This Week In Techdirt History: July 8th - 14th
from the looking-back dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2013, as dissection of the NSA leaks continued, we began to take a closer look at the secret FISA courts — which the DOJ didn't want anyone knowing about, even as a former FISC judge explained that he quit the court because it was out of control. We began to understand more about just how much the agency could learn from metadata, and saw the emergence of the silly argument that Facebook usage means people don't care about privacy. The NSA faced cultural backlash, with recruiters smacked down by university students and a disinvitation from the DEF CON conference. Then, the leaks revealed the NSA's cozy relationship with telcos and Microsoft — collaboration the agency cutely referred to as "team sports".
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2008, it became more and more clear how the entertainment industry was trying to use ACTA to sneak through copyright extension, and we balked at the capitulation of some computer makers to the RIAA's demands by disabling sound recording capabilities. We saw a mixed ruling in a case over limitations on the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, a ruling from a German court saying that open WiFi owners are not responsible for file sharing done by users, and a massive backlash against Sweden's internet spying bill.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2003, we saw an important ruling in favor of displaying thumbnails of copyrighted images. The RIAA launched an expected lawsuit against a Spanish site that claimed to offer legal downloads, a group of webcasters was threatening to sue the RIAA if they won't renegotiate royalty rates, and Kazaa failed with its wild swing at an antitrust lawsuit against the entertainment industry, while we took a look at the growing industry of folks getting rich by selling anti-filesharing services.
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Word of advise girlfriend, don’t fuck up your spelling when you’re trying to criticise someone. Or else dirty uncle pedant might take you to the woodshed and push your comma back up into your colon.
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What are you, English? I’m American. You Europeans should fix your spelling on a LOT of expressions. You know why? Because America is Great Again, and you’re not.
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https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milquetoast
Also using urban dictionary as a source, really?
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Re: really thin skin
Says yet another anonymous coward.
Yawn
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Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.
And NO society is more intolerant than Techdirt.
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o He implies knowledge of facts which lead to the conclusion that Jones told an untruth.
o Even if the speaker states the facts upon which he bases his opinion, if those facts are either incorrect or incomplete, or if his assessment of them is erroneous, the statement may still imply a false assertion of fact.
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You want this site dead, Hamilton.
Trying to please you is a fool's errand.
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There, I was wondering when you were going to default back to your sad little gimmick of replying to yourself for attention. Way to bring up the mystical "lost business". Sounds about as mystical as the list of thousands of people "hurt" by Techdirt, which turned out to be nothing more than Janice Duffy's obsession over Wendy Cockcroft. Neither of the two even live in America, so why you'd even get your panties twisted over that is anyone's guess, given how constantly "American" you are.
As for the rest of your claims, here are some nice quotes:
“I’m the darkie you can’t control!” he cries. “You’re talking to me as though I work for you! You’re talking to me as though I am below you.” Then, shouting over a woman, he starts in on Warren’s Native American ancestry and accuses her of being brainwashed. A bystander, also filming the encounter, grows concerned for the woman’s safety and asks somebody to call Lexington Police, but the two sides soon scatter.
“I want to start off by asking everyone, how many of us really want to beat Elizabeth Warren?” Every hand in the room shoots up. “Can we use weapons?” shouts the woman sitting next to me, both arms high above her head. “You said beat her.”
Yeah, that's "upstanding", "above-board" behavior. Pandering yourself to ticking time bombs who foam at the mouth and resort to public harassment, and losing your shit when Ars Technica asks you about Ray Tomlinson. If that's being a gentleman then I have pyramids in Egypt to sell you.
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https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/05/30/shiva-ayyaduri-email-us-postal-service/
With "then" in that quote referring to his deception being discovered.
Bonus: an other incident where there is zero blame on any outside critics; just the consequences of his own actions:
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Is it defamation to call this fellow a fraud, a charalatan and a liar?
The university called him "slanderous". If you'd like to claim that the university defamed him too, go ahead by all means.
Does it really provide any benefit to society to publish the nasty vitriol that Techdirt publishes? I don’t think so
And to think you claimed you didn't want this site dead. You're a poor liar, Hamilton.
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o Even if the Techdirt shouts “opinion!” And states the facts upon which they base their opinion, if those facts are either incorrect or incomplete, or if their assessment of them is erroneous, the statement may still imply a false assertion of fact.
Did Techdirt provide ALL the facts? Are they SURE they are right? Then prove it to a jury.
This from SCOTUS (the ultimate authority on the issue of defamation). The actual truth of the situation with Techdirt is that they need to convince a jury that the Email guy is “a liar, a fraud and a charlatan”. It is incorrect as a matter of law to dismiss before trial on this basis.
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A-hahahahaha you’re as delusional about that twat as you are about all the rest of the bullshit you spew.
Spoiler alert she not gonna fuck you no matter what colour you wish your skin was.
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Enjoy your DMCA vote.
