FTC cracking down on blogger payola

[ironman]

famousringo said:

Zlejedi said:

thekitchensink said:

Zlejedi said:
This has potential to be serious dent in freedom of speech and promoting more politicall correctness.

Not really--all it does is make sure that a critic actually backs up his statements.  That said, if it cleans up their mouths on the way, I'm all for it.

How many small bloggers will not be afraid to write bad review about game x if they know they can be prosecuted for it and in best case they will have to do few hours of paperwork.

It will be much safer to never criticize anyone too much.

You're blowing this out of proportion. They're not going to be flinging lawsuits around challenging every petty remark on the internet, as that would be such a ridiculous waste of time as to make the law unenforcable.

Nobody is going to prosecute unless:

1. There is a provable conflict of interest and

2. The blogger fails to openly disclose it.

There no violation of freedom of speech, because people are still free to say whatever they like. But if they speak about a subject which involves their livelihood, they have to add a little bit of information which they might otherwise prefer to be left unsaid.

Is it a violation of freedom of speech when political ads are forced to disclose who paid for the ad?

Yes, it is a violation of freedom of speech. I don't believe anybody has the right to tell you that you must tell people who is paying for what you are saying. It is the consumers responsibility to research the data. However, if you are in the public spotlight, you should have the scruples to disclose who is paying you to say what.