Maryland's state Board of Elections has created new rules for how candidates for public office use Facebook, Twitter and other social media, according to the Baltimore Sun.

“Starting two weeks from now, candidates must begin including an authority line -- a declaration of approval that lists their campaign treasurer -- on the social networking sites run by their campaigns,” the Sun reports. “The more than 700 people who have filed to run for statewide office, as well as hundreds of candidates for local posts, will soon receive information in the mail explaining the new social media policies, elections officials said.”

The story adds: “The rules do not mean that each 140-character 'tweet' has to contain that detailed information. Rather, it has to be on the 'landing page' that corrals all of the tweets for a specific candidate.

”Both major gubernatorial contenders, Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley and Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., are already including authority lines in the biography section of their pages on Facebook and Twitter. Elections officials pointed to those sites as a model of what all candidates must now do."