Standards urged for Internet politics

College professors meet in Akron to discuss proposals in online campaigns
By Carl Chancellor
Beacon Journal staff writer

With the Internet becoming as integral a part of political campaigning as yard signs, television ads and kissing babies, University of Akron professors are joining with others to push for standards in online stumping.

"Internet campaigning has grown by leaps and bounds ever since the 1996 presidential election,'' said Rick D. Farmer, UA political science assistance professor and fellow at the university's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

Last week, Farmer and nearly a dozen other college professors met in Akron under the banner of Standards Association for Elections Online, a newly formed nonprofit advisory group. The goal: to formulate standards for online campaign activity.

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"Our objective will be to promulgate standards to govern the authenticity, privacy practices and security measures taken by campaign Web sites,'' said Chicago-Kent College of Law professor Richard Warner, who founded SAFE with Farmer.

"There is a need to create some standards that will ensure the credibility of Web sites,'' Farmer added.

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He said SAFE plans to use third-party monitors who would certify campaign Web sites as abiding by set standards.

Farmer said a SAFE-approved Web site would get an ``insignia of some kind'' -- something akin to a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to verify the legitimacy of the site.

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http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/6995436.htm

"There is a need to create some standards that will ensure the credibility of Web sites,'' Farmer added

how about underwriter's laboratories?

any entity that approves political sites will eventually be criticized as partisan.

Regulating the internet is code for shutting out voices that someone doesn't like.

If you read the article, you may have noticed these regulations are also meant to curb fraud ($15,000 in campaign contributions meant for Howard Dean were pocketed by owners of a Dean "parody site").

Why is (voluntarily) regulating the internet shutting out voices? Isn't that precisely the argument Corporation America uses to claim that unlimited corporate campaign contributions are an exercise in "freedom of speech"?

If you support election reform, I don't see how you can oppose this effort to establish "truth in advertising" for campaign websites.

This is merely the old guard trying to wrap its dying grasp upon the new.

Who would wish for the used-up pathos and musty manners of traditional US politics to settle upon the Internet? The best hope for the nation is that the old stranglehold is thrown off.