New Congressional movement could give paid bloggers journalistic protection
Should bloggers be given the same protection to spread the news that more traditional journalists have? Right now, ‘yes’ seems to be the answer on the horizon. A Congressional committee has recently approved a federal shield law that, if passed, would give bloggers or anyone else who earns “financial gain or livelihood” from their style of reporting the same protection that other journalists have.
What kind of protection are we talking about? Some time ago, Apple brought a lawsuit against some sites that had reported leaked product information, demanding the identity of their sources. The lawsuit went in Apple’s favor at first, but an appeals court overturned the ruling on the grounds that journalistic shield laws are “intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news,” not just people with “journalist” as their career title. If the new Congressional law goes through, lawsuits like this would have no ground to stand on, as long as the bloggers in question were making money through their efforts.
Obviously, there are a whole lot of people who could squeeze into the category of “financial gain through blogging,” and some legislators have said as much, claiming that a shielf law like this is just too broad. Right now, the Bush administration seems to be opposed to the movement, so it’s possible that the law won’t go through at all. But the debate is one more illustration of how the role of media - and its definition - are changing.
It seems like only a matter of time until bloggers have the same rights and protections as traditional journalists. Some would say that recognition is long overdue.
(Source: Techdirt)
Privacy, media sharing main issues in blogging debate
In February, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) began considering the prospect of athletes and trainers blogging about their experiences during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This decision would overturn a previous part of the Olympic charter stating that athletes and others in the Olympic Village can’t act as journalists “or in any other media capacity” (Blog Herald) on top of competing in the Games.
The blogging issue is set to be discussed this week at the 119th IOC Session, which is being held in Guatemala. So far, it looks like athlete blogging may be allowed, but with strict stipulations: that the entries are done as personal reflections, that complaints against judges or other competitors aren’t made, and that no video or images are posted with the blogs. A statement from the IOC is as follows:
“Blogging is a legitimate form of personal expression available to all athletes at all times except during the Games, [as in the actual events themselves].”
(Source: Blog Herald)
Christopher Soghoian, a security researcher, announced Tuesday that there is a critical flaw in the privacy feature of Facebook pages. Although Facebook members have the option to mark their pages as ‘private,’ which restricts access only to specified users, these pages will not remain hidden if a blanket search is made based on religion, relationship status, or sexual orientation.
Unless the user’s privacy options are specifically changed under their page’s ‘search’ options, Facebook members who are also part of a group that user belongs to – such as a school, a location, etc. – will be able to find their hidden pages through the search option. Ryan Singel of Wired gives the following example:
For instance, if you are a Facebook member of your college, you could run a search to see all the people who are Christian women who are lesbians, all the women interested in women or all the Muslim men into other men. Your search results will likely include people who thought they marked their information as private, but didn’t also change their search settings. (These links all require a valid Facebook account.)
On Wednesday, a Facebook representative told Wired that the network had changed its privacy settings to solve the problem, so searches should no longer reveal private pages. It remains to be seen whether any further holes in Facebook’s privacy system will be discovered, but users should now have greater control over their visibility in searches.
(Source: Wired)
