Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the you-said-it dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is PaulT on our post about a bizarre Washington Post opinion piece defending Florida's content moderation law, responding to parts of the op-ed and parts of our post:

"the removal of Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe from Twitter provide more than enough proof to justify the reaction."

A guy famous for lying in order to dishonestly manipulate political races is proof of a reaction? OK, but I'm not sure the thing you meant to prove is the thing you proved..

"O'Keefe was banned because Twitter claimed he was artifically amplifying his tweets"

Oh, and he was banned for attacking the platform hosting him and not for the other content of his posts? OK...

"You can't just say -- as Olsen does -- that because there are regulations on broadcast TV and radio, that there's no problem with applying similar rules to totally private systems that don't rely on public spectrum."

Well, you can say that, but it would be hoped that more people understand the completely stupid idea of doing so.

In second place, it's Stephen T. Stone with a comment on our post about Iowa prosecutors attempting to jail an activist for sharing documents with journalists:

To everyone who thinks moderation is censorship:

No, this situation is attempted censorship. Hell, it might even be a successful attempt — after all, if Viet Tran knows he has police and prosecutors watching him closely after his humiliating-to-the-state victory in court, he might think twice before sharing any documents in the future if he has the absolute legal right to share those documents.

Y’all want to talk about censorship? Here’s your opportunity. But know that you won’t be taken even the least bit seriously if you conflate this situation — this attempt at using governmental power as a way to shut someone up — with Twitter banning someone for posting, say, anti-queer slurs.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with another comment from PaulT, this time in response to someone seeking "an honest argument against Section 230":

We can only hope that day will come. I, for one, can't wait for the day where I have a reasonable argument to get my teeth into as to why innocent bystanders should be held accountable for things that happened on their property without their prior knowledge, rather than the endless whining of losers who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions...

Next, it's dan8mx responding to the claim that calling it "compelled speech" when social media companies are forced to host content is "unconvincing":

Social media companies don't want to host this stuff, but the government is telling them they have to.

I guess the "question" is: how is that not compelled speech?

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Bobvious with a comment about Trump's many bankruptcies:

And you can read all about them in Chapter 11 of his upcoming autobiography.

In second place, it's radix with a comment about Trump shutting down his blog:

This one only lost money for one month! Great success! One of the best Trump ventures of all time!

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with smbryant and a comment about repair monopolies turning farmers into activists — though it was actually two comments that are here compressed into one:

You'd think they'd be a little more careful...

...before they pissed off a bunch of people who already have pitchforks close to hand

Finally, it's an anonymous comment about the Trump blog shutdown:

Trump should sue himself for anti-Trump bias.

That's all for this week, folks!

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team