cup in hand, trying to catch the water before it hits the river bottom.

So tell me Mr. Special Minister of State, how ya gonna stem that tide. How will the government ensure each and every Australian blog entry contains a “signature?” I would suggest you’re about to attempt something the taxpayers can’t afford and the government can’t enforce if the money were available. All for what? Because a few politicians have wet their pants over a couple fake campaign websites. GEEESH, get a life.

G’Day Mates, err… Asshats

Cross posted within the Cranial Cavity