Be Careful What You Wish For: Twitter Temporarily Bans 'Get Out The Vote' Ads To Comply With 'Fake News' Law
from the why-does-no-one-ever-think-these-things-through dept
If there's one consistent theme that we've talked about on Techdirt over the past few decades, it's that attempts to regulate the internet based on a specifically observed "harm" almost always leads to bad outcomes. That's because trying to regulate away a harm frequently fails to take into account context and the specifics of how such laws would be interpreted. For example, over the last few years, there's been plenty of concern about fake news and questionable "political advertising" that is really just, let's say, "propaganda" from parties wishing to mess up the democratic process, rather than actually encourage effective democracy. Because of this we've seen attempts to pass "fake news" laws and "online political ads" laws that clearly come from a place of good intentions (mostly), but the actual impact can be far reaching and lead to unintended consequences.
For example, just last week people suddenly realized that, with the EU Parliamentary elections coming up next month, and France's new anti-fake news political advertisements law, that Twitter would be blocking the French government's own "get out the vote" advertising campaign:
Since December, France requires online political campaigns to declare who paid for them, and how much was spent.
But now Twitter has rejected a government voter registration campaign.
The company could not find a solution to obey the letter of the new law, officials said – and opted to avoid the potential problem altogether.
Of course, rather than realize that maybe the law they wrote was too broad, French government officials immediately... blamed Twitter. Oh, and they did so on Twitter.
La priorité de Twitter devrait être de combattre les contenus faisant l'apologie du terrorisme.
Pas les campagnes incitant à s’inscrire sur les listes électorales d'une république démocratique.
Ce sujet sera abordé jeudi avec les GAFA lors du G7 des ministres de l'Intérieur.— Christophe Castaner (@CCastaner) April 2, 2019
That's France's Minister of the Interior saying "Twitter's priority should be to fight content that glorifies terrorism. Not campaigns to register on the electoral lists of a democratic republic." But, of course, that ignores that it was France's own extreme position on the law that lead Twitter to conclude the best way to comply was to block all political advertising, rather than go through the arduous process of keeping track of which political ads are allowed, which are banned, and to provide an open database of information about all of those ads.
Other French officials also complained... also on Twitter. Minister of Culture Franck Reister -- most recently seen eagerly cheering on censorship filters -- also chose to attack Twitter for trying to comply with France's bad law:
Il faut mettre fin à l’irresponsabilité des plateformes : @Twitter fait mine de ne pas comprendre une loi permettant simplement une meilleure information des citoyens en période électorale... alors que @facebook a décidé de l’appliquer, en anticipation, dans tous les pays ! https://t.co/b3PzSZhE6i
— Franck Riester (@franckriester) April 2, 2019
That one roughly says:
We must put an end to the irresponsibility of the platforms: @ Twitter pretends not to understand a law allowing simply a better information of the citizens during an electoral period ... whereas @ facebook has decided to apply it, in anticipation, in all the countries !
Note the focus: blaming Twitter for deciding it was too burdensome to host political ads, rather than recognizing it was the French law that made it so. Also, pointing to Facebook as a "good example" of agreeing to go through the arduous process kind of misses the whole point: the bigger companies (Facebook is a hell of a lot bigger than Twitter) can more easily comply with these laws, while smaller platforms find it too expensive. But, no matter. France's Minister of Culture assumes that all companies should have to spend tons of money just so his government can advertise on them.
Then there's Cedric O, the country's digital minister, who apparently thinks that Twitter should be forced to host some kinds of political advertising, because "the vote is sacred."
Le vote est sacré. Il est inacceptable qu’une campagne du gouvernement pour l’inscription sur les listes électorales soit bloquée par une plateforme. Je recevrai les dirigeants de @twitter europe dans les heures à venir. https://t.co/JySyN9mGfv via @Le_Figaro
— cedric_o (@cedric_o) April 2, 2019
Right. The vote is sacred. But it was your government that passed a law that made it quite expensive to host any such advertising. Stop blaming the platforms for reacting appropriately to your bad laws.
