I am at a loss about how we are supposed to regulate the sort of thing like the "friend from Phillie" and his robotic friends on Facebook from promoting certain memes. Purchase of advertising from big sites that have reached the level of a sort of global public utility might be a different story.

After all, before the internet there was nothing to prevent a Russian from coming here and doing mass mailings via the USPost  from telephone address directories as long as he was paying in full.

People used to trust all reviews of service providers and products on the internet, but then after time went on, they learned that some sites are better for reviews, like Amazon or Angie's List or ZocDoc, because they have some registration requirements or you can get a sense from the history of the screen name what's up with that reviewer. People used to fall for spam and now they can identify it more easily. Still, if you are a clever spammer you can pull the wool over some people's eyes.

I don't want to have to show my driver's license to post political opinion on Dagblog. So that the FBI or DOJ can find out if I am really an American citizen if need be. And yes, I am more careful about whatever comments I might make at NYTimes.com because they have my name, address and credit card info., I self censor.

There are some people who really believed Harry and Louise were regular American citizens complaining about what health insurance reform was going to do and not actors. Their type will always be with us in a democracy. You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.