There are so many laws now, that it is getting pretty easy to do something illegal without even knowing it.  The number of laws is not the only thing that makes it easy to get in trouble for doing something illegal.  The other factor is the absence of privacy.  So, not only is just about everything illegal, we are unable to even pretend to hide it from the public.  In the cases where we are not being monitored, we might even broadcast our offenses ourselves (not knowing they are illegal).

The latest example of this comes from Oprah.  She was recently reprimanded for a controversial tweet, that some have described as illegal.  I’m guessing that if she knew it was illegal, she wouldn’t have done it since she is in the public eye.  Her tweet encouraged her followers to tune into her network “especially if they have a Neilsen (sic) box.”

It goes against Nielsen policy to influence viewers.  On the news this morning, they mentioned that it was illegal to influence viewers (maybe something to to with the FCC), but, at this point, I think it was just a violation of network guidelines as they use Nielsen’s services.

Technically, that’s illegal?  I’m not really sure.  Maybe Oprah knows by now.  And the rest of us know to watch what we’re tweeting.

I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a politician. I'm just a mom from the Midwest trying to figure out how things operate around here. Click here for more information.

Ann Sattley

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