Lawyer Whose Main Claim To Fame Is Suing A News Org To Get It Shut Down, Now Complains About 'Cancel Culture'
from the oh-this-is-rich dept
As a bit of a reminder/disclaimer, Charles Harder was the main lawyer in the lawsuit against us, in which the plaintiff said directly that his intent was that we needed to be shut down. Of course, Harder's bigger claim to fame was his success in shutting down Gawker, thanks to a concerted effort by a billionaire who didn't like Gawker's reporting.
Harder has, in fact, relished his reputation for threatening and suing news organizations that publish information his clients dislike. Hell, he just published a whole book in which the title itself champions the fact that he killed off Gawker. Over the years, we've seen Harder threaten and/or sue plenty of media organizations over completely ridiculous things. He sued the New York Times over an opinion piece on behalf of Donald Trump's campaign (and lost), he helped a cryptocurrency company sue Forbes for an article about how the company was structured, he tried (and failed) to get multiple books about Donald Trump blocked from publication -- including suing over the book by niece Mary Trump and threatening a suit over Steve Bannon's book. He also threatened the New York Times over its big Harvey Weinstein expose.
In fact, nearly every aspect of Harder's claim to fame is built around his ability to threaten or sue media organizations into silence.
And the impact of his lawsuits has been very real. There have been stories about the Gawker Effect creating a real chill on investigative reporting, especially into malfeasance. And I've certainly spoken about the chilling effects of the lawsuit that was filed against me.
Given all of that, it's incredibly rich for Harder to now publish an op-ed decrying "cancel culture." And, yet, that's exactly what he's done. In a piece that originally appeared on InsideSources and is now popping up in actual newspaper op-eds, like the Jacksoville Journal-Courier, Harder argues that we need to stop trying to cancel people for speech. The whole thing would make me laugh if it didn't make me actually feel ill.
When it comes to the cancel culture debate, an important litmus test to apply when thinking about whether something—or someone—should be canceled is this: Does the punishment fit the crime? Vigorous debate, and even unpopular ideas, must be protected. Not only protected but encouraged. When people become scared to speak freely or are punished for expressing an unpopular view, American society inches closer to becoming homogenous, and where freedoms and diverse thoughts are suppressed.
Are you for real? Your career is highlighted by trying to shut entire media organizations down for articles that someone didn't like. Does the punishment fit the crime? Take a look in the mirror, Charles. Vigorous debate must be protected? Is the exception when a client pays you a lot of money to silence one side of that debate? Again, the only actual evidence we've seen of people being "too scared to speak freely" or "punished for expressing" certain views came as the result of lawsuits like yours that have chilled investigative reporting -- especially on the rich and powerful abusing their positions.
The Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment to ensure for all Americans the right to free speech and free expression, without persecution. Everyone should feel free to exercise those rights without fear of backlash.
Really? Where do I send the bill for the hell you put me through?
But beyond hate speech and other terribly unacceptable speech, while I don’t condone disrespecting the flag or the national anthem, I strongly support people being allowed to speak their mind without fear of being canceled for it.
Then stop suing people and threatening others for their speech. Hell, your own history had me think twice before writing this very article, because I have no clue if you're going to sue me. You'd have no basis to do so, but that hasn't seemed to have stopped you in the past. That is the very chilling effect and "backlash" that you, yourself, created.
Harder's article goes on to discuss examples of what he believes is "cancel culture" -- conveniently leaving out much of the context and nuance behind them. This includes the now-infamous Harper's Letter, which we noted was not so much an essay on cancel culture, but about professional assholes seeking to hide behind a few legitimate cases of overreaction, and trying to avoid the social consequences of their speech. Incredibly, Harder's own description of the Harper's letter situation ends like this:
Naturally, the signatories caught flack for signing it.
Notice he didn't say they were "cancelled." They "caught flak." And, uh, just a few paragraphs earlier, you insisted that you supported and even encouraged 'vigorous debate.' And the Harper's Letter... created vigorous debate. Rather than embrace it, you're suggesting it's also an example of cancel culture. It seems like Harder is saying that he doesn't support cancel culture of some people, but is fine in other cases.
