Jimmy Wales Says Chris Dodd Should Be Fired
from the you-want-abuse-of-power? dept
Chris Dodd and the MPAA have been pretty harsh on folks who protested online last week, arguing that the protesters were "corporate pawns" and that the blackouts were an "abuse of power." It appears that Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales feels otherwise. In a conference appearance he responded to the "abuse of power" claims by suggesting that the real abuse of power was Dodd threatening politicians who accept Hollywood money:Wales argued that these transparent statements make the MPAA out to be a corrupt, Congress-buying organization. He also challenged Dodd’s assertion that Wikipedia’s decision to blackout its site in protest of SOPA, an effort Wales said was a “massive success,” constituted an abuse of power.Well, of course, to Dodd, actual democracy is an abuse of power. He prefers backroom dealing to actually letting the people out to have their say...
10 million people contacted Congress, Wales said. “That’s not an abuse of power, that’s democracy,” he said. “[Dodd] had best get used to it.”
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Filed Under: blackout, chris dodd, jimmy wales, wikipedia
Companies: mpaa, wikipedia
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I fully agree with Jimmy Wales when I have said several times before that Chris Dodd should be fired. He is a man who cannot do his job as they SOPA issue highlights. Then to be more successful in the future they need to replace him with someone who can understand technology and the Internet.
Or does everyone who loves the Internet hate copyright enforcement?
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Dodd Is An Ass !
He is the one who deserves to have all his dirty laundry put on the NET for the Public to view.
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Re: Dodd Is An Ass !
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Dodd Petition
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Wikipedia and Google however are evil desperate corporations who have to pay off their 'corporate pawn' customers to make a fuss about fighting piracy! And evil google/wikipedia and their corporate pawns stand to make million of dollars by keeping the laws the way they are now, by stealing intellectual property from people like poor MPAA the average Joe!
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OTOH, while you might think that the MPAA could be banned from lobbying, most of the big SOPA/PIPA supporters are media corporations, and most of the people who dislike Citizens United think that there is a media corporation exception for Freedom of the Press.
So people who think that Citizens United was a terrible decision should realize that if it were overturned, you would see a situation where what Wikipedia, Reddit, and Google did could be banned, but the cheerleading of Rupert Murdoch, CNN, ABC, Hollywood, and other media types for SOPA and PIPA would be allowed.
I think that the best cure for bad speech is more speech.
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You're saying that asking people to talk to their representatives could be banned?
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Except that's not what the Citizen United decision was about.
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Democracy?
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Re: Democracy?
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Re: Re: Democracy?
Furthermore the claim here is that the *IAA's decisions are a "back room" while the Wikipedia's weren't. Balderdash! A bunch of zealots hid out in a back chatroom and voted amoungst themselves. There were no announcements so people like me could vote on a single issue.
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Re: Re: Re: Democracy?
It's not THEIR fault you're too dumb to notice.
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Re: Re: Re: Democracy?
I can access the IRC transcripts and vote records, as well as the open discussions that led to Wikipedia's decision to vote in the first place. There's a huge amount of information available I don't have time to read, but your complaint seems to be that they held a vote among the people who run and manage the site rather than occasional contributors like yourself. Not a convincing example of a closed room deal.
Would you like to show me the RIAA's transcripts so we can compare and contrast?
"people like me"
Judging by your regular comments here, you take many things out of context and attack people for claims they didn't make. "People like you" are more welcome in the **/AA discussions if you can get yourself invited there.
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Re: Re: Re: Democracy?
Unless of course you're protesting something that you feel will force you to be far less neutral in the future.
Your neutralness, we have a beige alert!
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Re: Democracy?
Here's another piece of democracy for you - if you don't like it, you can choose not to use or contribute to Wikipedia.
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Re: Re: Democracy?
It was a clubby, backroom deal that destroyed the site's claim to neutrality.
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I do, and yet they still seek to destroy my freedom in return for failed attempts to protect their profits. What else do you suggest?
"It was a clubby, backroom deal that destroyed the site's claim to neutrality."
Then stop whining and do something about it. I'm sorry if the people who actually run the site decided not to include you, but take your sour grapes elsewhere.
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Agreed, and bob TOTAL EPIC FAIL at trolling lite.
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Re: Re: Re: Democracy?
The law, as written threatened Wikapedia (amongst others) and so it took a stand in a relatively neutral fasion. It simply warned people what could happen if the law was enacted and gave people a tool to use to notify their representatives on how they feel about the law for, or against. it didn't write the letter for you, it didn't call for you and give a recorded message to play on the phone assuming you got through. It in no way did anything to threaten it's neutral status. If what they did threatened their neutral status, then there is no such thing as neutrality and you have yourself to blame for thinking there was.
