How Do You Say 'Twitter Joke Trial' In Chinese?

from the that's-not-funny dept

Techdirt wrote about how the UK's Twitter Joke conviction dragged its slow way through the various appeals before finally being resolved with the defendant's acquittal. As you will recall, the issue was somebody making an ill-advised joke about blowing up an airport if he couldn't fly out of it:

Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!

It's great that Paul Chambers, the person concerned here, finally emerged victorious in his fight against this ridiculous conviction. But of course the danger that a thoughtless joke on Twitter might have serious consequences remains, as this report from The Epoch Times about a recent case in China highlights:

Four days before the [Chinese Communist] Party's 18th Congress, when a new set of Chinese leaders was sworn in to rule China, Zhai Xiaobing mocked the event by suggesting it was the latest installment in the Final Destination film franchise. The 2000 supernatural horror movie depicts a teenager whose plane explodes, killing all but a few survivors, who then begin mysteriously dying.

Here's a translation of what Zhai tweeted (Chinese tweets can contain more content than those written in Western languages because just a few characters can represent a whole word):

Final Destination 6 will be in cinemas on November 6. The Great Hall of the People suddenly collapses, and only seven of the over 2000 people holding a meeting inside survive -- but afterwards, they each die, one by one. Is it the game of God, or the fury of the Grim Reaper? How did the mysterious number 18 unlock the gate of hell? The earthshaking world premier opens on November 8!

Obviously, not exactly a rib-tickler, and rather unwise given the extreme sensitivity of the Chinese authorities about this crucial handover of power. But even against that background, the response seems to be unduly severe: arrested and "disappeared".

Zhai had been accused of "spreading false and terrorist information," and was taken away by security forces, according to netizen @iamhudi who called Zhai's wife. The fact that he has been disappeared was later corroborated by two other individuals who visited the family's house, according to Yaxue Cao, a writer and blogger who maintains contacts in China.

Worryingly, people have also lost contact with his wife, although it's not yet clear whether she has been arrested too. Zhai's friends, and supporters of a more liberal approach to Chinese state control of online activities, are doing what they can, which is pretty much limited to online petitions. The precedent for what might happen to him isn't good. As The Epoch Times story explains:

The first "Twitter criminal," as she was called, was Wang Yi, an activist who in 2010 mocked hypernationalist young people with the tweet "Angry youth, charge!"

This was determined to be a case of "disturbing social order." The punishment? One year of re-education in the Henan Women's Labor Camp.

Perhaps Zhai's best hope is that the new Chinese leadership might decide to be lenient in this matter so as to create a positive atmosphere among the Chinese people for the start of its ten-year rule over them. Equally, it might not want to sour relationships with the West through imposing a harsh punishment for such a trivial matter, although that is less likely to be a consideration given China's rising self-confidence. Whatever the reason, let's hope the outcome of this Chinese Twitter joke story is ultimately the same as that in the UK.

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Filed Under: china, free speech, jokes, tweets

Hall & Oates Convince Super PAC Named After Them To Shut Down

from the but-now-where-will-the-hall-&-oates-fans-put-their-money? dept

There's been plenty of talk this election season about the rise of PACs and SuperPACs -- and the ease of creating them. Of course, that can lead to some bizarre situations. Take, for example the creation of the Hall and Oates Fans for America SuperPAC, which was recently approved by the Federal Election Commission (found via On the Media). The thinking behind it might not surprise you very much:

“It was really just kind of a joke a couple of us came up with drunk one night. I wish I could say there was more to it, but that’s about it,” said [William] Hansmann.

Hansmann stated that the goal of the SuperPAC was "to create parody videos on YouTube." Seems like as good a use of a SuperPAC as any. As for why they chose famed rock duo Hall & Oates? Well, that was easy:

“When we hit on Hall & Oates, we were just like, who doesn’t love Hall & Oates?” Mr. Hansmann explained.

That may be true... but while everyone may love Hall & Oates... it turns out that Hall & Oates don't really love being associated with a SuperPAC. They had their people "get in touch" with Hansmann and convince him to shut down the SuperPAC, which had raised all of $0. According to Hall & Oates' manager, the duo was wary of any political connection whatsoever, even one involving parody videos:

"Daryl Hall and John Oates recognize that the personal view points of their fans cross all political spectrums and are honored to be supported by their fans everywhere regardless of political affiliation... The PAC's founders recognize that the use of the ‘Hall’ and ‘Oates’ names for the purpose of raising funds is not an appropriate fan activity no matter what the goal of the fund raising activities might be.”

Thankfully, it appears that the dynamic duo and their manager resolved this in a friendly manner, rather than the all-too-typical reaction of some to immediately rush to legal nastygramming.

