• Blogger

    California FPPC’s Ann Ravel Backs Off Blogger Campaign Disclosure

    California FPPC Chairwoman Ann Ravel

    California FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) Chairperson Ann Ravel is backing off her proposal to regulate political bloggers.

    The director of California’s political watchdog agency is shelving her proposal to require bloggers to disclose payments they receive from political campaigns.

    Chairwoman Ann Ravel of the Fair Political Practices Commission said she remains committed to holding public debate on mandatory disclosure with the hope that a plan could emerge in the future.

    Ravel said she wants to seek voluntary disclosure by bloggers for the November election, but conceded, “I don’t think there’s going to be a large amount.”

    She said she may ask the FPPC to consider requiring political candidates to publicize any money they pay to bloggers and link to that information on their websites.

    Candidates already are required to disclose payments to bloggers as a campaign expenditure, but the information typically is contained in a long list of expenses and is easily overlooked by voters.

    Just as I thought, the proposal has too many complications with free speech issues vs. mandatory blogger disclosure.

    Voluntary disclosure will go nowhere.

    Political journalists will just have to dig through the candidate’s campaign reports if they want the information.

  • Blogger,  Blogosphere,  Day By Day,  Google

    Day By Day by Chris Muir July 1, 2008

    daybyday070108

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Google and the Blogger platofrm definitely have egg on its face for their treatment of the anti-Obama blogs. But, do they have a valid “EXCUSE” for their incompetence?

    A “kerfuffle” over the blocking of some blogs by Google — all of them “anti-Obama” — seems to be mostly over. The blogs have been unblocked and Simon Owens at Bloggasm, who had followed the developments, says that those who suspected a conspiracy led by supporters of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama to shut down blogs critical of their man “might be feeling a little silly right now.” Google’s explanation for the blockings is that it’s spam filters mistakenly got tripped.

    Google owned Blogger’s explanation is here:

    Hi there,
    On behalf of the Blogger Team, I want to apologize for the recent trouble you’ve had with your locked blog. Automated spam detection is not yet a perfect science, and although we are constantly working to improve our tools, it appears that our filters have caused some Blogger accounts to mistakenly be blocked from creating new posts.

    While we are still investigating, we believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the “Just Say No Deal” network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam.

    Regardless, we have restored posting rights to your blog, and it is very important to us that Blogger remain a tool for political debate and free expression.

    So once again, we apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience as we looked into the problem.

    Sincerely,
    The Blogger Team

    Flap loathes censorship and disruptions. And, I moved to my own blog hosting over three years ago so that I could be the master of my own blog destiny.

    If bloggers want a “FREE” platform then they need to remember that there is no free lunch.

    The will need to move their blog.

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