COURANT-GRUNION: Lawmakers Pass New Communication Bill

The Courant-Grunion

(Est’d 1988)

Lawmakers Pass New Electronic Communication Bill

By Sally Mann-Duhr

A sweeping electronic-communication bill cleared the House of Representatives and will be placed before the U.S. Senate early next week if all goes according to plan.

The primary focus of the “Electronic Communication Accountability Bill (HR 8675309)” is to prevent people from typing or texting “LOL” or similar “Lol” and “ROTFL” and various subsets of the same.

“It’s very distressing when you find out that somebody really isn’t laughing out loud at your comment,” Representative Kyle Doss (D-Ind.) said after the announcement. “I’ll send a Minion meme to someone and get an LOL in a time frame almost faster than they could’ve read it.”

One side-effect of a falsified “LOL” would be a small fine, with each subsequent charge being higher.

“Most cell phones and computers have cameras now,” Doss said. “Maybe we can have phones get has something like a ‘LOL-App’ that maybe takes a quick picture of your expression as you send a ‘LOL’ to somebody. Say you're not actually smiling or laughing, you could be in a world of hurt.”

Doss stated that this function of the law is still in its planning stages.

Representative Richard Winkie (R-Wyo.) said he accidentally sent a nude photo of himself to an intern and got a “ROTFLOL” seconds later.

“That’s just more than a man can take,” he said. “There was a time when that sort of mistake would be a scandal, but now it’s just a joke!”

The primary focus of the bill is to create a new “LLOL” or “Literally Laughing out Loud” to give more value to the “-OL” family. However, there are also provisions to increase the stakes.

“One possibility is for people to respond with a SnapChat of themselves actually laughing,” Winkie said. “In my case, that might have helped, or it might be more painful, too. But it’s there either way.”

There is also a monetary value: The House Bill makes provisions for a large stipend if service providers come up with a means of “Un-Sending” a text (or photograph) if you realize your mistake within a few seconds.

“That’ll be huge,” Winkie said.

The bill faces an uphill battle with the Senate, although with the recent scandalous “$5 footlong” joke text mass-sent by Senator Harry Lessenham (D-ND) it might gain steam quickly.