Who is really a journalist? When it comes down to it, our society’s definition of the term has evolved exponentially. Traditionally, someone becomes a journalist when he or she works for a published magazine or newspaper or is working for a major broadcast station. While many countries throughout Europe and Asia require their journalists to be licensed, the United States requires no form certification to report the news of the day. Thus in this country, journalists traditionally earned their title not through their actual work but through their employment status. By being part of a publishing or broadcast staff, you had earned the right to be considered a propagator of news. Beyond the obvious flaws in that self-policing and self-regulating system, the Internet Age has changed the ways people distribute and disseminate information. Large amounts of capital are no longer needed to reach millions. All people need these days is an Internet connection and some free time. However, we as a society have to question what exactly makes a journalist and how bloggers and other informal Internet opinion leaders should be treated under the law.
The new FTC regulations have drastically altered the way we view and define the status of bloggers. Today, bloggers are now viewed as amateur journalists who are still held to the legal standards of writers for hallowed new institutions as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, when in reality they are little more than people trading information around the water cooler. With these new regulations that hold average people to the highest of journalistic standards, it becomes increasingly more difficult to distinguish between the story of a season journalist and what regular people say or do on Tumblr. If I win a free iPad from Apple, do I need to disclose when and how I got that device to everyone I tweet, Facebook Post, and blog to? While it is commendable for the government to hold bloggers to a higher standard for the benefit of the consumer, I really wonder what kind of environment this will create. The less oversight that the government can have in our lives, the better off we as citizenry are. The more I read about the FTC regulations, the more I feel like we are stifling online expression. While the FTC exists “to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them,” (FTC online)[1] it is not too hard to imagine a situation where the government tries to directly control what is written, said or posted on the internet.
As I read over the FTC regulations, I realized that they make a lot of important changes to protect the modern consumer. By fining bloggers up to $11,000 for misrepresenting themselves, the FTC has taken a stronger stance on “material connection,” otherwise known as the exchange of gifts or payment for endorsements. The Commission sent a message that if you are going to post online, then you are subject to regulation and certain standards and practices not unlike a journalist. On top of the regulation of bloggers and material connections, the FTC ruled that advertisements must explicitly detail what typical results of a product might be and not just include the phrase “results are not typical.” The 1980 guidelines were in desperate need of update after almost 30 years of advertising advancement, but the choice to restrict speech on the Internet will have a lasting impact that could negatively affect generations of Americans to come online. My issue is not with the laws themselves. To an extent, consumers and citizens need to be projected from deceit and misdirection. In dire circumstances, regulation is the key to making sure that the invisible hand of the market balances everyone’s self interest. My biggest concern comes with dealing with people who write on the Internet in the same capacity that we view advertisers and journalists. I dread that we are setting a dangerous precedent by not realizing the slippery slope that we are heading down if we as a society choose to accept these regulations.
In the 20th century, legal precedent has spurred on major social change. Brown v Board of Education brought down segregation in schools, in the same way that Plessy v. Ferguson had affirmed separate but equal some 50 years earlier. While still highly contested across this country, no one can argue that Roe v Wade has led to a major change in how we view and talk about abortion in this country. While we like to recognize the people who dedicated their lives to changing the status quo, it is usually the legal system that lights the powder keg of social change.
I include this in the blogger discussion because I fear how choosing to legally stiffen online expression will negatively affect American interaction with the Internet in the long run. Though China vastly outnumbers us in terms of people online or percentage of the population using broadband, English is still the most popular language on the net with over 536.6 million users in 2010 (internet world stats.com.)[2] In order to have continued growth online, we as a society must be able to distinguish between journalist and citizen by allowing people to express their opinions without worrying about governmental backlash.
While it is important to recognize the necessity of the government to make sure that consumers are not being swindled, I believe that it is even more essential that our government provide a strong and lasting foundation for the future. In the end, not all bloggers are journalists or advertisers, most of the time they are just people using technology to share their thoughts and views with the digital world. Since our founding, we have been a country that has given the benefit of the doubt to our citizens. Why can’t we do that for our bloggers as well?
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