Should the bills pass, any Internet user could call up a toll-free number that websites would be required to set up to handle such grievances. Anonymous web users would then have but a single recourse to save their posts if such a compliant is lodged against them: unmask completely by revealing their name and going through an identification process.
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Should they refuse, the post must be deleted within 48 hours.
"A web site administrator, upon request, shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name and home address are accurate," reads the draft legislation, identical versions of which have been introduces in both chambers of New York's legislature.
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Sen. O'Mara, who introduced the bill in the New York State Senate, told Mashable that his motivation is entirely to "deal with the issue of cyberbulling."
"Cyberbullying and bullying in general is something that I think is exacerbated by the use of the Internet and the ability to get a claim or an accusation out to a mass of people quickly and anonymously that may be of a bullying sort, or contain untrue accusations," said O'Mara. "This legislation is an attempt to do something about that."
O'Mara has not spoken to any website hosts about the legislation, nor does he consider the idea a violation of the First Amendment.
"I'll be taking comments from web hosts and on the First Amendment into consideration," said O'Mara. "By no means is this an attempt to infringe upon the First Amendment. I don't think hosts of websites want to be in a position of fostering false or unsubstantiated information, and I want to work with all interests on the bill."
Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, disagrees.
"The law is clearly unconstitutional," said Opsahl. "The right to speak anonymously is part of the First Amendment and has been since the founding of this country. In fact, some of the founding documents of the country were originally written as part of the Federalist Papers, which some of our founding fathers wrote anonymously under pseudonyms. Since then, the Supreme Court has routinely held up the legality of speaking anonymously."
Read the full text of the legislation here.
Mashable reached out to the office of State Assemblyman Dean Murray, who introduced the bill in his chamber, but did not immediately receive a response.
Should anonymous Internet users be forced to unmask themselves if a complaint is lodged against them? Sound off in the comments below.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, selimaksan
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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