We’re on our own

The British Press Complaints Commission says regulating the internet won’t work.

“What chance is there of successfully applying a set of statutory rules to information transmitted online – where anyone can be a publisher and there is no spectrum scarcity? None,” he said, speaking at the launch of the PCC 2005 annual report.

“The only effective way of ensuring that online journalistic information is subject to certain standards is for those standards to be self-imposed.

“Improvements in technology and the proliferation of news sites make the case for self-regulation, because they expose traditional legal forms of media regulation – rooted in the days when the small number of television channels needed to be licensed – as hopelessly inflexible, and easily avoidable.

Can you tell our Congress and the FCC that, please?