"Daryl Hall and John Oates are pleased that the amicable dialog with the founders of the Super Pac have brought an expedient resolution to this matter and achieved a result both sides are pleased with."

Of course, what's unclear is if the SuperPAC has just been shut down, or is being renamed. Any suggestions on what else it might be called?

Filed Under: hall & oates, jokes, superpac, videos

TSA Declares Themselves Fashion & Funny Police

from the bombs-zomg dept

While we were just discussing an accusation against the TSA for racial profiling (GASP!), did you know that they were also the official state-sponsored fashion and humor police? I mean, who couldn't see these guys adjudicating your local fashion show?

TSA uniforms: like Michael Jackson, but creepier
Image Source. CC BY-SA 2.0

Reader pixelpusher220 writes in about the tale of how one man's shirt got him booted off of a Delta airplane after passing through TSA security, as recounted by Cory Doctrow.

Back in 2007, I designed a shirt for Woot! that featured a screaming eagle clutching an unlaced shoe and a crushed water bottle, surrounded by the motto MOISTURE BOMBS ZOMG TERRORISTS ZOMG GONNA KILL US ALL ZOMG ZOMG ALERT LEVEL BLOODRED RUN RUN TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES. Among the lucky owners of this garment is Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha, who proudly wore it this week as he headed for a Delta flight from Buffalo-Niagara International Airport to his home in Phoenix.

But it was not to be. First, the TSA Delta agents questioned him closely about the shirt, and made him agree to change it, submit to a secondary screening and board last. He complied with these rules, but then he was pulled aside by multiple Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority cops, more TSA, and a Delta official and searched again.

Apparently the new terror plot is to make you laugh so hard your face explodes

It's worth noting that these shirts were designed by Cory Doctrow and sold as part of a charitable program.

Now, I'll restate it again, Arijit had already gone through the TSA screening when he and his wife were then approached by Delta employees at the gate who informed him that he had committed the crime of making other passengers "uncomfortable". When Arijit informed the Delta employees that he was wearing the shirt specifically to mock the security theater we call an airport these days, he was put through another round of screening at the gate by several TSA and local agents and then told that he would be allowed to board. The Delta pilot, catching wind of this, requested Arijit not be allowed to board, because laughter would not be tolerated on his enormous hunk of flying metal. Oh, and they also refused to allow his wife to board the plane too. No reason was apparently given for this, but I'm guessing there may have been some plaid mixing with pin-stripes in her outfit, and the pilot found it to be lacking in fabulousness.

Or maybe there was another reason. According to Arijit, the officer wanted to interrogate him further, saying that Arijit had given a "stupid answer" and "looked foreign":

“Certainly he wasn’t implying that dark-skinned people are not real Americans and that white people are the only true Americans,” Arijit writes in part of his snark-filled synopsis. “Fortunately, Mark’s request was denied. Apparently, someone at NFTA recognized this bigoted meathead for the bigoted meathead he was and that nationality is simply a concept that exists solely on paper and cannot be discerned from just looking at someone.”

And yet he still wasn't allowed on the plane. Was it because of his t-shirt? Was it because the motherfucking eagle on it caused concern amongst passengers? Or, as has been previously accused, was it because too many TSA agents find brown-skinned people suspicious and alarming?

Filed Under: jokes, privacy, security, t-shirts, tsa
Companies: delta

Homeland Security Denies Entrance To UK Tourist Because Of Twitter Joke

from the so-sorry,-too-bad dept

I am actually writing this post sitting in a French airport, getting ready to board my flight back to the US... but I think I'll hang onto it and post once I'm back in town. That's because it's about some UK tourists who were taking a little vacation to the US... until Homeland Security refused them entrance, because one of them had joked on Twitter about digging up the grave of Marilyn Monroe and "destroying" America (by which he meant partying). Apparently, DHS has figured out how to monitor Twitter... but hasn't figured out what a sense of humor is. (And yes, I made it home and through customs without any trouble).

Filed Under: border patrol, customs, homeland security, jokes, tourists

Yes, Multiple People Come Up With The Same Joke; It's Not 'Stealing' And Not Even Copying

from the let-it-go dept

A few times in the past, we've had posts looking at the issue of comedians copying each other's jokes and whether or not that's "stealing." Of course, as discussed at length here, this is clearly a misuse of the word "steal," but a larger point is that, like so much else in this world, there's a world of difference between idea and execution. In fact, if you look back at the history of joke telling it was all about "joke stealing," where people would tell and repeat jokes heard elsewhere. The real question was who could tell it better and perhaps change or embellish it to improve it. In fact, even comedians who complain about "joke stealing" seem to know this intrinsically, as can be seen in the movie The Aristocrats, which involves a ton of comedians all telling the same joke in very, very different ways.

