Florida bill would require [hired] bloggers who write about the governor and legislators to register with the state

NBC ^ | Dareh Gregorian

[BenLurkin]

A Republican state senator in Florida has introduced a bill that, if passed, would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his Cabinet or state legislators to register with the state.

Sen. Jason Brodeur's bill, titled "Information Dissemination," would also require bloggers to disclose who's paying them for their posts about certain elected officials and how much.

"If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register" with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says.

It defines "elected state officer" as "the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature."

...

Brodeur...old the website Florida Politics, which first reported on the bill: “Paid bloggers are lobbyists who write instead of talk. They both are professional electioneers. If lobbyists have to register and report, why shouldn’t paid bloggers?”

[Svartalfiar]

This is one of our most sacred rights. Which means I can’t be forced to “register”. That would be like the 2A, you can own a gun but must “register” it so the State knows who, and where, you are.

In that vein:
What if I, as politician B, go donate $100 to each of the bloggers supporting pollie A? This now forces all of them to spend the time and money to go register, or else they get shut down/punished. Now I have all my other members of party B do the same, one by one.

Now every single blogger who posted anything supporting either side is going to have to register as getting donations from almost every single politician. How many bloggers are gonna have the time, knowledge, or bother to do that? I bet most would just stop posting.

How do we define 'blogger'? Does me coming on FR and making a post count? A long, several-paragraph, deeply-detailed post on some political subject? What about my long diatribe/rant on my about-me page? What if I post any editorial/chat threads, where I am the original author?

[CodeToad]

That’s one of the contradictions. Thanks for catching it. The point is how is speech changed simply because I print it out and distribute it? It can’t. Another nutty thing is how can the government claim someone is “the press” and lay claim that only people who print things for profit are professionals that have rights but no one else?

Your definition is right on. If I print something, that constitutes “the press”. It doesn’t matter if I do it for a living. The leaflets and flyers our founders printed and distributed freely is exactly the situation the 1st Amendment protects.