The end of Harder's piece is really quite something.
I believe that less cancellation, and more thoughtful consideration of context—plus appreciation for viewpoints we disagree with, particularly when communicated in a respectful, law-abiding way—would benefit all of us.
This is rich coming from you, who continue to sue media organizations and have just released a book proudly touting your own ability to shut down a media organization.
So applying the test to Colin Kaepernick: Did the punishment fit the crime? My answer: Where’s the crime?
What "crime" did I commit when you represented a client against me, Charles? What did I do that was worth eating up two and a half years of my life?
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Filed Under: cancel culture, charles harder, defamation, lawsuits, slapp, slapp suits
Companies: gawker
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Typo in the headline: the possessive is "whose". "Who's" is a contraction for "who is".
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Hypocrisy, thy name for today is Charles Harder.
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Also, fuck Charles Harder.
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Re:
No, thanks. I might catch something.
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The tired old waving the hand over here to distract from the truth over there trick.
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Gawker destroyed itself.
That is FLATLY a LIE. Gawker destroyed itself by deliberately went FAR out of normal and decent to defame the marvelous Hulk Hogan. Judge (and I'm pretty sure jury) agreed, besides is consistent with all law. -- Only YOU, Maz, out on the leftist anti-American fringe, want empowered to spew lies and filth about anyone.
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Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
Harder's effort to STOP and redress some of the vicious attacks enabled by CDA Section 230 are commendable. Section 230 (and SLAPP laws) are ENABLING LIARS that intend to tear down political opponents and civil society. We need more such done, but few are so stupid and arrogant and blatant as you and Gawker.
Now, you're taking a petty dig at Harder because he took you down too, not far enough, but you now don't dare write any more lies about Ayyadurai.
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Re:
Ugh. Fixed. Thanks!
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Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
Multiple federal courts sided with Gawker. It was only once they got it into a local state court in Hogan's home town that suddenly the 1st Amendment was no longer considered. So, no that's not how it happened.
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Right-wingers: Every accusation, a confession; every self-imposed label, a rejection.
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That, sadly, represents the underlying disconnect.
If he says something that other people disagree with, well, that's his free expression and everyone else should be more tolerant and respectful of his opinion.
If someone says something he disagrees with, that's obviously a blatant and despicable crime and should therefore be punished.
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For once, you’ve said something that I can say is true — after all, Donald Trump’s supposedly-in-the-works social media service will ultimately rely on Section 230.
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Cancel culture is a real thing...
... how else can you explain Colin Kaepernick's football career collapse?
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Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
And that's why one is entitled to a "jury of peers", NOT LAWYERS.
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Forum shopping for friendly judges/juries isn’t exactly ethical, but when have rat bastards like you ever cared about ethics.
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“That’s not cancel culture! That’s the consequences of his actions!” — conservatives/Republicans/Trumpians, without a hint of irony
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Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
And of course, the overwhelming fact is that GAWKER LOST.
You just keep re-fighting that case, Maz, disagreeing with a jury, I like you doing so, shows how out of touch you Ivy League fascists are.
I've been hammering away in another topic, but my browser session just stopped working! Want to comment on that, Mr Free Speech?
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Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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We can acknowledge the fact that Gawker lost the case without agreeing with or liking that result. Give us one reason why we can’t.
Your browser/ISP sucks. Maybe stop acting like a spambot?
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Re: A. Stephen Stone advocates defamation by Big Media.
Was Gawker "ethical" in putting out Hogan's sex tape?
You perverts always attack vigorously so you don't have to defend the undefendable.
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Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
Funny how nobody has ever pointed out even a single "lie" written about Ayyadurai by Mike.
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Let’s say I agree that what Gawker did crossed a line.
For what reason should that justify forum shopping for a friendly-to-Hogan court?
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Re: Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
Clean your keyboard after you fap.
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Re:
The truly ironic thing about Colin Kaepernick is that kneeling during the national anthem was suggested to him by Nate Boyer, white, former Green Beret, as a RESPECTFUL way of protesting. It really looks like the ridiculous right find protesting their abuse in and of itself disrespectful, regardless if its form or merit.
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Re: Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
And of course, the overwhelming fact is that GAWKER LOST.