But there's another angle to this as well: which is that certain joke ideas are so basic that it's likely many people came up with the same idea. Jackie sent over this great blog post by Irwin Handleman, a TV comedy writer, pointing out how silly it is for people to complain about "joke stealing" involving those types of jokes. He gives an example:

A few weeks ago, after President Obama showed his birth certificate to Donald Trump and the other racists, The Onion's headline was: "Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta."

A fine joke. But then Bill Maher went on twitter and wrote: "I see The Onion stole my placenta joke that I did in Feb 2010 HBO special"

Wow. Okay. I've never heard of The Onion being accused of stealing in the past. It also seemed a bit presumptuous that everyone has seen that HBO special.

Well, it turns out that The Onion headline was actually a link to something they wrote in August of 2009. Apparently The Onion recycles its content when news stories pop again. They actually did the joke 6 months before Bill did!

Does this mean that Bill stole from The Onion? Of course not. Just like it was dumb to think they stole from him. It happens all the time. In fact, just to show how ridiculous the whole thing is, The Daily Show ended up doing the exact same joke, and Rupaul tweeted it a variation of it as well.

Bill Maher should've done what all comedians should do when it comes to this shit: shut the hell up. Let your work speak for itself. The hacks will fade, the talented will succeed.

This whole episode was very interesting to us at our show. Because last year, we wrote a line: "Life starts at the erection". And then 2 months later, Bill Maher said "Life starts at the erection". Did we say anything? No. It was a coincidence, and we knew it, and we moved on.

Some things aren't about copying at all, but just about the natural humor of the situation. And Handleman has it right. Getting upset about that kind of thing is ridiculous.

Filed Under: copying, jokes

Scientists Finally Tackle The Age Old 'That's What She Said' Problem

from the it-was-hard-and-it-took-forever dept

Forget the traveling salesman problem or p=np, some computer scientists have finally tackled the really big challenge for computers: teaching them how to understand the innuendo and double entendres necessary to make a "that's what she said" joke. Yes, all other computer science pale in comparison, so kudos to Chloe Kiddon and Yuriy Brun for tackling such a difficult challenge:

Automating this process means identifying sentences that contain potential euphemisms and follow a particular structure - a "hard natural language understanding problem", say the researchers. Kiddon and Brun began by analysing two different bodies of text - one containing 1.5 million erotic sentences, and another with 57,000 from standard literature.

They then evaluated nouns, adjectives and verbs with a "sexiness" function to determine whether a sentence is a potential TWSS. Examples of nouns with a high sexiness function are "rod" and "meat", while raunchy adjectives are "hot" and "wet".

Their automated system, known as Double Entendre via Noun Transfer or DEviaNT, rates sentences for their TWSS potential by looking for particular elements such as nouns that can be interpreted in multiple ways. The researchers trained DEviaNT by gathering jokes from twssstories.com and non-TWSS text from sites such as wikiquote.org.

Apparently, the system is about 70% accurate so far, but they believe they can get it up to 99.5% accuracy before too long.

I'm sorry, Watson, but this may be the biggest computing/artificial intelligence story of the year. And, already, the race is on to come up with the appropriate jokes. My favorite so far was this quote for the researchers on this project: "It was hard and it took forever."

Filed Under: computers, double entendre, jokes, that's what she said

Unicorns And Leprechauns Aren't Real... But Trolls Are (And They Have Lawyers)

from the reality-bites dept

A whole bunch of you have been sending in the silly story of Liberty Media's latest antics. As you may know, the porn producer has been crazy aggressive in going after file sharers, even going beyond the standard mass pre-settlement threat campaign, with a ridiculous amnesty offer to get people to pay $1,000 even if they haven't been accused of file sharing. Someone in Sweden, a guy named Ryan, apparently decided to taunt Liberty Media, sending an email to them "confessing" to regularly sharing Liberty Media works... along with mentioning the unicorns and leprechauns advising him. The whole thing was clearly a joke, but Liberty Media's parent company, Corbin Fisher, is apparently without much of a sense of humor and issued a subpoena to try to get the guy's info, claiming that they're taking his "confession" seriously. The guy says he's never shared or downloaded any Liberty Media stuff and isn't in the US anyway. Of course, Liberty is able to do this as a part of the discovery process, but do they really think this is going to go anywhere? I think, in the future, there should be some measure of how much of a sense of humor a company has, and people should learn to only deal with companies who can take a joke.

Filed Under: copyright, humor, jokes, trolls
Companies: corbin fisher, liberty media

A Lesson In Venn Diagrams... And Who Gets Paid To Touch Your Junk

from the deconstructing-a-joke dept

Recently on Reddit, a link to a "Venn diagram" about "people paid to touch your junk" got pretty popular (even though it was apparently a repeat post of one that didn't get nearly as popular. You can see it here: The image then got plenty of attention with links from a variety of much bigger sites that I'm not going to mention, and it seemed to get a good chuckle out of folks who have been following the whole TSA/junk touching situation.

