Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the things-were-said dept
This week, both our winners on the insightful side come from our post about the latest story showing Facebook bent over backwards to have different rules for "conservative voices" on the platform, to avoid accusations of anti-conservative bias. The first place comment comes from bhull242, responding to the assertion that the terms "misinformation and hate" just mean something you disagree with:
How are death threats, advocacy for genocide, the organization of an attack on the nation’s Capitol, claiming vaccines cause autism, claiming that there is a secret sex trafficking ring run by high-ranking Democrats in the nonexistent basement of a pizzaria in DC, claiming that Sandy Hook and other mass shootings were hoaxes, claiming that all/most homosexuals/bisexuals/transgender people/blacks/Hispanics/Jews/Muslims are out to destroy America and/or kill white Christian Americans, claiming that chemicals in the water are turning the frogs gay, claiming that COVID-19 is a hoax, etc. not misinformation or hate? How is treating American far-right people and their followers differently from literally everyone else not bending over backwards to create a special rule?
In second place, it's Baron von Robber responding to the more specific invocation of the Hunter Biden laptop story as proof of anti-conservative bias:
Because the Hunter laptop was a joke. Even the reporters for the NY Post wouldn't sign their names to it, it was so bad. It was failed before it started.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got two more comments from that post. The conversation about the Hunter Biden story continued, with the original commenter insisting they believed it due to a lack of evidence disproving it, garnering this excellent anonymous response:
Human perception of truth is not binary. You don't have to believe something is true just because you haven't seen proof that it isn't, anymore than you have to believe something is untrue just because you haven't seen proof that it is.
The more common and likeliest scenario is that you don't have enough information to make a good judgment either way, in which case choosing to pretend it must be true because you haven't seen evidence to contradict your bias is just you wanting to believe bullshit.
Next, we've got a comment from Bloof who is clearly, understandably, tired of this nonsense:
So big tech are biased against conservatives, while simultaneously being run by soulless right wing libertarians, prioritising conservative content (Who hasn't gotten a Prager U propaganda piece or Ben Shapiro clip recommended to them after watching actual news?) and downgrading leftleaning outlets, changing their rules to avoid banning conservatives as much as possible and quietly rescinding even the mildest of punishments handed out to anyone on the right as swiftly as they can even though they're still doing the things they were punished for in the first place?
Let's be honest, you will scream bias until the day conservatives are in the same position online as they are on talk radio, left completely immune to suffering the consequences of their online and left wing content is excluded from major platforms entirely.
Over on the funny side, both our winning comments come in response to a different post: the story of Tennessee politicians asking state colleges to forbid student athletes from kneeling during the national anthem. An early anonymous comment took first place for funny, and racked up a whole lot of insightful votes too:
"The flag represents freedom...No, not that freedom...No, not that one either...Okay, okay. The flag represents our freedom to tell you what to do when you participate in our most holy religion: college sportsball."
In second place, it's another anonymous commenter with another reaction:
I was in church the other day and I was shocked, shocked to see so many people kneeling. They knelt when they came in. They knelt whenever Jesus was in the room. How disrespectful. They clearly hate God.
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from crade about Oracle helping Chinese law enforcement dig through private data:
The most surprising thing about this article is that Oracle is actually working on something that isn't a lawsuit
Finally, we come full circle back to the post about Facebook making exceptions for conservative content, where Stephen T. Stone offered up a quotation:
“I have become Overton, shifter of windows.” – Zuckerberg, probably
That's all for this week, folks!
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I recently started following this site because I thought the coverage was even-handed, and didn’t hue to any parrticular political persuasion. I guess I was “misinformed"
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Re:
And which "political persuasion" are you suggesting techdirt is "hue"ing?
Be warned: I will interpret things that sounds to me like "Techdirt is biased in favor of sanity" as such.
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If you can’t deal with the fact that members/supporters of a certain political party openly associate with hatemongers, violent insurrectionists, conspiracy theorists, and Kevin Sorbo, don’t blame Techdirt for your issues.
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Re:
Yeah, it's too bad that the radical left Democreatures incited Antifa to storm the Capitol in order to make Trump look bad.
The problem is that there is no "even-handed coverage" when the hands in question are attached to completely separate realities.