Gawker lost, but you leave out the details. After prevailing in multiple federal courts that said Gawker was protected under the 1st Amendment. It then lost in a state court, and the lawyer in question deliberately maneuvered to make sure that Gawker's insurance company would not cover the case (dropping the claims the insurance company would cover) and then the judge -- unlike nearly every other case -- ordered Gawker to pay up even though the company wanted to appeal. That combination made it impossible for Gawker to appeal. And most legal experts have said that the ruling would have been overturned on appeal.
But you do you.
I've been hammering away in another topic, but my browser session just stopped working! Want to comment on that, Mr Free Speech?
Stop spamming and our spam filters won't keep thinking your spam. This has been told to you before, and you ignore it. I wonder why.
And, yes, it's my fucking site which means that I have the right to have a spam filter that categorizes you as spam. That's MY free speech rights.
Don't like it? Start your own site.
Besides, you know full well that on any other site your blatantly dishonest, disingenuous spamming would be deleted. We actually let your nonsense ramblings live on for everyone to see. You should appreciate it, but you'll never appreciate anything.
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While we're on this topic, I just want to state the obvious once again: Shiva Ayyadurai did NOT invent E-Mail.
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Re: Re:
I do believe you're on to something there.
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Re:
I personally like the result that the world no longer has Gawker in it. The site was less a news org and more of a tabloid that made the world a worse place. They outed a Condé Nast CFO in a story about said CFO soliciting a gay escort, with Condé Nast being one of their competitors, without batting an eye. They suffered next to no consequences for it and moved right on to exploiting even more people and leveraging sensationalist reporting for clicks and views. Their main defense against lawsuits was the fact that they would have tons of money to mount a legal defense for longer than a plaintiff could fund their own legal team.
Peter Thiel is a fascist asshole. He indeed acted out of spite by funding this court case. But the takeaway from the Bollea v. Gawker story should be “It’s pretty fucked up that it took a spiteful fascist asshole’s funding for a court case against a remorseless tabloid to make it all the way to its verdict.” Gawker defying a court order that asks them remove a sex tape from their site is not the hill that people who want to defend journalism and free speech should be planting their flag on. Not then, and not now.
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And the work Shiva Ayyadurai did on his email program had no effect whatsoever on the development of the three protocols that make up the backbone of email as we know it today.
To reiterate: Shiva Ayyadurai — the “real Indian” who lost an election to “fake Indian” Elizabeth Warren by nearly 60 points — did not invent email in any way, shape, or form.
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Then where should we plant our flags, O Arbiter of What The Fuck We Should Do?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
your => you're - Having a bad day, Mike?
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Re: Eloquence is NOT "A. Stephen Stone's" strong suit.
Nazis don't bother making a rational point that might improve even a site they claim to like, they just ATTACK.
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Pot, kettle, black…
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Re:
fap away
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Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
No, the real problem here is not Gawker, but the fact that a very rich person didn't like what Gawker said about him, way back in the dim past. But said rich person knew that he couldn't sue for it, so he bided his time, and waited a case to come along that had potential for damaging Gawker. We call this the Al Capone case of the digital era.
Recall that Capone was imprisoned not for being a mob boss and thus responsible for hundreds of murders as well as other crimes against society, but for tax evasion. That was provable in court, even thought it was the least of his transgressions, and thus the Feds put an end to his illegal activities.
Gawker stepped over the line on the Hulk Hogan piece, to be sure, but they didn't deserve to have someone come after them who was carrying a years-long grudge, and holding a Treasury MInt-sized bag of cash with nowhere better to spend it than on his personal desire for revenge. The "I invented email" kid had no case, and yet he put Gawker's dick in the dirt, and Gawker had done nothing more than tell the truth (in that particular instance) - he didn't invent email, simple as that. Just like Al Capone, only this time it wasn't even a small petty offense, it was Truth that suffered the most harm.
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Re: Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
I've been hammering away in another topic, but my browser session just stopped working! Want to comment on that, Mr Free Speech?
Even your browser is sick of your bullshit.
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Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
but you now don't dare write any more lies about Ayyadurai.
Rumor has it he didn't invent email. Saw that when I researched his failed political career.