Defending yourself is not breaking any part of Neutrality.
Thank you, have a nice day.
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Re: Democracy?
We are not advocating for what Wikipedia wants we are advocating for what WE want and there are millions of us. The MPAA is pissed and scared and they ought to be. Wikipedia was Paul Revere, they just put out the message. We responded of our own free will. But the MPAA has no idea what free will really is.
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Re: Re: Democracy?
When I search through the discussion page, I see a few hundred voters. That's far, far, far fewer than the site's daily traffic. There are often hundreds of millions of readers each day.
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Re: Re: Re: Democracy?
Are you an editor of the site or responsible for its day to day running, or do you just volunteer to edit text files? That makes a big difference, I think.
"Yet I never heard the call to destroy the site's neutrality."
Funny, I'm not a contributor and I saw the lead up, although I wasn't too bothered about taking part in the vote so I didn't pay much attention. Did you contribute to any of those discussions?
"There are often hundreds of millions of readers each day"
So, they shouldn't have taken a vote until hundreds of millions of people (which would include paid astroturf organisations and the RIAA/MPAA themselves) had a chance to sabotage it?
You weren't specifically invited and they didn't wait for you, get over it.
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Sorry, it ain't wikipedia's fault that you don't read their banners and don't read the news (which the vote was covered in).
And it's not "destroying its neutrality" to protest bills that could easily be used to destroy or cripple IT. Wikipedia does have a stake in this.
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Re: Democracy?
You weren't paying attention then!
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Re: Democracy?
Moreover, do you think what the MPAA does is democratic? Or open? The only person who's been honest on their side is ex-Senator Chris Dodd, and that was an accident.
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But then I'm not the one pointing the finger and saying that I'm the good democratic one.
The Wikipedia abandoned it's neutrality-- it's core purpose.
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Added to that your obsession with everything not being "democratic" is amusing and terrifying in equal measure. You also forgot that the MPAA and RIAA are essentially lobbying firms masquerading as "trade organizations", right?
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/wikipedia-to-join-reddit-in-sopa-blackout-w ednesday.ars
Plus no one covers anything in Facebook.
It was a clubby deal cooked up by a small cabal of editors with the blessing of Mr. Wales. It was not a democracy by any stretch of the imagination. This is just an example of the pot calling the kettle black.
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http://digitaljournal.com/article/316049
December 13th. Read it and weep.
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Also, is clubby the new buzzword for January? Do we have a database so we can keep up? Honestly, you trolls are getting harder to keep track of.
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Either you are completely illiterate, as the information on Wikipedia planning a black out was made readily available across the internet for AT LEAST 2 weeks before the event happened. And you just didn't read it cause you couldn't. If you claim to use Wikipedia frequently, they had banners up, a countdown starting the day before, etc.
Or you live in a cave. And only come out once in a great while to troll certain sites and spew confusing, ill conceived rhetoric the likes of which Big Earth has never seen.
bob, in no way was it's the same as a back room discussion for all intents and purposes. Yes, the decision to go black was made by Wikipedia editors, but the community was aware of the decision. As is evidenced by ALL the other sites that went black in support, in addition to all the people (pawns, etc) who supported their decision to go black.
Just because you personally weren't informed/invited into the discussion on whether or not Wikipedia should go black, does not mean it was a back room type deal, for all intents and purposes.
No, only the RIAA/MPAA do things like that. Per their own words and actions.
Oh, and democracy, they mean that the people were allowed to voice their opinion. Thus, the end result. SOPA was shelved. People FINALLLY forced THEIR elected representatives to pay attention to them. Through a peaceful form of protest.
If you think that's undemocratic, well... you're obviously another Chris Dodd type shill. Which is your problem, not ours. We, the people, have spoken.
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Out of a cannon, into the sun, right?
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We took time from making cute cat pictures to screw wif ur master planz, that was easy so nao we iz screw wif u.
Just waitz we haz hole Rule 34 pics essay of you comes nexts.
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u must be news here...
I followz Basement Cat.
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But... just imagine what the place would look like if we let the sheep run the barnyard instead of the wolf...
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What's the media to do???
After all, they spent all that time and money making it so Joe Public would never be heard from again (Remember FAIRNESS DOCTRINE???) and now this darned internet is allowing someone besides corporations to voice their opinion. Fucking internet needs censored, Now. It's not fair!!! :( :( :(
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