To even have a chance at even-handedness, you need to balance different plans for dealing with the same reality.
If you want to balance both sides of a scale, there must be a connecting beam.
There is no such beam of a common reality connecting the news and information sources of left- and right-leaning parties and their supporters.
That makes balanced reporting impossible. You cannot sensibly report in a balanced manner about clashing realities.
At some point of time, you have to make the decision of whether you want to provide reinforcement to reality skeptics. And there is too much of a market for that already for the sustainable good of the U.S.
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"[Democrats] incited Antifa to storm the Capitol"
Bah! We didn't need to. Antifa mind-control laser satellites compelled the MAGA rally crowd to march on the Capitol!🛰 Their aluminum-foil headgear failed to block the signal, rather served as an antenna, making it stronger!🧢📶
We have legions!🪖🪖🪖 We have buses!🚍🚍🚍
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Re: "[Democrats] incited Antifa to storm the Capitol"
"Bah! We didn't need to."
Of course. The alt-right conspiracy theories keep making "liberals" and "leftists" out to be the same sort of superhuman Big Bad as the Global Jewish Conspiracy so many of them keep harping about. Mind control lasers are some of the smaller toys the alt-right alleges we all possess.
According to the white supremacist and nazi narrative we're all basically Thanos in a yarmulke, because apparently being liberal and leftist now provides the same sort of high tech Avengers Villain power as they've long credited ze jews with.
So yeah, I guess we're all busted now, eh? We just looked at that horde of "fearless patriots" and mind-controlled them into storming the capitol, beating a cop to death, and meander aimlessly around engaging in petty theft and failed potty training - just because.
And only since we're so evil it didn't even occur to us to just use these unholy powers of ours to snap our fingers and make them all dust.
Seriously. I keep asking myself about how those benighted morons in the alt-right keep failing to recognize how pathetic they're being. They're like fucking five year olds trying to invent excuses, on the fly, for why it isn't their fault their hand is in the cookie jar and the window's broken. Fundamentally broken five year olds at that, because at least when you confront a normal child with facts in hand they will realize their ad hoc scapegoat tale didn't fly.
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'Wait, that belief I've been promiting has a BODY COUNT?!'
Adding to the humor value of course is watching them hold to both that those that would oppose them are superhuman and pulling all the strings and pathetic weak-willed cucks who will fold like paper should they ever face a Real American like them.
Seriously. I keep asking myself about how those benighted morons in the alt-right keep failing to recognize how pathetic they're being. They're like fucking five year olds trying to invent excuses, on the fly, for why it isn't their fault their hand is in the cookie jar and the window's broken.
I suspect it's a mental defense mechanism in that to admit their own involvement would require them to face just what their words and actions can and have lead to. It's one thing stroke your ego by holding to the idea that you know better than everyone else about what really happened, quite another to face that you've been conned and that belief resulted in a deranged mob storming a government building in an attempt to stop an election and resulted in several deaths.
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Re: Re:
Running with an idea pointed out in the Facebook article comment section you've basically got two choices, you can aim for equal treatment or equal outcomes.
If one group/party is acting significantly different then those outside their group and you treat them equally then without that context the outcome will appear to be anything but equal, as they'll either seem to get much better treatment or much worse.
On the other hand if the goal is equal outcomes and one group is significantly different then you have to change how they actually are treated, giving them better or worse treatment so that how they seem to be treated and comply with the rules/standards being applied is made to appear in line with how others are.
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Re: Re:
Reality stinks.
you will find those that Know politics, Dont want to BE in politics.
So who do you get?
Those with an agenda. Those that WANT something, to take advantage of something, to MAKE something happen, on and on.
To do the best by this country? or to get paid off, under the table by those Corps that want favors and the gov to look the other way?
You cant tell the people you are Lying, AS WE ALREADY KNOW. but How in HELL do we get these 2 year olds, running this country, to STOP LYING AND DO THE JOB.
CUT Their salary. Cut their benefits. CUT MEDICAL. retirement and ALL the rest.
A while back they went to the Congressional bank, that hands out money to congress elected. To find out how much Each Congressman had Withdrawn.
TRY to get that info now. A few got FIRED.