Well, that is unless you actually understand what a Venn diagram is supposed to show. Those people were somewhat horrified.

Rich Skrenta points us to an absolutely hilarious deconstruction of the problems with this graphic and how it's not actually an accurate Venn diagram at all written by Andrew Plotkin. As he notes, the overlapping parts of circles on a Venn diagram are supposed to include both sets. In other words, if those three original sets formed a Venn diagram like the one above, the real categorization would be as following: You have to imagine that the set of "airport-guarding hookers with medical degrees," is somewhat small. Or non-existent in all likelihood. So if we were to draw the chart above to scale, there likely would be almost no overlap between any of the three circles.

As Plotkin then points out, what the original creator of the diagram meant for the diagram to show, is that all three of those professions are paid to touch your junk -- and thus a more accurate -- but not at all funny nor understandable, version of the Venn diagram would be the following: I might quibble with that one a bit, seeing as not all TSA agents or doctors are necessarily paid to touch your junk (and I guess there could be a tiny subset of prostitutes who aren't either, but I can't imagine that's a very large number), but still, the overall point is there. Though, um, it's not funny. Or really all that understandable.

So, if you wanted to create a Venn diagram that actually makes the same point (sorta) and does it without being the mess above, what would you do? Well, Plotkin comes to the rescue again with the following: Plotkin then goes on to do a few more diagrams and teach folks a bit about how Venn diagrams are supposed to work -- which is totally worth checking out as well.

They say that if you have to deconstruct a joke, you've probably ruined it, but if that joke contains a Venn diagram, and that Venn diagram is wrong, but still becomes popular with people claiming it's an accurate Venn diagram, suddenly that deconstruction can be a lot funnier than the original. Kudos to Plotkin for breaking it down...

Filed Under: jokes, tsa, venn diagrams, your junk

Oh Look, Police Can Investigate A Satirical Online Comment About Mythical Violence And Not Overreact

from the if-only-others-did-so-as-well dept

We've recently covered two separate stories of guys who made (perhaps in poor taste) jokes online about a violent activity they were considering (one a joke about blowing up an airport, and another taking a line from Fight Club and applying it to an Apple Store). In both cases (one in the UK and one in the US), police came to investigate. I have no problem with that part of it. If someone legitimately feels threatened, it's good that the police will go investigate. The problem was that even after they realized that the person was just making an offhand joking statement online, they still pressed charges. The guy in the US eventually got off, but the guy in the UK did not and is still appealing his case higher.

However, it's nice to know that sometimes the police recognize a silly online comment for being a silly online comment. Romenesko points us to a recent story of a blogger who writes (somewhat satirically) about the giant NYC apartment complex Stuy Town, who recently had a post entitled Tenant to Children: STFU, complaining about kids making a lot of noise early on Saturday morning, and telling parents to keep their kids quiet however possible. It also illustrated the post with "a crying child in a rifle scope's crosshairs," -- an image that was changed after people complained. Either way, all of this got some residents to call the police, worried that someone was "targeting" their children, and so the police actually stopped by the blogger's apartment to make sure he wasn't really planning to shoot children:

Detectives from the 13th Precinct stopped by today to check on my lucidity and be sure there were no guns in my apartment after some tenants complained that I was inciting violence by posting an email sent to me for the "Tenant to Children: STFU!" post. They were really nice and understood the Lux Living post in question was satire but they had a job to do. After a tour of my apartment and some light conversation about my art collection and antique furniture it was clear to them that I am just a writer with a dark sense of humor and not a threat to society.

While one assumes that this should be the standard way that police respond to such complaints, just the fact that we've seen a few stories that went in the other direction made me realize we might as well highlight when things go the right way also.

Filed Under: blogging, jokes, police, threats

Paul Chambers Planning To Blow His Twitter Joke Trial Sky High...

from the that's-a-joke... dept

Paul Chambers, who has now lost twice in court for making a joke on Twitter (talking about "blowing [an] airport sky high!!" if it didn't reopen from weather delays), which everyone (including the police) agree was a joke, is now threatening to blow the case sky high, by appealing to the UK High Court. One would hope that the folks at the UK High Court recognize the chilling effects of prosecuting someone for making a silly statement on social networks that clearly had no intent behind it. Again -- before people accuse otherwise -- I have no problem with the message being investigated by police to make sure it wasn't serious. However, once it was clear that it was not a real threat, then no charges should have been brought. In the meantime, I'm still wondering what kind of terrorists first Tweet that they're actually going to blow up an airport... Perhaps the folks behind the TSA's security team can answer that...

Filed Under: free speech, jokes, paul chambers, uk