It can be difficult to facilitate an environment of civil discourse in an online arena. Anonymity, impulsive posting and low barriers to entry mean that even conversations about complex issues can quickly devolve into heated flame wars full of personal attacks with little bearing on the subject at hand. Likewise, online anonymity can make it easier for individuals to engage in cyberbullying without fear of repercussions.
The government of Arizona isn't having any of this, as the state legislature last week passed House Bill 2549, which makes it "unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person."
The bill is currently awaiting Gov. Jan Brewer's (R-Ariz.) signature.
Put simply, the fact that the bill was passed is unbelievably stupid and makes one question if Arizona's lawmakers have even a basic grasp of technology or constitutional law.
While preventing cyberbullying is an admirable goal, this law is an overly broad, flagrant violation of the First Amendment and will almost certainly be shot down in court before it goes into effect.
Anyone who has ventured onto all but the most civil online forums has likely encountered or been the target of speech in violation of this law. Indeed, anyone who has "trolled" someone else online has likely violated this law.
As the First Amendment-defense group Media Coalition pointed out in an open letter to Brewer, "Speech protected by the First Amendment is often intended to offend, annoy or scare but could be prosecuted under this law."
The bill's passage is indicative of a troubling trend: Lawmakers inherently unfamiliar with technology continue to pass laws regulating and restricting it. This is no more acceptable than gray-haired male politicians acting as if they're the most qualified individuals to be deciding on reproductive laws chiefly affecting young women.
The technophobic atmosphere in congress and state legislatures is what led to the awful Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and allowed them to advance through the legislative process as far as they did. It wasn't until more tech-savvy voters let their voices be heard over the special interests promoting those bills that SOPA and PIPA were effectively killed.
As college students, we might find it funny when our older relatives struggle with things as second nature to us as Facebook and texting.
However, we should not laugh when someone like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says, as he did in a 2008 interview, that he struggles with basic web browsing and email. Considering the primary role technology plays in the economy and American society itself, we should be horrified by these revelations, and we should let our votes reflect this.
McCain has since created a Twitter account and amassed more than 1.7 million followers. We can only hope that more politicians follow his lead. Politicians don't need to be technological experts, but they should be have a basic, personal understanding of the technology that is driving our world before they attempt to regulate it.
