Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the weekly-words dept

This week, both our winners on the insightful side come in response to Google threatening to pull out of Australia if the country goes ahead with demanding payments for linking to newspapers. Rekrul won first place with a question:

By this logic, shouldn't the newspapers be paying all the companies that advertise in them?

In second place, it's That One Guy with a response to Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying that Australia "won't respond to threats" while making threats of his own:

'How dare you not cave to our thuggery!'

'If you demand that we pay for a service we are offering for free we'll stop doing that' is now a threat? What a pathetic and obvious attempt to spin their attempted extortion and Google's refusal to cave as the government being the 'victims'.

Hey idiot, Google telling you that if you pass a Google tax they'll shut down in your country isn't a 'threat', it's simply reminding you of a core part of business, namely that if doing something only has negative effects you stop doing that thing.

I'm honestly not sure which explanation would make this less stupid at this point, whether they really think that Google will cave and pay the Google tax despite the multiple examples of that not happening, or if they are trying to drive Google off to benefit the larger publishers at the expense of the smaller ones that'll be screwed when Google leaves.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment on that post, this time from aerinai who underlined the slippery web-breaking slope of link taxes:

This doesn't stop

Once the publishers get Google and Facebook to pay... then they make small businesses pay for links, then it kills the free and open web.

These politicians are willfully ignorant of how the internet works and should be voted out. Unfortunately, being a jerk to 'big tech' is in vogue right now, so good luck with that...

Next, it's Bloof responding to a comment that compared Tom Cotton's call for soldiers on US streets to the dispersing of the crowd at the Capitol building:

Tom Cotton wanted the troops dispatched to crack down on people protesting because the police are murdering them without suffering any sort of consequence for their actions.

The Democrats had to put troops in the street because the right wing committed a terrorist attack in the capital and threatened more. They broke into the seat of power, planning kidnap and murder to install a tyrant.

One is an attempt to get support for a crack down on minorities and the left practising their freedom of speech, the other is trying to make sure the far right can't get close enough to murder the president. OMG, THEY'RE BOTH THE SAME, GUYS!

You really are a disingenuous moron.

Over on the funny side, both the top spots went to Stephen T. Stone. In first place, it's another response to Australia and Google:

A look at the near future…

Google: We’ll stop serving your entire country if you tax us for links.

Australian Government: We’d like to see you try!

[Google cuts Australia off from all Google services]

Australian Government: [shocked Pikachu face]

In second place, it's a response to this week's highlight in the world of terrible Section 230 opinions:

Damn. Even skiiers don’t zig-zag as much as that guy.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with That One Guy getting very, very sarcastic about a MAGA conference threatening Politico with a lawsuit over its reporting:

No, that seems fair

Honestly I can't think of a single legitimate reason to ask sponsors of a republican run conference if the recent failed insurrection might impact their willingness to donate to the party given the repeated and consistent refutation by those within the party beforehand of the narrative that instigated the insurrection and the swift and unmistakable party-wide condemnation of the insurrection and willingness to punish those responsible afterwards, so gonna have to side with the conference here, Politico's actions are definitely 'fake news.'

Finally, it's Jason with a response to the former US Ambassador who is suing Apple and Google for making the Telegram app available:

bad guys use paper too, you know

If was foreseeable to OfficeMax that by allowing Hammermill Paper to continue to be available in its store that OfficeMax’s conduct could lead to fear of violence by individuals, such as [literally anyone I guess].

By failing to remove Hammermill Paper from the OfficeMax Store, Defendant has proximately caused [Plaintiff's] emotional distress.

Plaintiff has suffered injuries in an amount that exceeds $75,000.

Defendant’s failure to enforce their own guidelines against Hammermill Paper has caused [Plaintiff 1] and [Plaintiff 2] to suffer economic loss by being deprived of a key benefit of the purchase and use of their laser printer.

That's all for this week, folks!

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