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Not, it must be admitted, that Elizabeth Warren invented e-mail. Or has much more of a non-adversarial relationship with reality than the Indian Conspiracy Theorist. Partisan politics doesn't always yield any acceptable outcome.....
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There is no "cancel culture", right? Just getting rid of "spam"!
I'm NOT spamming -- that's only commercial -- just presenting my ordinary opinions in reasonable tone without any vile words.
Don't like me commenting here with perfectly acceptable elsewhere views? -- Get rid of the plain HTML box, which invites everyone, and you don't specify ANY rules.
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Re: There is no "cancel culture", right? Just getting
The SAME text goes in! It's not ANY textual "filter".
Define spam in some way that isn't just "don't like your opinion" -- on what appears to be a discussion site!
Don't like me commenting here with perfectly acceptable elsewhere views? -- Get rid of the plain HTML box, which invites everyone, and you don't specify ANY rules.
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Re: There is no "cancel culture", right? Just getting
YOU are lying with this:
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Re: There is no "cancel culture", right? Just getting
There ya go, Maz. Somehow through your mighty filters at last. Now WHINE like a child some more that someone disagrees with you, and please state again that you're fragile to skip over a little bit of text!
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Re:
Maybe a hill where you aren’t defending a shitty tabloid that published a sex tape without the consent of the people in it? It isn’t that hard to find better hills to plant your flag on and say “I will defend this spot to the last man”.
Newspapers and other actual media outlets that employ journalists and generally avoid publishing hearsay and salacious tripe haven’t faced Gawker’s fate for one simple reason: They have a higher standard of ethics that they hold themselves to. That standard of ethics does not permit the kind of vile nonsense that Gawker was known for publishing. Plant your flag there and defend them, if you so choose.
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Re: There is no "cancel culture", right? Just getting rid of "sp
[Asserts facts contradicted by all available evidence]
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Re: There is no "cancel culture", right? Just getting
Stop playing whack-a-mole, as you used to advise others.
My opinion -- which you won't deny or confirm cause any statement will be evidence -- is that you at times lock down by whatever "security". Because at times I get in with one click, and as today, eventually I'm IN at least until apparently session is poisoned.
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Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture", right? Just gett
I put out many links. -- Techdirt tries to keep any evidence contrary to its leftist agenda from ever being seen, that's the topic point!
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Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture", righ
And yet again, session stopped working until after a couple "Resend", then text in without change -- well, that time, got rid of upper case!
I'm not spamming, just discussing the topic in civil tone. You are lying that it's spam. LYING.
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Re: Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
They didn’t just say stuff that Thiel didn’t like. They outed him as gay at the same time that he was in Saudi Arabia, a country that’s well-known for murdering gay people.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture&
Guess it's not the upper-casing AS SUCH, see?
Now, sheerly for musing: is Techdirt better off with my comments hidden, and forcing me to make several so doesn't look like one instance of commercial spam?
Does Techdirt think it looks wise and professional to censor on-topic civil disagreement? You've already lost hundreds of reasonable people with that surely as part cause!
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I’ll defend whoever I want for whatever reason I want. Unless you’re God Herself (and can prove it), you can’t make me do otherwise — even with a gun to my head.
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Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture", right? Just gett
There is no lie. The filter is reviewed. We release falsely caught comments when we see them.
And, just to make it clear: repeatedly bombarding our system with identical comments over and over and over again is a sign of spam. Your own actions are the reason the filters often think you're spam. Because you spam.
If you just acted like any sane user here when their comments accidentally get caught, they get released. Instead, your own actions convinced the filters that you're a spammer, and it's hilarious to watch you blow your lid about you being hoist on your own petard.
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…he says before spamming more than a half-dozen comments in succession.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
YOU are blatantly dishonest and disingenuous in saying that -- when anyone can read them! I'm on topic and civil. You just don't want ANY disgreement. That's your constant goal with claiming corps have 1A rights to control what others wish to publish.
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…says the poster who regularly complains, with insults galore, about the spamfilter catching his posts as spam because he spams them in rapid-fire succession.
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The hypocrisy of the speaker does not change the truth of the words spoken.
