Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the speak-your-piece dept
We've got a double winner this week, with James Burkhardt taking first place for insightful and second place for funny by responding to the notion that Alexander Vindman is a Russian agent:
So, The ukrainian immigrant who attempted to shut down the investigation that would in theory clear the Russian government of wrongdoing for which they are under sanction and in favor of the release of military aid to the ukraine to fight Russia....is actually a Russian immigrant working for Putin to undermine Russian intrests?
In second place on the insightful side, we've got an anonymous comment about Brady lists of untrustworthy cops:
Really, if you think about it, a law enforcement agency's Brady list should be empty. Because any officer whose behavior is bad enough to get on that list should be fired.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with another anonymous comment, this time giving some well-deserved praise to Ron Wyden following the hold on the CASE Act:
Just about every time I see something come out of the Senate that isn't sucking up to copyright/IP or data industry interests, it's got Wyden's name on it. I'm sure he's not perfect, but at least on these issues, I'm glad he's there.
Next, we've got Ben asking an important question about exactly how breaking up Facebook will solve the problems it's supposed to:
How do you propose breaking up Facebook?
Geographically? Politically? By age? Favourite colour?
If I'm in one category, how can i maintain friendship links with someone in another? ... by finding another service that's more like Facebook-that-was, and 'round the cycle we go again?
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Tim R with a suggestion for the college newspaper being threatened with lawsuits by a bus company that didn't like a satirical article:
Their next story should be about how Barbra Streisand doesn't like ShortLine's bus service, either.
We've already had the second place winner for funny above, so it's on to editor's choice with That One Guy getting maybe just a little bit sarcastic in a conversation about anti-vaccine nonsense:
Are you blind? What evidence could possibly be stronger than vague anecdotes referring to non-doctors making medical determinations and telling people to find the evidence themselves, with a warning to be careful to ignore those that actually know what the hell they're talking about because obviously they're all in on the conspiracy?
Honestly, there's setting the bar high and there's putting it into orbit...
And finally, we've got norahc wondering what will happen following the reports that a Devin Nunes aide has been leaking the Ukraine call whistleblower's name:
So which Twitter account is Devin Nunes going to sue over this?
That's all for this week, folks!
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Brady lists
Because any officer whose behavior is bad enough to get on that list should be fired.
From a cannon?
A trebouchet?
Catapult?
Into the Sun?
Novelty giant slingshot?
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Re: Brady lists
Kerosene. Applied to their pants.
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Re: Brady lists
Into the Sun is incredibly difficult.
Jupiter is just as good an option, and a lot easier to get to.
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Insightful Honorable mention to:
Stephen T. Stone
bhull242
That One Guy
And the others who stepped up to counter the professional disinformation campaign brought by JDL and his fellow stooges in this thread.
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Re:
If taking vaccines is slightly potentially going to have side-effects then I'm going to choose the more dangerous option damnit!!
Just saying.
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Re: Re:
I think your mom already had too many vaccines.
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I think blue deserves a little recognition.
Maybe a small prize.
Or a little money.
We should all try to be more inclusive.
After al he’s a trans-Nigerian-spicadelacious illegal alien.
He deserves more respect than you usually offer.
Shiva, too.
And GregGutfeld.
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Re:
Shiva is an illegal alien?
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"Let me know when your night club is big enough to host the world, or a Country even, then we'll talk about similarities and just how "public" your club is.
Size doesn’t matter."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191026/23243243268/content-moderation-scale-remain s-impossible-vaccines-edition.shtml#c3738
A perfect example of why we need a visible +/- vote counter. So many people disagree with moderating at scale but apparently are afraid to voice their opinion. A Night Club or a Country, size doesn't matter. It would be interesting to see how many in the community agree that size doesn't matter. The counters would aid in this. Must be many to get insightful vote. Why don't they speak up on the articles?
The same person has a solution on how to ban OOTB from posting on the comment section here yet keeping the comment section open to the public. Should be easy, only one person, not a whole class of people.
Maybe they could talk to Zuckerberg as well. Facebook was only open to Zuckerbergs' friends. Maybe they could talk to him about opening it up to the public? Perhaps they went open public when they went public owned and you can join the club now without being Marks' friend?
Apparently, being open only to friends or members, is being open to the public. I would have called it private, like a golf course.
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They’re free to voice their opinion. But they shouldn’t act surprised when their doing so is met with criticism or rebuttal. Speaking one’s mind doesn’t give someone the right to escape the consequences of that speech.
You misunderstand what I said. “Size doesn’t matter” refers to the concept of “private” and “public” in relation to who owns the property considered “private” or “public” — and, in the case of privately-owned property (e.g., a business), whether that property is private or open to the public.
Quit whining about it until you find the testicular fortitude you need to ask Mike why he doesn’t ban Blue Balls.
