Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the so-they-say dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous entry in a long-running debate — I won't provide all the context (you can check it out for yourself) because frankly the source of the debate is getting a bit tiresome and well-placed smackdowns like this shouldn't even be necessary anymore, but apparently they are:
Yet neither has to do with this bill. While you're here, answer this: why is your right to speech more important than my right not to associate with your speech?
In second place, it's James Burkhardt in another branch of said debate, responding to the assertion that social media platforms could escape liability by just not moderating at all, and this would somehow be a good thing:
This is the end conclusion reached by the logic behind the ruling in Prodigy v Oakmont, the case whose ruling was so bad congress wrote a law to overturn it. Congratulations getting to that conclusion, 20 years later. Of course, to claim the logical decision would be to stop moderating assumes that a lack of moderation would have no effect on the business.
Evidence from Youtube's various Adpocalypses and Techdirt's own issues with advertisers speaks to the contrary. They wont want ads next to child porn. Pro-Terrorist content. A post with rampant racial slurs.
This ignores that just hosting, no matter how ignorant, pro-terrorist content, child porn, or instructions on how to get an abortion, is a legal liability until a court rules. Possession of Child Porn is a crime regardless of ignorance. You are still providing material support to terrorists. And its not clear that in the case of the abortion bill that courts would require red flag knowledge (as copyright law does), rather than just the knowledge that the tool is being used, somewhere, to violate the law (as regularly argued by copyright holders).
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from That One Guy about the Texas legislature saying what schools can't teach, and what social media must host:
Now tell us what you REALLY think texas republicans...
'Teaching that racism exists is terrible, divisive and makes the racists feel bad so that's right out! Now about those 'the jews had it coming, sometimes terrorists have a point and vaccines are the mark of the beast and cause autism' posts that social media must host...'
Always nice when politicians slip up and tell everyone what they really think even if it's all sorts of disturbing(if not in any way surprising at this point) that 'pro-holocaust, pro-terrorism and anti-vaxx-in-the-middle-of-a-gorram-pandemic' are apparently top priorities of things to not just protect but enshrine as untouchable positions for texas republicans.
Next, it's Bruce E responding to a commenter who criticized our post about tech industry bias by asserting that they want (and believe they have personally achieved) a bias-free meritocracy:
If you believe you are free from bias you might be just fooling yourself. Even honourable people who think sexism, racism, anti-transism, etc. are wrong subject to bias.
The point is to constantly be on the lookout for your own bias first, then help others with theirs.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Thad with another comment on that post, this time responding to someone who went on a bizarre rant in a failed attempt at an analogy, while also saying they find the subject embarrassing:
I mean, if I'd just responded to an article about sexism by rambling about football jerseys for eight paragraphs, I'd be embarrassed too.
In second place, it's David responding to our description of some comments from Marjorie Taylor Greene as "utterly nonsensical, zero calorie, idiot theater":
Well, that's how we know that Greene has not been misquoted.
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Samuel Abram responding to the observation that adult content bans so often have exceptions for Playboy:
It must be the articles.
Finally, it's one more comment from That One Guy, this time in response to the question of what exactly the difference is between the GOP and the Mafia:
One of them is a criminal organization that is willing to protect their interests using any means available, are big fans of suits and grandiose statements and sees the legal system as a tool to be corrupted and used at their leisure.
The other is the mafia.
That's all for this week, folks!
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Congress vs Unmodded Chat/forum
I would love to see a Forum for congress, and the discussions.
Non-edited.
And then let anyone join that wishes to watch what happens.
SPAM world
And then watch as people get Kicked for spamming the channel.
Reality check #1. experience makes you smarter.
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Re: Congress vs Unmodded Chat/forum
To augment your statement there, ECA, let me offer up:
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Re: Re: Congress vs Unmodded Chat/forum
Both are true, but it depends on what is being done.
Handling a hammer, yu Should learn quickly.
Speaking, is better judged by those listening, and if you are willing to listen to criticism.And its always good to understand things from All sides not just your own.
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Oh wow, I am in both first and second funny places!
Well, I didn't state in what facility.
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Re: Oh wow, I am in both first and second funny places!
