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Utah blogs face censorship, compulsory rating under new laws

Utah blogs face censorship, compulsory rating under new laws

Blogs hosted in Utah are to face strict legal regulation due to new laws signed by the Utah State Governor that are designed to protect children from Internet pornography.

The most immediate effect of the law is a requirement that will make it compulsory for bloggers who host their blogs in Utah to provide content rating for their sites.

The laws also creates a “adult content registry” to be run by the State’s Attorney General, that will provide a list of sites that are alleged to contain content harmful to minors, and provisions that internet users will be able to request that blogs and other sites that they find offensive must be blocked by Internet service providers operating in the State.

Whilst many blogs will not naturally fit the definition of providing “adult content”, writing of adult concepts, including but not limited to descriptions of adult relationships of a sexual nature in the context of a blog will be affected by the law.

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Blogs hosted in Utah that also fail to attempt to restrict access to adult material from minors may also be subject to criminal sanctions, including fines and possible jail time.

View Comments (6)
  • So what is the point? Anyone effected by this will just switch to hosts based in Nevada, California or MARS for that matter. Or more appropriatly URANUS

    It is nothing more than political grandstanding aimed at voters too stupid to know better.

    When the Governor of Utah in talking about gay marriage and is quoted as saying “I have to admit that as a Mormon, I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman … and a woman and a woman,”

    Would that offend enough people to get a rating on this blog ( http://utahbeehive.blogspot.com/)

    although not hosted in Utah it is linked directly to this one (http://www.utahpolicy.com/) that certainly appears to have official government sanction.

    The only State in the Union that looks the other way on men having more than one wife and these idiots are worried about blog ratings.

    Something is wrong with that picture.

  • Actually, the governor of Utah didn’t say marriage should be between and man and a woman and a woman and a woman. The governor of Massachusetts did. Nevertheless, it was a scream to randomly run across my blog sited in a comment on the Herald.

  • The bill won’t actually have any impact on what we normally think of as bloggers anyway. It defines a “content provider” as “a person that creates, collects, acquires, or organizes electronic data for electronic delivery to a consumer with the intent of making a profit.”

  • This may not have an impact, but it is the first step toward censorship which goes against everything the USA is based on. The fact that there is an FCC and all that is awful. No state or person can deny you the right to free speech in whatever form it comes just cause someone doesn’t like. You should not have to provide a rating, if you don’t like what you see or hear don’t watch it. Anyway about Utah, it’s just another ignorant state no offense to anybody from Utah but it’s true.

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