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The career politician
This is the principal argument for sortition. If we chose officials by lottery and drafted them into service, it would eliminate the career.
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Re: The career politician
The problem with sortition is that governing would be seen as an annoyance. I mean, would you trust nuclear weapons to somebody who sees leading a nation as annoying as jury duty?
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The sad thing is, we did exactly that from January 2017 to January 2021. That Old 45 never used one is a miracle unto itself.
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Re: Re: The career politician
"I mean, would you trust nuclear weapons to somebody who sees leading a nation as annoying as jury duty?"
Over a number of politicians who chose election? Every time.
Because the alternative is what brought Nixon, Trump, and Hitler. The one who is willing to seek office by compromising his values is always going to be worse by far than the guy who got picked because he wanted to do a good job but never thought of doing that job.
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Re: Re:
[citation needed]
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Re: Re: Re:
Unfortunately no shortage of them. Now "credible source", that would be quite a different beast, but one that is an endangered species in some areas of politics.
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Re:
So,
Of which group can you not find here?
I really think we have a mixed bag of nuts and Screw(balls).
Everyone gets to Express a comment, but they also get to Stand behind the comment. Prefer you dont run away, dont get upset, just comment on WHY, you THINK how you THINK.
Not the idea of 'HE' told me, is a good idea.
It seems we have LOTS of comments and idea on how things are. Its allot of sides to look at. THEN figure out if it makes since. YOU make the choice of what you THINK is good/bad/right/wrong. NOT 'He told me so'.
With all the internet out there, and BEFORE the politicians MESS IT UP(as in the real world). Find opinions, Truth, all the sides of a coin, before you decide heads or tails.(there is a 3rd side)
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Left Or Right?
Right wing? Left wing? I don't care!
Just gimme a piece of the chicken already! I'm fucking hungry!
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Re: Left Or Right?
Why would you want chicken if you can call it an eagle?
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Re:
I personally believe you arrived to comment once with a predetermined agenda.
Stalemate.
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And still
4 police
4 guns
4 tasers
NO FIRE EXTINGUISHER
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The human perception of truth and flag represents freedom comments were made by the same anonymous coward.
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Re:
Love that arguiment(gui, I spelled it right) also.
Perception?
Truth, justice and the american way??
WE are rebels. ask the brits.
If we all Saw things the same way, we would never Improve or make thing better. We couldnt see the BAD things happening. We couldnt have an opinion, as we would all Be the same.
Even the bible has been edited, and most people dont get the idea, that the Old testament is the Jewish bible. And people still Blame Jewish for things that never happened.
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I would say the nature of the comments pretty much reinforces what I said
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So what if it does? Stop hatereading Techdirt if you don’t like it. Instead, read a site that leans more towards your political affiliation. On this site, whenever someone of either party fucks up, we call it out — regardless of whether we’re generally aligned with the policies and platform of that party. Your not being able to withstand criticism of that party is a “you” problem. Nobody but you can solve that problem.
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Re:
Yep.
Iv had to say to many, I dont care who is the up and coming politico.
THEY ALL SUCK.
THEY all do it for the money, ever since THEY(not us) made this a PAID FOR JOB.
Our job is to 'catch them all'. The problem is we have More and better sources Now then we did in the past.
The NEWS is NEWS, not a political agenda, NOT an opinion.
When you/they/them/anyone can Declare an opinion, AND not Justify/reason what they say. Its abit hard to listen to.
China did it, Russia did it, Blacks did it, Any group not listed DID IT.
so you arnt going by the name of a person that did it, you point at a Million people. NOT the perpetrator/individual?
Your Mama did it. so THERE.
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Re: Re:
You got that one backwards. They are paid solidly for the job in order not to have to rely on bribes for making a living.
Making it a paid-for job is the measure even making it possible for them not to make bad decisions in exchange for money. It's just that sometimes one would wish for more of them to make use of that possibility.
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Re:
Techdirt: Echo (listens...nothing sad)
Parler: Echo..ECho..ECHo..ECHO. I found my place! Now my snowflake feelings will not be hurt by reality.
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Re:
WE stall arnt democrats, Nor repubs.
We dont stand around pointing fingers at 'What we think' is a problem.
Many of us will agree, this or that IS the problem.
