Credit: socialpeel.com

In what some are calling a pointless and overreaching case of government intrusion, the California Fair Political Practices Committee is proposing that political campaigns be required to document and report payments to bloggers and social media users.

Reaction from the internet has been predictably scathing. Steve Maviglio of the California Majority Report says the proposal is "unenforceable, overzealous, and probably unconstitutional, "shows a fundamental misunderstanding of online political communication," and is "a curious decision considering the FPPC's absence of action to slow the virtually unregulated flow of big money into elections in our state."

For example, if you work on a campaign and tweet about it on your personal Facebook page or share an article, then you'll need to be reported to the FPPC. It means that an assistant at a major campaign firm or an ad agency has to be reported for uploading something to a website -- and include the name of the websites, blogs, or social media site.

Maviglio is quite correct. The proposal mandates that deeply detailed accounts be kept of every online posting, tweet, Facebook status, and blog post if the person has received money from a campaign, as specified in the proposed regulation.

Reporting an Expenditure for Paid Online Communications

FPPC Chair Ann Ravel says she feels strongly about this issue and that the public has a right to know if political campaigns are paying journalists to write on the internet. Others feel the regulation would be pointless because it is unenforceable, unwieldy, and would produce mountains of paperwork with few demonstrable results. Ethical bloggers already do disclose where their money comes from and compared to the total amount of money in politics, payments to bloggers are minuscule.