I dunno, perhaps I was too hard on you David - in all honesty I forgot in the process of putting this together that it came from you, whose comments I usually think are very good. Perhaps I was defensive, because I think Cathy's post was excellent and it got a lot of awful comments trying to refute the premise. But no two ways about it: yours was a strange comment, and it was hard to tell what you were getting at.
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Re: Re: Oh wow, I am in both first and second funny places!
It's really fine. I don't fancy ad hominem attacks, and I don't fancy ad hominem lenience. If a post of mine does not manage to make it on its own (and there is arguably a fair share that doesn't), then that's the way it is.
I still found it amusing to feature twice here and wanted to share that amusement. Even though not everything I find funny is acclaimed similarly by everyone...
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"It must be the articles."
Hey Samuel, שנה טובה.
Something lighthearted,
A Jewish man took his Passover lunch to eat outside in the park. He sat down on a bench and began eating.
A little while later a blind man came by and sat down next to him.
Feeling neighborly, the Jewish man passed a sheet of matzo to the blind man.
The blind man ran his fingers over the matzo for a few minutes, looked puzzled, and finally exclaimed, "Who wrote this crap?"
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Re: "It must be the articles."
Good one! 🤣
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Re: Re: "It must be the articles."
That being said, in general, blind people aren't stupid. Otherwise, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles wouldn't be so brilliant.
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Re: Re: "It must be the articles."
That moment when you're searching for a recording of "שלום חברים", and this shows up in your suggestions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJuknlErv9A and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwjbTGQUOH0
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And now for something abit differnt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqDZlAZygU
Just an opinion of freedom of speech, from a person who has stretched the imagination.
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Re: And now for something abit differnt.
Good one.
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How many Bitcoins could have been mined with the energy wasted on one single poster and the bad faith script they roll out over and over?
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Re:
Instead of mining cryptocurrency by an expensive operation wasting energy, maybe one should do it by downvoting trolls? Admittedly verification would be tricky and the system likely susceptible to a number of exploits, but at least in theory generating currency by improving the virtual environment rather than damaging the real environment sounds nicer.
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Re: Re:
Site needs money. Put these Bitcoins in a legal defense fund or something. The person in question's posts are nearly always flagged. It does not make the arguments any shorter or less repetitive. I prefer this site's lax moderation, but this person is the negative side effect.
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Re: Re: Re:
That would have more called for a "by the way" button rather than the "reply to this" button.
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Re:
Not nearly as much as you think. You assume Bitcoin is worth the graphics cards spent on mining it.
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Re: Re:
And their worth (tied to the USD or currency of choice) is still intricately linked to America's economic network, aka the SWIFT network rather than the other way around.
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Re:
Not enough to buy a cup of coffee.
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Freedom...
Why is your right to speech more important than my right not to associate with your speech?
This simple question, right here, demonstrates exactly how and why the US is, has been, and always will be a country fundamentally at war with itself.
When being created as a Federal nation, it was intended to be based on being the opposite of a monarchy, (since that's what had been rebelled against and fought for independence of).
The problem is that merely going from one extreme to the other, only ends up causing different problems.
For this reason, the underlying basis of the US is seen to be that of freedom TO do something, taken as far as possible, now they were free FROM a foreign monarch's rule.
But the extremes of such freedom has never been the underlying freedom humanity has ever truly cared for - if it did, then it would want and love anarchy above all else, when we find the exact opposite is true - that it puts up with the worst of all situations just to escape from anarchy.
For this reason, the most important freedom for humanity is the freedom from harm, death, starvation, exposure etc..
(Of course, this also works for other types of freedom too, such as religion.)
Since these freedoms are the underlying reason for how and why civilization, and billions of people worldwide (and hundreds of millions domestically for the US) actually live and survive, we can therefore understand how and why the US has anti-civilization extremists in numbers large enough to take over a main political party.
Since the freedom TO do anything only matters if you're free from death and harm, it should be no surprise that many of the extremists have taken this to it's logical conclusion and are now exercising the only personal freedom that can ever matter in such context: the freedom to die.
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Re: Freedom...
Well, that's what having laws is about. Judicating between conflicting interests and impulses. Not exactly a new predicament, nor a new solution.
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