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First, I've been an avid and VORACIOUS reader of Techdirt for MANY years, refreshing the page dozens of times a day desperate for any new content added to the site. I've been such a reader since the days when EVERY article was written by Mike. I've welcomed the additions of Tim, Timothy, and Karl because, like Mike's, their articles have a definite viewpoint and opinion which makes them interesting to read. However, you must have come from a newspaper with the most restrictive editor known to man because your articles are dry and flavorless. I understand that this particular feature is especially difficult to make interesting because it's all old news, but Mike always found a way to make it relevant to today, rather than just a dry recitation of old facts. The especially interesting part is when he would, on occasion, add to the bottom of the article some little blurb like, "This week in 1366 this guy invented this thing that would eventually become the basis of this wonderful thing we all use today." Since you've taken over the article, those have completely vanished.
So I say again, can someone else please take over this feature until Leigh can unlearn all the horrible habits instilled in him by his horribly restrictive former editor? I'm getting tired of having to check the author before I read the post.
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...but Mike always found a way to make it relevant to today, rather than just a dry recitation of old facts. The especially interesting part is when he would, on occasion, add to the bottom of the article some little blurb like, "This week in 1366 this guy invented this thing that would eventually become the basis of this wonderful thing we all use today." Since you've taken over the article, those have completely vanished.
Just as a point of clarification, the idea to add those historical notes came from... Leigh. Not me. I liked it and used them myself as well. But it is also a lot of work to find relevant ones and I can understand why Leigh decided it might not be worth it to do every week. Indeed, this whole post is an awful lot of work, and it was sucking up way too much of my time which is why Leigh agreed to take it over. I think he does a great job with it, and I don't think it helps to make snide comments.
Constructive criticism is always welcome. Insults and ad homs are not necessary.
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The especially interesting part is when he would, on occasion, add to the bottom of the article some little blurb like, "This week in 1366 this guy invented this thing that would eventually become the basis of this wonderful thing we all use today."
Um, yeah. That was my idea, and it did not end when I took it over - I did it for over two years of these posts. And it wasn't on occasion, it was every single week. You really need to double-check your memory on this.
I stopped because, once we started cycling through the years, it became harder and harder to find stuff relevant to Techdirt on any given week that I hadn't already used in a previous year (and harder to keep track of whether or not I had used something before). A couple times I accidentally re-used ones then realized later, and that was when I decided it was time to drop it.
However, if that's something people would like to see come back, I can start doing it again.
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It's been very interesting to look back five years ago on the defeat of John Steele, Evan Stone, Andrew Crossley, SOPA, ACTA, etc. And then watch average_joe, darryl, out_of_the_blue, horse with no name/MyNameHere/Just Sayin'/The Anti-Mike lose their collective shit.
Keep up the good job, Mike. I look forward to 2022 when we cover the judge giving Charles Harder the response he deserved.
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Apply aloe to burn(s)
Love that NSA recruiter article, the burns handed out there were just glorious, and even better was picturing the poor NSA sods realizing that they just walked into a group that, unlike politicians, aren't just going to take anything they said at face value.
Me: The question here is do you actually think about the ramifications of the work that you do, which is deeply problematic, or do you just dress up in costumes and get drunk?
...
Student B: General Alexander also lied in front of Congress.
NSA_F: I don’t know about that.
Student B: Probably because access to the Guardian is restricted on the NSA’s computers. I am sure they don’t encourage people like you to actually think about these things.
The looks on their faces must have been priceless.
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Come back when your "list of thousands of American inventors harmed by Techdirt" amounts to more than Shiva, Richard Bennett and Janice Duffy. For someone who masturbates to his interpretation of the law, this standard of evidence is just embarrassing.
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Pot, meet kettle.
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Amount of useless back-and-forth is astounding for a TINY site.
Read through any of 5 years ago, will see decline in comments.
Even more in quality than quantity: still plenty one-liners from "Stone", pointless flame wars from "PaulT" (approaching 15,000 comments!) -- usually now at the ardently monotonous "no regulation" AC -- and incomprehensible "ECA" is still the upper-case-iest every day since 19 Sep 2007. Some of a constantly shifting "usual couple dozen" hit every topic, often 3 or 4 times even without response. -- Those and most other "accounts" are so entirely predictable and un-self-aware that seem to be AI.
Then are the "accounts" with inexplicable gaps of years, several of which are yet more oddly down to one innocuous comment per year, neither gone nor engaged. -- But hoots for those in due course.
Anyhoo, came across a note and was reminded that when faced with obvious decline, The Masnick sez: "In fact, I'd argue significantly less than 1% of readers comment on the site."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170317/11360036940/techdirt-gear-action.shtml#c21
SO characteristically Masnick! EVADES instead of STATES numbers that he likely looks at every day!
How about you just simply STATE a number of readers? Don't hedge that it's too complex, nor include estimates for feeds to other sites. Just state how many unique IP addresses hit Techdirt on average day. It'd be useful even though TOR means fewer readers. -- We need it to gauge whether worth commenting here.
[BTW: wrote this long BEFORE the post was up, and so to me it's EERY accurate.]
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Re: Amount of useless back-and-forth is astounding for a TINY site.
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Shiva Ayyadurai's defeat really tore a gaping hole in the void you call a heart, didn't it blue boy?
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Who hated the process of due
Each film that he'd paid
Was DMCAed
And shoved up his ass with a screw
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