People are being retaliated against in various ways for speech someone doesn't like, which is bad. It doesn't become good just because it's said by someone guilty of doing it himself.
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The period to apparent blocking is
always about time for an Admin to notice and click...
Behind the scenes, to make clear to anyone actually objective here, not that are any such new to the site, it's clear to me that Admin measures are taken to prevent comments.
Bet you thought I'd be blocked from reply to your last shot, Maz, or give up.
SO tell me how to avoid this problem! -- Without admitting you just hate my viewpoint and don't want it seen at all, anywhere.
Where your comment guidelines, and which have I broken?
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Re: The period to apparent blocking is
See? After many attempts, I'm IN again!
So is that Admin action, Maz? Do you even have an Admin? You never admit even that! -- Or just some quirk of your mighty filters? -- Which now and then not only STOP a working session, but lock me out for a while? HMM?
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Re: No, I'm NOT spamming, just disagreeing.
YOU don't help the site with off-topic ad hom, and flat lying right there.
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Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture", righ
That cannot explain why don't go in with first click!
Then usually (or used to) go with "Resend".
Obviously, YOU SEE my comments and NEVER let even ONE copy of them out. YOU ADMITTED YOU'RE CENSORING OUT OF SIGHT! You always reveal another bit of evidence when attempt to put me down, Maz.
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Re: Re: No, I'm NOT spamming, just disagreeing.
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture", righ
You even mis-characterize the nature of my remarks. Where is "blowing my lid"? I complain of problems that any other site would fix, instead of blame the user.
Sheesh. Can't you grasp that anyone who reads me will find that YOU are lying?
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Let’s say Mike isn’t letting your comments out of the spamfilter. What law, statute, or “common law” court precedent says he absolutely must allow your comments to go through or face legal punishment from the government? (And no, “the First Amendment” isn’t a good enough answer. Be far more specific and include citations.)
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The all-caps whining, the boldface text in which you wrap your whining, the half-dozen comments spammed in succession after your initial complaint…
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Re: Re:
Glad the rest of us live in the real world, where "some asswipe got butthurt" letting them overrule everyone else's rights to write and read what they want is a bad thing.
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You could stop commenting. I mean, that would fix most of your problems…except for the obvious mental illness that makes you obsess on a daily basis — often to a point of unhealthiness — over a site where someone quoted Barack Obama at you almost a decade ago and you still take it personally.
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Re: Re: The period to apparent blocking is
You scream alot despite me always seeing your comments. And for someone accusing others of being off topic please stop yelling and posting huge diatrabs about unrelated stuff, you just attack mike or scream of censorship.
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Re: Re: Re:
In the real world, publishing a sex tape without the consent of the people in it is really fucking bad. That’s what Gawker did. In the real world, we also generally agree that outing people as gay when they don’t want to be outed is bad. That’s what Gawker did to Peter Thiel, while he was in Saudi Arabia, where you can get killed pretty easily for being gay. “Some asswipe got butthurt” is a really huge abstraction of it. I’d definitely want to fund lawsuits with actual legal weight to them out of spite if someone revealed something innate and unchangeable about me while I was in a place where I could get killed for what was being revealed.
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Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture", righ
For anyone objective: I use TOR brower so LOW possibility of my IP address OR browser ID'd, therefore TD can't know which is MY first click.
And I repeat that MM writing "over and over and over" is ADMITTING he KNOWS, therefore it's intentional VIEWPOINT DISCRIMINATION.
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'Only my side is allowed to silence people!'
With hypocrites like that you need only understand that the only speech they value is speech they agree with, and that they are such self-entitled little brats that the idea that other people might apply consequences for their words and action is seen as utterly unacceptable.
Once you've grasped those two facts then it becomes easy to understand how they can both decry the dreaded 'cancel culture' (read: applying consequences for being an ass) while at the same time being all for trying to punish others for speaking their minds, because in their minds only them and theirs are saying things worth protecting and everything else is without value and those speaking would be better off intimidated into silence as a result.
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Troll with atrophied brain yells at clouds
Never? Not one copy? What am I reading then?
