Twitter may have caught a lot of flak for their recent decision to censor themselves based on local laws, but it looks like the government is trying to do it for them, right here in America.
The Oregon State Legislature heard a controversial and misconceived piece of legislation that became known as "The Flash-mob Bill" on Monday, one that would create the brand new crime of "aggravated solicitation" for sending out inappropriate tweets.
Senator Doug Whitsett, a Republican from Klamath Falls, requested the bill because he heard that people had been coordinating flash mobs on Twitter and stealing things.
Image via CrunchBase
He gave him an example of the sorts of tweets his law would cover: "'We are all going to arrive at Joe's Jewelry Store at 4:55 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon and we're going to rob him blind,'" he said, according to Mother Jones. "This has been happening. At least 8 percent of the retailers in the United States have experienced that type of situation."
It was unclear where he was getting his numbers.
It wasn't intended to curtail free speech, he said, but rather to give law enforcement new tools in an era of changing technology. Critics argued that, come on, this will obviously curtail free speech. One speaker pointed out that if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had used twitter, this law could have easily made something like organizing for the Selma protests illegal.
"I would expect a law like this in Myanmar, Turkmenistan, North Korea or Zimbabwe," said Portland attorney Dan Meek, according to The Oregonian.
The law is dead after extreme opposition, but it's troubling that the Oregon State Legislature had such a feeble grasp of technology or the constitution that they even considered a law like this is troubling. The Bill comes at a time of heightened concerns over internet safety in the wake of a growing conflict between pro-internet activists and government forces over copyright laws. Last week, hacker group Anonymous leaked a confiential FBI phone call -- the kind of action that could easily set a lawmaker's teeth on edge.
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