Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the something-said dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous commenter who responded to a suggestion about rules for returning seized money with a simpler idea for reform:

There should be a law that money and property cannot be seized without charges being brought, and cannot be kept without a conviction.

In second place, we've got Stephen T. Stone with an evergreen comment that can be referred to every time there is another attack on Section 230:

Quick reminders vis-á-vis 47 U.S.C. § 230:

1. Without 230, a vast portion of the Internet wouldn’t even exist.
2. 230 puts liability where it belongs: on the people responsible for the speech.
3. 230 doesn't protect a platform from liability in re: any speech for which the platform is directly responsible.
4. 230 has no “neutrality” provision.
5. 230 helps facilitate the sharing of speech on third party platforms; the First Amendment gives you the right to share that speech in the first place.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got a pair of complementary comments about online speech. First, it's an anonymous commenter with a reminder that having your odious speech privately moderated is not a free speech issue:

Except that isn't happening.

If it were, it would still 1) not be censorship, and 2) within their rights to do so.

Funny how when the right-ish side controlled most media and corporations, there wasn't a problem. Now, if you are even center, or just not extreme-right enough, you are a leftist suppressing the poor oppressed right. Even when it isn't happening.

If you mean people who are racist, sexist, and advocate violence, yeah, they tend to get moderated. Sorry if that is your "unpopular political view".

People all over the spectrum get moderated for shit, sometimes sensibly, and sometimes incorrectly. "X censors the right" is just another "War on Christmas". Bunch of whiny, spoilt snowflakes.

To go along with that, it's Stephen T. Stone again with the point that, on the other hand, even odious speech is protected from legal intervention and DMCA abuse:

Whoever filed that DMCA claim used a government-backed legal claim as an attempt to censor speech. I don’t care if the person being censored is a damned White supremacist; they don’t deserve to have their speech silenced by way of a bullshit copyright claim.

Over on the funny side, our winners are both irresistible quips about the bizarre story of Mohammed bin Salman apparently hacking Jeff Bezos' phone. First place comes from an anonymous commenter:

New phone. Who dis autocratic ruler?

And Who Cares offered up the second place winner:

The world is really unfair.
You need to be rich and powerful to get scammed by a real prince while I, a mere average Jane/Joe, only get these fake Nigerian princes.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about flawed facial recognition technology:

But we tested it...

We loaded it with the headshots of all 20 white males in the office, and it's able to recognize them consistently... so that means it should work for everyone everywhere, amirite?

And finally, it's another anonymous commenter responding to someone else who, also anonymously, suggested people make their own encryption technology because Apple's encryption "isn't really useful anyway":

Nice try Bill

That's all for this week, folks!

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