Either way, after getting so much pressure in France, the company did back down, saying it was "clarifying" its political advertising rules in France to allow "Get Out The Vote" ads. So perhaps this is a happy ending situation, but what's most annoying is how French officials seem to think their own bad lawmaking is never the problem -- and that internet platforms making rational decisions based on the costs of complying with overreaching laws somehow reflects poorly on the platforms, rather than on their legislative abilities.
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Filed Under: france, get out the vote, political advertising, regulations
Companies: twitter
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That "en anticipation" would probably be better translated as "in advance" or "ahead of time."
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Re:
Is this the same "Mason Wheeler" who makes YouTube videos with his wife?
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Re: en anticipation
Agreed. Online translators often lack context conversion, much like the "stop all evil" filters that certain countries are proposing/foisting.
Yes, that spacecraft is commanded by Captain Petard.
Oh. And of course, just like the "Do Not Call" legislation, political parties are always exempt from the rules.
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Foreshadowing as to when article 11 & 13/17 get put in place.....
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Re:
Seriously, if just keeping track of paid political ads is too complicated, and then they have to do it for all content?
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The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
The moment before block / ban / whatever is when Twitter needs human intervention. But instead it causes the problem.
This is a gov't source. Twitter can't understand that? With all their smarts?
Baloney. This is more deliberate obstruction, one of the oldest tactics.
Throw a few Twitter execs into jail, they'll stop obstructing.
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Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
You are right, I forgot, laws don't apply to governments, only to the peons. Nice alliteration, Horace.
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Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocki
“Throw a few twitter execs in jail”
I don’t think France has that much money.
Did I just say that out Loud? Lol
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Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocki
Why exactly did you censor the post? The guy is right, it's a douche move by Twitter. Telling people to vote isn't a political ad or partisan issue, and Twitter knows it. And it's easy for everyone to see they're just being douches. Dumb.
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Re: Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE bl
Twitter did nothing wrong.
You act in bad faith and malice for your own gain enough eventually it comes back and no one listens when the bully says ouch.
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Re: Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE bl
It's not a douche move.
If the government tells me I personally have to kick off everyone from my lawn that shouts in a certain way, when said speech is not illegal, I'm just going to tell everyone to get off my lawn because it's too much of a pain in the ass to try and sort through all the shouting and hope I get it right and not get slapped by the authorities for not following the law.
Better to block everything and be 100% safe than try and comply with one of the dumbest laws ever and hope I don't get in trouble.
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Re: Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE bl
Douche French government, meet douche Twitter. Paybacks are a bitch, aren't they.
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Re: Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE bl
Who cares why they censored it, I love it when they do that because it shows what hypocrites they all are and makes it impossible for anyone to take this place seriously.
I say keep up the good work!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFOR
Rut roh sounds like a triggered snowflake.
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Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
They're not obstructing anything. Again, for the mentally impaired, Twitter is not a government service and can host or not host whatever it chooses. Twitter generally tries to host everything that doesn't violate its own Terms of Service. In these edge cases where it's someone else's rules or laws they can interpret it as they see fit and react accordingly. Absolutely no laws were broken here, moral or otherwise.
Your position is that everyone should do exactly what you think they should do, laws be damned. If the law happens to agree with you then all the better but where the law doesn't match people should do whatever you think is right regardless of the law or even the cost. Cost should never be a factor in your mind. No matter the cost, people should be forced even against their will to do whatever you fantasize is the right thing to do.
Get help.
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Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
Actually the burden of that French law is upon whomever is purchasing the ad content to supply the required information as outlined in the article.
Why should Twitter accept an ad if it isn't legal?
Are you actually saying that they should break the law to make you happy?
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Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
Human intervention? You mean moderation? Of the roughly 6 thousand tweets per second, 350 thousand tweets per minute, 500 million tweets per day? In multiple languages and differing countries of origin?