Well, that only confirms it. Your faculty for logic has atrophied together with your reading comprehension.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture&
Was just then BLOCKED again! Cleared cookies. (Which TD does set one of even without an okay! Yes, I know, US doesn't have the law, but should.) Then "Resend" a few got it in without change.
So, Maz, you're just WRONG on your assertions up there. I get the same text in if persist.
And no, I've tested by waiting, and MY comments NEVER come out of your alleged "moderation". That you know are in the queue is evidence you discriminate against my viewpoint.
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Troll beset by gremlins
Have you considered that maybe your computer is infested by gremlins? Or just perhaps, it's a common PEBKAC?
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That isn’t illegal.
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'I keep shooting my own leg, you must be causing my pain!'
Normally I just flag and ignore your comments as worthless drivel from a deranged lunatic but this one is just too funny to pass up because of how bloody stupid it shows you to be.
You use TOR, which the spam filter will treat as suspicious due to it being used by spammers and worse, acting like a spammer on top of that by sending in multiple comments in short succession, and then when you get treated as a spammer as a result of your choices you lose what remains of your gorram mind when it treats you as spam.
Truly the sweet schadenfreude from reading about your entirely self-inflicted suffering was worth a great amount of chuckles, so thanks for the hearty laughs.
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Re: Troll with atrophied brain yells at clouds
For some people if they aren't allowed to say everything they want on their platform of choice it's no different than if they were prevented from saying anything, which just shows what dishonest and self-entitled little brats they are.
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Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
"...but you now don't dare write any more lies about Ayyadurai."
You'll note that Mike's position and writing on Ayyadurai hasn't changed one bit.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture",
For anyone objective: I use TOR brower
So you admit you use a system that is regularly used by spammers, and which any decent spam filter will weight as a high likelihood of being a spammer.
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For a second there I thought you understood.
Then you started using logic and reasoning and showed you really don't understand God's righteous (white) people at all.
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Re: For a second there I thought you understood.
Oops, that was meant to be a reply to TOG above...
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Re:
Wait, what?
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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110621/16071614792/misconceptions-free-abound-why-do-brains-stop -zero.shtml#c1869
Out of the Blue/Blue Balls/Brainy Smurf (whichever one you prefer) has literally trolled this site in a decade-long temper tantrum because of that one comment — which is a quote from Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams From My Father, meaning Brainy is mad because someone quoted a Black man at him.
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Re: The period to apparent blocking is
SO tell me how to avoid this problem!
You could start by not being an asshole. You could also stop asking someone else to figure out your problem, and figure it out your damn self. Something something bootstraps.
But neither would fall in line with your incessant whining and perpetual victimhood.
So let me help you - your viewpoint is the problem. I don't associate with nonsense-spewing assholes like you in real life. Why the fuck would I put up with a fool like you online? It's not like I go to Gab or Parler and complain about how simple-minded, easily fooled idiots just don't get my viewpoint. Frankly, I don't care - you morons simply aren't worth the time. I'm a big proponent of letting morons be morons - case in point, the dipshits currently sitting in jail or facing felony charges for thinking it's a good idea to storm the Capitol. There's no reaching dimwitted fucktards like that. They're too far gone.
You should go somewhere else, where people won't persecute you so badly and hurt your feelings. Where your opinions will be welcomed. That's what I would do. Then again, I'm not an asshole.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
I get that you haven't gotten over your disappointment, John Smith, but Charles Harder is not going to help legitimize your mailing list.
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Re: Re:
That has always been one of the most outrageous things: Kneeling, somehow so offensive. Well, to jingoist wackaloons, anyway.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture",
Congratulations!
You've successfully trained the Techdirt spam filter to assume that anything coming over TOR is probably spam.
Bravo! Well done!
Though admittedly, other TOR users may quite understandably disagree.
.
(Perhaps, eventually {insert raised-eyebrow emoji here}, you'll also succeed in understanding how your very own actions predictably and inevitably lead to the entirely very consequences that you are so very upset about.)
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Re: Re: Re: No, I'm NOT spamming, just disagreeing.
FTFY
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: There is no "cancel culture&quo
--> inevitably lead to the entirely unsurprising and very reliably repeated consequences that you are so very upset about.