OUR problem tend to be the Corps and the Gov. and they dont look to see Everything. AND FIX IT. Dont blame, dont lie about it, Dont hide the problem, Tell us as Adults that YOU GOOFED IT, and will fix it.
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"How are death threats, advocacy for genocide, the organization of an attack on the nation’s Capitol, claiming vaccines cause autism..."
Because Trump is a lightning rod for it. The absolutely insane thing is, almost half of Americans are willing to vote for this. Really. It boggles my mind that this is where we are as a country.
I can only hope that that there is an awakening in the religious right in the couple of years. The fact that the Evangelicals are willing to place Capitalism over human compassion, is quite telling. They support the money changers.
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The issue with conservative Christian evangelicals — and conservative Christians in general, really — is the same issue with American conservatives/conservatism as a whole: They see changes happening that they can’t stop and it pisses them off. Their desperation for the power needed to keep the status quo intact leads them to actions both unethical and immoral.
We have a political party largely willing to endorse a lie about election integrity vis-á-vis the most closely watched election in U.S. history. We have a broad group of religious peoples ready to believe that lie. And we all saw a group of violent thugs storm the citadel of American democracy for the sake of that lie. And that doesn’t even begin to account for the cruel, inhumane, anti-democratic, and anti-American actions taken by the GOP and its supporters over the past few years-to-decades — not the least of which is the attempt to suppress voting by “undesirable voters” (read: people of color who don’t vote Republican) and the gerrymandering across the country.
Conservatives will have a “coming to Jesus” moment sooner or later. One can only hope it’ll be sooner rather than later so all the “acceptable targets” can be spared whatever cruelty would be flung their way.
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Re:
Parts of this also comes from watch stuff happen, and No way to Know whats happened to make things change, then Some idiot that wants control over them STATES, his opinion of the matter, with little to NO relevance to What really happened. And people believe it. No one else was/is willing to tell us whats happening, so we only see what we can. The info we get isnt matching whats happening, and confusion abounds.
It was funny, that for Conservative, they were REALLY leaning to the Corps. And THEY arnt conservative.
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Conservatives will have a “coming to Jesus” moment sooner or later. One can only hope it’ll be sooner rather than later so all the “acceptable targets” can be spared whatever cruelty would be flung their way.
If recent history is any indication they will reach that point only once they can no longer keep pretending that their positions have majority support and they can't rig the system in their favor enough to compensate for this, and unfortunately for everyone else I don't see that happening any time soon because they are really practiced at both.
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In addition, in response to the Capitol storming and other developments in the Republican Party, a significant number of people have unregistered as Republican and reregistered as Democrats or Independents. That means that come next primary, the next Republican candidate will be a nutcase chosen by nutcases.
Now the disenchanted former Republicans get to choose between voting for the Republican nutcase, or holding their nose and voting for a Democrat in spite of not agreeing with their politics.
Essentially your choices are reduced to a single-party system or raving madness.
Which is not a "balanced" choice at all. The U.S. really needs to figure out how to change their political system such that it does not encourage the country to fall apart on a single fault line but actually represents the diverse populace with more than two or increasingly even one sane faction.
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"Conservatives will have a “coming to Jesus” moment sooner or later. "
That's what I'm afraid of. Or rather, I fear those of them hell-bent on making Jesus come to them. After all, the book of revelations is clear - all you need is for Armageddon to happen, they say, and the good lord will have to descend and kick off the rapture.
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Re: Re:
would rather,
'On earth as it is in Heaven',
And he comes to visit, and vacation.
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Probably after they discover that under Facism they are just units of labour to be expended for the glorification of the state.
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They literally just gathered in worship of a golden idol.
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Re: Re:
Frankly, have you taken a look at this idol? It's hilarious. I think the artist is making a statement that you can make Republicans swallow any gilded heap of crap if you tell them it reeks of Trump.
As if we didn't know after the Capitol insurrection and the by now unbelievable reaction to it. But the artist might have started work on his heap of crap before that.
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Re: Re:
Made in Mexico of all things. It's like their world is running on a script by Shakespeare and Mel Brookes.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Made in Mexico of all things. It's like their world is running on a script by Shakespeare and Mel Brookes."