Yeah, that's gonna happen.
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Re: The burden of thinking here is you don’t.
You mad you had to take another “3 day state funded vacation” bro?
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Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is you don’t.
Comments like this are why laws banning "hateful content" had to be banned.
Some negative online reviews of anything that sponsors this website would be a good start.
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Re: Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is you don’t.
Oh look your comment got banned for Hateful content John lol
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Re: Re: Re: The burden of thinking here is you don’t.
Uh, perhaps you should take an English class, because you just said we shouldn't have any laws banning hateful content.
That's some extraordinary self-own you got going on there.
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Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
I don't think you can throw someone into jail for following the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law.
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Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
What are you going to charge them with?
Contempt of politician? 😝
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Re: The burden of thinking here is on Twitter, BEFORE blocking.
The problem is - lots of fools, including you have told them they're not allowed to exercise reasonably thinking before blocking. You know, since you'll claim they're pirates hiding behind section 230 if they do.
The problem here is that you're getting EXACTLY what you asked for, but now that EXACTLY what everybody else told you would happen is happening, you'll blame everybody but yourself.
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It would indeed seem like a "get out the vote" blitz on social media could easily be deployed as a stealthy partisan political manipulation tool if aimed exclusively at targeted segments of the userbase believed likely to vote for the "correct" party. (and If HUD can charge Facebook for racial discrimination for allowing targeted ads [which did not themselves racially discriminate in any way, and might only target a person's interests], then why not election authorities?)
Google got caught doing something similar in the 2016 election, as leaked emails revealed that the primary purpose of Google's presumably-tax-deductible "get out the vote" offering was to get Clinton and other Democrats elected, and even Sundar Pichai was in on it.
So these "get out the vote" campaigns might not quite be the kind of charitable public services their backers would like people to believe.
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Those are a lot of unsupported claims there buddy. Got citations for any of them?
Or are you farting into the wind and enjoying the smell of your own toots?
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[citation needed]
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Sorry, I thought this story was such common knowledge that no proof was needed.
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/leaked-google-employees-email-reveals-effort-to-boost-latino-vote-surp rise-that-some-voted-for-trump
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/09/10/silent-donation-corpora te-emails-reveal-google-executives-efforts-to-swing-election-to-hillary-clinton-with-latino-outreach -campaign/
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Neither of those links back up your assertion.
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Yah. That Fox article in no way backs up your statement on Google. It says nearly the exact opposite.
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Re: Re: Re:
Can you cite a reputable news organization? Fox and Breitbart don't fit that description.
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Yeah, he might as well link to articles on Mad Magazine and Cracked Magazine... probably be more accurate. :D
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Re: Re: Re:
“No proof was needed”
See John that’s everything about you and why no one wants “and will not ever no matter what you say you will do” have anything to do with you lol
Like a French guy named Cédric o.....oh god...
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Someone who thinks they speak for the whole world, and that the world agrees with them (of course), is really disconnected, that's for sure. When they run their mouths like that they are picking a fight. Human biology recognizes people who speak that way as potentially violent. It's why they have to do it from behind a monitor. They wouldn't DARE speak to anyone like that to their face.
Just another piece of evidence that shows why Masnick will never be taken seriously in high-level journalism circles.
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Re: Speaking of obsession
“Just another piece of evidence that shows why Masnick will never be taken seriously in high-level journalism circles.”
You are literally the only one who cares about this bro.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Human biology recognizes people who speak that way as potentially violent. It's why they have to do it from behind a monitor.
Says the Asshole Coward that loves tossing insults! Point proven?
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Re: Impotent AND a coward
Oh Jhon boy I would totally call you an old, fat, impotent,fuckwit to your face. And we both know for a damn certainty that you wouldn’t do shit bro.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So you are saying that if someone spoke like that to your face you might potentially become violent? Because there is no other way to parse your sentence for it to make sense.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You mean like every single comment from you?