Facebook already did that on the 26th of September 2006.
Again: Facebook has been open to the general public since September 2006, try to keep up. And the site is still privately owned, by the by.
That’s because it is private, and you’re twisting words and contexts you apparently don’t understand to make a point you can’t cohesively explain as part of a discussion in which you can’t metaphorically tread water with everyone else.
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Re:
Well, there's also the issue of blue resorting to using TOR of all things (you know, the tool he says only pirates use to mask their IP address) to spam, so blocking TOR addresses wouldn't help.
If Masnick wants to ban blue boy he'd be better off outing this Nunes-memo-spamming fuckwad.
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Re: Re:
They tried. Tell him how to do it and still keep comments open to public.
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Re:
"On May 18, 2012, Facebook held its initial public offering"
That is when Facebook became a publicly owned/traded company. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about with regards to public and private.
A public golf course is open to all. A private golf course is open to members only although anyone can become a member.
Which does Facebook, and social media companies, sound like to you? Public or private?
Do you have a better, more coherent, analogy?
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"Publicly traded" does not mean "publicly owned". The government and the general public does not own Facebook. Private entities do.
What you misunderstand is that “public”, in this context, means “open to the public” instead of “publicly owned”. A golf course can require membership fees regardless of that status. The difference lies in whether any John Q. Birdie can walk in and join.
Facebook is a privately-owned (open to the) public social interaction network. Private entities own it. Anyone can sign up to use it without an invitation. And you’re not allowed to force it into hosting speech.
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Re:
A perfect example of why we need a visible +/- vote counter.
Sounds like maybe you should implement this feature at your site and show TD how to do it "right."
This isn't Reddit, no reason to have a vote counter like that IMNSHO. But if it was implemented you'd really need to be logged in to make full use of it anyway.
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Re: Re:
"Sounds like maybe you should implement this feature at your site and show TD how to do it "right.""
I thought free speech advocates would be open to suggestions and discussion. Your comment does not come across that way.
An awful lot of hidden comments on this forum just for disagreeing. Must be the white supremacists. Can't see free speech advocates wanting to block/hide disagreeable speech...
...Should make this site open to the public, like a private golf & country club.
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Re: Re: Re:
If this site wasn't public, how did you start posting here?
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Re: Re: Re:
...Should make this site open to the public
By "Open" do you mean anyone can post here? Because they can.
Or do you mean that the actual running of the site should be done by the users?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Open to the public like public social media sites so we can ban all the white supremacists who are down-voting dissenting opinions. Free speech advocates don't hide speech, they counter it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
TD is open to the public like a supermarket or a movie theater. Anyone can come in but you can't bring your dog.
And since TD allows Anonymous Cowards, even Blue Balls can keep coming back again and again even if they don't have anything to say.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[Still asserting facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Stephen gave me the impression that they are taking over all the popular sites. Makes more sense to me that white supremacists would be hiding speech rather than the free speech advocates that normally frequent this site. Who do you think is hiding all the dissenting comments?
I notice you didn't call out Stephen for asserting that Facebook is a private company, again, and again. Are you okay with some bullshit facts? Or are you just as ignorant?
Is Facebook your ISP too? If so, Shiva invented e-mail.
The white supremacists now have control of the site. They have blocked my address from posting.
Mike fought a lawsuit to prove someone on the internet wrong, can't see him blocking my address while I am explaining that facebook is not a private company.
Do you see any insults, swearing or condescending attitude in my posts? Must be white supremacists.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I don't exactly see your point. Facebooks is a company. It's not an ISP. It has has an IPO so it is "Publicly Traded." That means you can own part of it if you'd like.
Are all your posts being downvoted? Since you are one AC of many, the other readers can't tell one AC from another. Sounds like that is your real complaint.
TD fought a lawsuit against the liar Shiva over the right to publish stories critical of him, including calling him a liar. That doesn't mean TD and FB can't block people for being asshats. Certainly doesn't mean that you won't get downvoted to oblivion if you are being a troll.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Amazing.
Every sentence of what you just said is a lie.
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Maybe senator wyden is the only one who cares about ordinary citizens or people who use the internet,
as opposed to senators who maybe just use email or facebook,
and will vote for any bill that makes it easy for big corporations or trolls to sue ordinary people ,
any bill that makes it easy to sue over art or images that are not even registered is a disaster for free speech .
If you art or images are of any value register them with the copyright office .
Maybe the senators are part of the 1 per cent,
30k to them is small change .
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Re:
Most Senators can just infer from voting patterns that what voters care most about is loyalty to the party, and not to integrity, or accountability, or being in any way beneficial to the voting public themselves.
After all, people tend to vote along party lines above all else (to the point of nearly electing a child molester because he had the right letter next to his name on the ballot), and so the will of the electorate is clear. What else are those Senators supposed to think their job is?
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