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Re: Re: A. Stephen Stone advocates defamation by Big Media.
"Was Gawker "ethical" in putting out Hogan's sex tape?"
No. But, most honest people don't think that ethics only matter based on whether or not you like the target. It's also possible for both sides to be in the wrong. Stating correctly that what Thiel did was unethical does not mean that you think that Gawker was in the right.
Perhaps one day you'll mentally progress beyond adolescence and understand such adult concepts.
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Re: Re:
"The truly ironic thing about Colin Kaepernick is that kneeling during the national anthem was suggested to him by Nate Boyer, white, former Green Beret, as a RESPECTFUL way of protesting"
It's absolutely the most respectful - it's a silent protest taking place during a break in the game where nobody is expected to be doing anything other than stand there, interrupts zero play and actually replicates what many Christians are expected to do in church to show reverence during mass. If the right-wing outrage machine hadn't picked up on its, then it would have been a powerful but totally unobtrusive statement.
I'd argue that the people demanding that he loses his job for exercising his free speech in such a way were way less respectful of what the flag represents than he did.
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Re: Re: The period to apparent blocking is
Well, you won't get far with such unreasonable and unrealistic demands. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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But really, where would any good all-Amerikan fascist be without a strong inbred dose of orthodox hypocrisy?
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Re:
You'd think that if he didn't want people to call him that over and over again he wouldn't point everyone to that post - the one which existence he can't stand - with neon lights.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Spambots get their posts deleted, genius. Personally it's a shame Masnick doesn't do the same for you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Gawker destroyed itself.
You don't really want to play the "death threat" card, Jhon. You're terrible at it.
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No, it's better this way. If his posts were deleted, some more casual observers might be fooled into thinking he has a point. Having the claims of censorship appear after he's 30 posts into the thread makes it clear he's just a delusional moron.
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Re: Re: Re: The period to apparent blocking is
Yep, you're right - my bad.
Shit, I'd lower his asshole rating a full point if he'd just put his thoughts into one fucking post instead of posting, replying to his post, then replying to his reply. Then of course he'll repeat the same thing again. And again. And again. And then the complaining about his god-given right to act like a douchetard starts.
It happens on every single article.
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Re: Re:
One has to wonder why they were so interested on what Colin Kapernick was doing, as opposed to paying their solemn respect to the flag that they're so sensitive about.
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Re: Re: Re:
That seems to be the problem - they demand blind devotion to the flag regardless of what it actually represents, then all of a sudden there was a black guy not bowing to it...
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
The only time when out_of_the_blue gets his asshole rating lowered is when he's not posting, and even that is stacked up against the immense volume of trash he's posted over the last decade. He's sucked up to Prenda Law, Andrew Crossley, Cara Duckworth, Cary Sherman, Mitch Bainwol, Chris Dodd, and just about every single copyright troll you can name - because the idea that copyright enforcement misses more than it hits triggers him like poison ivy on a rash.
Really, the last decade has not been kind to him. There was the fall of SOPA in 2012. Then there was the mass realization by judges that copyright enforcement, especially the kind hired by porn producers, might not actually have everyone's best interests at heart. Then Shiva Ayyadurai, out_of_the_blue's chosen one, failed to kill the website that some would claim was instrumental in the death of SOPA.
Trump winning the 2016 elections was a glimmer of hope for blue. He got an opportunity to turn the Devin Nunes memo thread into his own personal wall of graffiti, hoping desperately that some random schmuck would notice his collection of far-right opinion pieces would somehow lead to an anti-Democrat revolution or something - but more importantly, that the high reply count would somehow be proof of his efforts against... well, something else. That failed, of course, when the Content Moderation article on Anti-Vaccine movements quickly doubled his own spamfest in size, in less than half the time it took for him to hit half a thousand. blue then disappeared for a year, somehow managing to not off himself by following his Dear Leader's instructions on coping with COVID, and proceeded to lose his shit completely once the 2020 election results were out.
Put simply, there's no curing blue. Treating him like a not-asshole has, in ten years, done nothing to curb his RIAA/police/authoritarian/Trump fellating. Mockery is all he deserves.
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