Or they are giving their opinion.
I'm REALLY interested to hear how involuntary, non-sentient human biology can detect and recognize voluntary, sentient produced speech and induce an involuntary, physical, biological response. Please, PLEASE tell me exactly how this works. I really want to know.
You really DON'T know anything about humans do you? They talk like this to each other's faces ALL THE DAMN TIME.
And this is just another piece of proof that you're a moron and an idiot who will not and should not ever be taken seriously.
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Worse yet, this poster is SO obsessed with me that it doesn't even realize when it's not me posting.
Probably some 4Chan type with not much else going on.
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Re: probably some impotent old fuckwit
Hey bro, have you tried not sounding like every other deluded lunatic who posts here?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
When it's not who? It's hard to tell the difference. Maybe if you left some way of identifying yourself so people could tell when it's the real deal?
Nah, you're far too chickenshit for that to happen.
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Re: Fun fact: opinions are not facts
That’s a hard no on the factual sources then.
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Re: Re: Re:
Sorry, I thought this story was such common knowledge
And yet you can't post any supporting links. The Breitbart one is nonsense, and the Fox link actually contradicts your points.
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Re:
This is not true and never was.
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Re: Re:
Regarding those leaked Google emails ... a few quotes from Google executive Eliana Murillo, a key figure in Google's supposedly non-partisan "get out the vote" effort:
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Re: Re: Re:
Do you have citations for those quotes? Or am I supposed to take your word for it?
Still, NONE of those quotes supports your assertions and in fact is evidence to the contrary.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Is it a mistake to assume that the vast, vast majority of Techdirt readers would already know how to cut & paste (or even retype) the text of a quote into an internet search engine in order to verify that such a quote actually exists as well as see where it came from?
Breitbart was the first to put those leaked emails in writing, and Google has never denied their authenticity, including the time when Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified for several hours before the House Judiciary Committee last December, 3 months after those leaked emails were published. Department head Eliana Murillo, who wrote the leaked emails that were reprinted far and wide, would probably have a good case to file suit (or threaten to in order to have them redacted) or at the very least make a public denial if those emails were not authentic, but that apparently hasn't happened either.
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Re: Once again for the slow ones in the back
He said citations, not GOP propaganda mill. So kindly put up or shut up bro.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Breitbart was the first to put those leaked emails in writing
First - and to date only.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Strangely, there's usually a reason why paranoid hacks with a history of lying to their audience are the only source of a particular story.
Just a shame our fella here is too dumb to realise it's not "Google are blocking the other others" or some similar tripe.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, but I did that and couldn't find the original emails. Only Breitbart and other similar sites purporting to have them but only listing select quotes. Nobody has published the full emails that I can find. Therefore, cite your sources or we have no reason to believe this is true.
Well apparently not since I checked there and could only find quotes from the emails, not the full emails themselves.
That still doesn't make you right. That just means he didn't know about them.
Some people have a thicker skin than you and are perfectly fine with ignoring people when they lie about them.
Regardless, NOTHING in any of those quotes from those supposed emails suggests that Google was trying to influence voters to vote for one or the other candidates. In fact, they provide evidence to the contrary. You still have not addressed this fact.
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Facebook enables hate speech and civil rights violations. Sooner or later, there will be legal consequences for that.
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Re: Re: Sooo much impotentence for one man
Cool story bro. Just like all those police investigations and investigative journalism stories about dastardly mike that never happened.
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Re: Re: Re: Sooo much impotentence for one man
Believe what you wish.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Sooo much impotentence for one man
Can’t even get it up enough to make empty threats today. How sad bro.
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Re: Re:
Facebook enables hate speech and civil rights violations.
Enables. Yes. It's a communications service. They even let people chat in realtime. That enables all sorts of shit.
Breitbart actually pushes a hate agenda. But you love them. What's your point?
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Re: Re:
Anything that allows humans to talk to each other enables hate speech, and that includes phones, pubs, clubs and cafes.
