State Report Examines Use of Twitter During Elections

When a politician appeals for money on Twitter or Facebook, that action is not necessarily regulated by state like other reportable ones. That could soon change. A report released today by the state's ethics commission details recommendations on full disclosure of official campaign messages via social networking.

"Our goal here is to meet the new challenges of 21st Century technology," Fair Political Practices Commission hairman Dan Schnur told the Associated Press. "There's no way that the authors of the act could have anticipated that these of types of communicating a campaign message would ever exist." If the report is approved later this month, staff would be instructed to draw up changes to state law, meaning regulating tweets this campaign season is unlikely.