Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the whatcha-say-what dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy, responding to one commenter on our latest post about police abuse by noting the silver lining that nobody died:

A point that's all the more damning and insane in that that's actually worth mentioning, rather than just a safe assumption.

When 'at least they only beat the victim for talking back rather than beat and then murdered him' is noteworthy you know the corruption and resulting reputation has really gotten bad.

In second place, it's James Burkhardt clarifying the nuance of the counterargument to PragerU's ridiculous claims of anti-conservative bias on YouTube:

The argument is not that "it's fine because we have a pro-conservative bias". The argument is that "The data does not back up a finding of anti-conservative bias." The argument being made only expresses that Prager U is not subject to some special level of scrutiny or censorship because it is conservative, because many high-profile left-aligned channels see higher levels of restricted videos than Prager U. The conclusion that this represents a pro-conservative bias is never reached by the article, and just as premature as claims of pro-liberal bias.

The point Techdirt has made time and time again is that the biases in YouTube's algorithms are unlikely to be based on a supposed political nature of content, but the ability to monetize the content. Never has the argument that politically motivated bias is okay been expressed.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous commenter underlining an important fact that many people apparently need to be reminded of:

The Bill of Rights applies to the people, not just citizens, regardless of status. So "illegals" do have 4th amendment protections.

Next, it's another anonymous commenter with a correction to a post about the ongoing crypto-wars:

Typo

"The problem is there really aren't many good arguments to be made against the use of encryption..."

The problem is there really aren't any good arguments to be made against the use of encryption.

Fixed!

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous commenter clarifying the attribution of a famous quote about free speech:

'Voltaire' only by popular attribution...

The Voltaire quote has its origins in one of Voltaire's biographers, one Beatrice Hall.

Remember that other famous quote:

The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity. -- Abraham Lincoln

In second place, it's wshuff weighing in on the licensing questions over the viral video of a camera falling from an airplane into a pig pen:

Oh man! I can’t wait for PETA to jump in and file a copyright lawsuit on behalf of the pig.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with another anonymous commenter asking a question about the case in which police argued that removing an unmarked law enforcement tracking device from your car is theft:

If you stick it to the bottom of a police cruiser, does that count as returning it?

And finally, we've got rw proposing the nuclear option in response to the ongoing attacks on Section 230 by lawmakers:

Maybe it would be easier to just ban politicians from the internet in general?

That's all for this week, folks!

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