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Re: Re:
The human race enables hate speech and civil rights violations. Should get rid of them too?
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Trying to have it both ways
Make a vague law with significant punishments, and when a company decides not to risk it by blocking something the government wants it throws a tantrum about how unfair and unreasonable the company is for thinking of itself first, rather than the government.
I'd call their actions childish but I don't want to insult actual children by lumping the french government in with them.
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I'd have banned all French Politicians from Twitter
Fuck 'em.
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Re: I'd have banned all French Politicians from Twitter
While amusing, banning entire countries that displease you isn't a great way to build up a userbase.
Twitter does have to pay the rent and uphold the law in any country it operates in.
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Re: Re: I'd have banned all French Politicians from Twitter
Since when were politicians the whole population of a country?
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Re: Re: I'd have banned all French Politicians from Twitter
“Displease you”
They passed a law with the rest of parliament that put a dick in the internet’s mouth lied and said that was not it and later bulshiddoed everyone and when that did not work they flat out said through action so what.
French politicians are looking out for French politicians. No regrets to be had about the tears they shed. They don’t care about anything else and that’s as far as it goes as far as anything else should be concerned.
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Re: Re: Re: I'd have banned all French Politicians from Twitter
I'm sorry, but the only way to ban all French politicians is to ban France?
Anyway - You have a superior business plan, obviously your service is doing better than twitter?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I'd have banned all French Politicians from Twit
No one wants to “ban” France but unless someone has a better idea other then hope a chamber full of assholes who don’t care in Paris or Europe in general have a change of heart about breaking the internet then not many options exist.
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One way to get a bad law fixed ... enforce it.
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Re:
That's known as "malicious compliance" but I don't think Twitter is acting maliciously here, only defensively.
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So we had a very temporary problem that was resolved once people complained. Hopefully any bugs in Article 13 will inspire similar solutions, just like our courts tend to define how the laws passed by our Congress should be applied in the real world.
It would seem that the law did its job here, though a slight bit late.
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“Temporary problem”
Ok Custer lol
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So we had a very temporary problem that was resolved once people complained.
So because you managed to kill one mosquito, screw trying to prevent mosquitoes from entering your house; just let them infest the whole place since it's so easy to kill them.
Seriously, if Article 13 and other existing systems like DMCA notices were actually enforced to the extent you knuckle draggers demand, HBO.com would have been nuked off the face of the planet via notice and staydown. By HBO's own request.
Hopefully any bugs in Article 13 will inspire similar solutions
Based on how easy it is to punish companies for DMCA notice violations? Probably about as effective as a slug trying to chew its way to the center of the Earth.
just like our courts tend to define how the laws passed by our Congress should be applied in the real world
Right, about that... how did that Section 230-killing lawsuit come along, Herrick?
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France lol democracy lol
“Democratic republic”
That’s hilarious lol
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Re: France lol democracy lol
The US is a "democratic republic". All this means is that the people vote and then the leaders still do whatever the hell they want.
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Most of the people I know now have left twitter. All of them because they were fighting depression and it helped. Every single person I know that's still on twitter is a depressing raincloud of sadness. I don't know why anybody puts themselves through that nonsense. Having to live up to the standards of crazy people.
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Re: It’s just like living with depression
No one cares bro.
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"Here, follow this broken law we wrote when we were virtue signalling for political purposes"
"HEY! STOP INTERPRETING OUR TERRIBLE LAW TERRIBLY!"
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Aw Zof you were almost making sense for once, until you had to complain about virtue signaling. Dog whistle for white power much?
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I'm pretty sure that's not what it means. Yes, it's a pejorative used against a certain type of posturing, and that has its own connotations, but lots of not "white power" attitudes embrace the term.
Doubly so, since there would be no point to bringing it up in a discussion about a place as white as France.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Doubly so, since there would be no point to bringing it up in a discussion about a place as white as France."
Never been to France, huh?
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