Edited by Monty Python and produced by Wes Craven.
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Re:
"The absolutely insane thing is, almost half of Americans are willing to vote for this. Really. It boggles my mind that this is where we are as a country. "
Not quite that bad. 73 million americans is roughly one in three. That's the proportion of the US citizenry who fail to consider white supremacy and shameless pandering to fascism a showstopper.
The writing was always on the wall for this. When the democrats did their turnabout with FDR's New Deal and the dixiecrats left the democrats in protest - that was the chance the US had to rid itself of the poison in the political well. Sadly then came Nixon and Goldwater and their "Southern Strategy" where they agreed to start catering to the lowest grade of scum - and the modern GOP was born. Ever since the US citizenry has been weaned on a steady trickle of falsehood and hatred from that toxic well.
And the strategy of the GOP is winning. All they have to do is to lie shamelessly and pretend it's all the democrats fault for not being "bipartisan"...and the democrats cave and go to the table to compromise away a few more principles, just to shut the deranged fanatics up.
Case in point? Look at Biden right now. Calling for Unity while one third of the US citizenry calls for his head on a platter in reciprocity. That makes him look good - for now. And will hurt the whole nation seriously when, once again, trumpist senators get invited to a debate where they'll bring their usual bad faith.
"I can only hope that that there is an awakening in the religious right in the couple of years."
The Lincoln Project was basically it. The republicans willing to turn their back on religious fanaticism and race hate have already left.
"The fact that the Evangelicals are willing to place Capitalism over human compassion, is quite telling. They support the money changers."
Not as such, no. To keep that metaphor going to the end they only support the moneychangers for long enough to get that uppity nazarean heretic stoned and crucified.
What is really scary is that significant portions of the evangelicals are those who believe that manufacturing armageddon will prompt the second coming, and any means required to be rid of the obstacles in the way of that are sanctified.
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Re: Re:
You've got the right general idea but your timeline is off.
The Dixiecrats' split wasn't a response to the New Deal. There was still a significant bloc in US politics in those days that had views we would today call fiscally liberal but socially conservative. Racist Democrats didn't have any problem with the New Deal; they split from the Democratic Party over Truman's integration of the military.
But a name that's curiously missing from your post is Johnson. It was the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Act that cost the Democrats the South and led to the subsequent realignment of the parties.
And while Goldwater was one of the architects of the Southern Strategy, I'll say one thing for him: he hated the Christian right and its increasing influence in the Republican Party. Appealing to white evangelical Christians wasn't Goldwater's goal; that was more of a Nixon-Reagan thing.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Racist Democrats didn't have any problem with the New Deal; they split from the Democratic Party over Truman's integration of the military."
The New Deal fiscal policy hurt a lot of money-heavy southern interests and the Fair Employment Practices had the KKK screaming in their seats. FDR's "Black Cabinet" more or less settled the split between the south and the democrats.
So yeah, the racist democrats had plenty of issues with the new deal which saw black voters migrating én másse to the democratic party from the republicans, and saw black people picked for government office as part of affirmative action.
It was after all this that Truman, in WW2, integrated black people into the military. That's when the rift became official and the dixiecrats were born.
The process to convert the democrats from racism started with FDR. Truman just put the capstone on it.
For the Republicans to complete the process and turn into the party of white supremacy took until the 60's and 70's when Nixon and Goldwater built the Southern Strategy as a ploy to gather the votes of disaffected southern white trash.
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Re: Re: Re:
"But a name that's curiously missing from your post is Johnson. It was the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Act that cost the Democrats the South and led to the subsequent realignment of the parties."
That may have been the final nail in the coffin...but FDR and Truman laid the groundwork of promoting black people from second class citizens to first class - and that's where the screaming started among the good ole boys in the deep south.
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"How are death threats, advocacy for genocide, the organization of an attack on the nation’s Capitol, claiming vaccines cause autism..."
Because Trump is a lightning rod for it. The absolutely insane thing is, almost half of Americans are willing to vote for this. Really. It boggles my mind that this is where we are as a country.
I can only hope that that there is an awakening in the religious right in the couple of years. The fact that the Evangelicals are willing to place Capitalism over human compassion, is quite telling. They support the money changers.
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