June 23, 2010 - Arent Fox counsel Brett Kappel was quoted in CQ Politics discussing the lack of Federal Election Commission rules and guidelines governing the use of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook by political campaigns.

‘Brett Kappel, a counsel with Arent Fox, said the FEC rules regulating Web-based campaigning — implemented just a few years ago — are already impractical for social networking tools such as Twitter, where only 140 characters are used to communicate a message. “Four years after adopting lenient rules governing campaigning over the Internet, the FEC is being confronted with new issues by campaigns’ expanding uses of social networking technology,” Kappel said. “FEC regulations, for example, require campaigns to include a disclaimer on e-mails sent to more than 500 people, but such disclaimers aren’t practical for campaign Twitter accounts.”’