Tweet in Hawaii and Be Sued
The Hawaii House is moving forward a that would punish websites, social media wireless communication, forums, twitter accounts or blogs for certain types of communication.
Oh, and print publications would be covered, too.
At a time when social media — Facebook and Twitter — are driving revolution in Egypt and other Arab nations, the Hawaii Legislature wants to hold “authors and publishers of visitor guide websites and visitor guide publications liable to individuals who suffer injury or death as a result of being enticed to trespass.”
I’ve written about HB 548 before, pointing out that the Legislature appears to be taking a step that would trample on the First Amendment.
But given the House’s determination to proceed — a committee voted unanimously to approve the bill this week — I thought it would be worth pointing out that it’s a misnomer to refer to this bill, and its companion in the Senate, as publishers liability bills.
It’s important to recognize that these bills could affect any commercial travel operation that uses Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare and any other social media tool. You be the judge of what a commercial travel guide is. But if you have advertising or make money off your tweets — maybe you offer hikes or are a B&B, or maybe you’re Marriott — be prepared that the Hawaii Legislature thinks you should pay if they think you’ve done wrong.
All those services are covered under the bill’s definition of “visitor guide website.”
You have to wonder why we don’t just shut down Twitter and Facebook the way they’ve done in other countries. Wouldn’t that work much better?
Oh, but if the Legislature did that, people would notice. On the other hand, if it slices away at people’s freedom, who knows, they might not catch on.
