Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the what-say-you? dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a response to a Parler defender insisting that, with regards to the platforms many bans, you have to ask people who got banned why they really posted:

Take your own advice: Whenever someone claims they got banned from Twitter or Facebook because of “anti-conservative bias”, ask them what they posted.

In second place, it's smbryant responding to our post about how so many of the complaints and demands about social media are things society at large needs to deal with, but has failed:

Wrong word, I think

The last paragraph: "Society has failed to deal with etc, etc,"

"Fail" implies that there was an attempt made.

I think it would be more accurate to say "Society has refused to deal with etc, etc,"

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a simple anonymous response to the perennial complaint that Section 230 protections are "special" because websites get them but print publications don't:

A paper publisher is aware of everything that goes into the paper before it's printed. An internet platform with UGC isn't.

They aren't even close to similar situations, so why would they be governed by identical rules?

Next, it's Rocky responding to the TSA agents who tried to stop people from recording them:

As a US citizen, regardless of who your employer is, you should have a passing understanding of the US constitution. If you happen to be a government/federal employee it's your fricking duty to know and understand the constitution and how it impacts your job and the citizens you interact with.

It's mindboggling that they thought "they didn't know better" was a viable defense.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Baron von Robber with a quick quip about a reporter's lawsuit that seeks to find out if the DOJ is trying to help Devin Nunes unmask his bovine Twitter nemesis:

The DOJ is just ruminating over the FOIA request.

In second place, it's Stephen T. Stone responding to an angry, trollish commenter who asserted that "no one reasonable wants to read this cesspit of un-civil discussion":

This is more of a self-own than you probably realize, fam.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from I am a cat about the ongoing situation with Australia and newspapers:

I am a tax but do not call me that

I am presently in the process of informing the Australian government of the Bargaining Code they will need to pay me if they want me to read their dreg. So far I have not received a reply.

Next, we've got Baron von Robber with a response to Parler's new lawsuit against Amazon that includes a defamation claim:

Defamation?! Parler complaining Amazon didn't say Parler wasn't racist/fascist enough?

That's all for this week, folks!

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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Mar 2021 @ 12:13pm

    "I've spent ten years here reading and commenting (and trolling) and no one reasonable would do something like that!"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2021 @ 5:28am

    I'd be happy to give print publications a section 230, too. Yes, they are presumably aware of everything they print, but the whole point of s230 is that awareness of third-party speech does not make you liable for it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2021 @ 11:41am

      Re:

      Maybe if the print publication either chooses randomly from submissions or just prints the first X number of submissions without making a decision as to what they publish. Otherwise, I'd definitely want to hold them liable for posting incitements of violence just because they were too lazy to look at what they were choosing to send to the printer.

      A newspaper should already be free from liability for publishing letters to the editor.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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