I wouldn't want someone vehemently in opposition to either of those things to be in charge of their public policy either. Even if you don't like them, you have to have an understanding of the subject and why they may be necessary despite reasonable opposition.
See, that's exactly the point that you are missing. You appear to be operating under the unspoken assumption that simply because something exists and is widespread to some degree, that there necessarily exists a legitimate need for it.
Do you believe it's ever the case that this is not true?
So, yes, any "censorship" that came out of this would likely have been accidental, but just because censorship is accidental, it doesn't mean that it's inconsequential.
The term sin querer, quierendo immediately comes to mind.
It comes from a Mexican sitcom called El Chavo del Ocho, a really bizarre show about a bunch of young children getting into all sorts of mishaps, except they were all played by actors who are obviously mature adults. (It gets weirder from there.)
Chavo is really clumsy, but the accidents he causes frequently tend to cause trouble for rivals. His standard semi-apologetic catch phrase was "fue sin querer, quierendo," which kind of loses something in translation. "Sin querer" means literally "without wanting to," and is used where an English speaker would say "it was an accident!" But he then follows it with "quiriendo" (wanting to,) making the phrase translate very roughly as "it was an accident that happened on purpose!"
These "accidents" with automated takedown systems (and with DMCS brokenness in general) have always seemed like obvious examples of sin querer, quierendo to me. They're screwing up in exactly the way they were designed to screw up, to provide plausible deniability for the tightening of censorship and control at the expense of Promoting The Progress.
If it happened once or twice, we could be justified in calling it a legitimate accident. But when it keeps on happening, the same way, over and over and over, and no one causing the "accidents" is doing anything to fix them, it keeps getting harder and harder to believe it's not intentional.
While most of this is (depressingly) par for the course, business as usual, I just have to wonder about one point.
While the Senate Banking Committee under then-Chairman Don Riegle, D-Mich., was trying to uncover the truth of this, officials at the Pentagon and CIA were working to bury it.
The Senate Banking Committee?!? Why in the world were they the ones investigating this, rather than something more military-oriented?
To make matters worse, as a die-hard Luddite, he seemed uniquely unqualified for his new position.
This is tricky. While I agree that he's probably not the best guy for the job, it's dangerous to take a principled stand on that particular principle, because of the way it can come back and bite you in the end: you're essentially saying that nobody who is against X has any business setting policy for X. (Abortion and the drilling of new oil wells immediately come to mind, to drive the point home on both sides of the political spectrum.)
Federal law and FBI policy prohibit employees from using the power of the department to attempt to influence elections.
Odd. It would appear James Comey is unfamiliar with these laws and policies.
Last I heard, Comey was perfectly content to let status quo ante sit as it was, until things got out of his hands. Over 100 agents were so disgusted by the whole "yeah, she totally broke the law but no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute her for totally breaking the law" stunt that they threatened to resign en masse unless he actually did his job, so he reopened the investigation.
"Abject authoritarian..." What does that even mean? That I believe in the institutions of society that keep things running in a civilized, orderly fashion? Guilty as charged, I guess.
What you call "fear" I call "wisdom," preferring to learn from the lessons of the past instead of constantly saying "this time will be different" and constantly being wrong.
So you're a kid who never grew up. Gotcha.
A court of law makes a ruling. I say the ruling of the court of law was right. You say that this is proof that I don't care about the rule of law. Did you order your dictionary from Bizarro Land or something?!?
It's a distinct possibility. You never can tell, on the Internet.
Of course, it's also possible that I know, from direct, personal experience, that the kind of man who would make threats like that--particularly against his own family--is the kind of man who isn't likely to stop at threats.
It's possible that I live in Eastern Pennsylvania and don't want a dangerous thug like this man walking free anywhere near me.
It's possible that you're an idealistic kid (would I be correct in guessing you're under 30?) who's been fed a steady stream of nonsense like the sort of stuff Tim Cushing regularly writes all your life, who has lived a relatively comfortable life with no exposure to the sorts of conditions that are the reason that these laws exist, and therefore you are literally not capable of seeing the other side of the issue.
It's good to see that the appeals court has their heads on straight, that they realize that just because there was some minor technicality that was problematic with the earlier ruling, it doesn't actually do anything to show that Mr. Elonis wasn't exactly what he appeared to be: a violent thug trying to intimidate people, then making up a completely transparent excuse when called on it.
A violent thug who, by the way, doesn't even listen to rap according to his wife.
> Yes, of course, we're at the very peak of the political silly season and lots of people are looking for big breaking stories. But it would be nice if we could keep them in the realm of reality.
It's not about reality; it's about influencing perception. With all the trouble Hillary's in for her abysmal email mishandling, it suddenly makes her look a lot less bad by comparison if her opponent was also doing bad things with email. (Nevermind the fact that Trump's email didn't contain any classified information; we can just neglect to mention that little detail.)
Hersch (I think; I'm not 100% clear which cohost voice belongs with which name) was absolutely right about Yelp. When your business model involves literally running a protection racket, you have no moral high ground from which to launch attacks on Google.
As for Apple, IMO there is no question that they need to be smacked down. Their iOS "walled garden" is prima facie an abusive business practice. It's not a question of whether you can uninstall Apple apps, but of whether you can install other apps in the first place. There's nothing stopping anyone from putting a different app store on an Android device, but when Apple gets to decide what you can and cannot do with your own property, that's a violation of your rights and it needs to stop, or to be stopped.
This is why for years we've posted messages reminding anyone who has a blog to just go and register with the Copyright Office to get basic DMCA protections (especially after a copyright troll went after some smaller blogs who had not done so).
...
Since the DMCA’s enactment in 1998, online service providers have designated agents with the Copyright Office via paper filings, and the Office has made scanned copies of these filings available to the public by posting them on the Office’s website.
Reading these two things together appears to suggest that the author of an anonymous blog is legally required to dox himself in order to avoid legal liability.
But the definition of "unauthorized access" isn't explored adequately in the legal memo, leaving this to be answered on a case-by-bad case basis. The prosecutions of Aaron Swartz and Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer suggest the DOJ allows this definition to be set by the complainant rather than by policy.
Which is exactly how it should be. Or do you somehow think that the DOJ has a better idea than the owner of private property regarding who is and who is not trespassing on that property without the authorization of the owner?
Unfortunately, the law is still outdated (30 years old this month!)
Are you seriously suggesting that laws wear out from old age and need to be done away with? How about throwing these ones out, then? They're even older!
According to the court, L’Avenir had not been able to demonstrate that it had no knowledge of the unlicensed character of the video embedded on its website. Hence, L’Avenir was found to have infringed the claimant’s copyright by linking to the YouTube video without Ms Jonsson’s permission.
Wait. Are these guys seriously in trouble, in a court of law, for literally failing to prove a negative?!?
This, Comcast claims, will result in "significant, irreparable injury" to the cable giant.
I know it's generally not a good idea to accept Comcast's claims at face value, but in this case I'd be willing to make an exception: this is exactly why we should proceed with it ASAP!
She added that the change “is 100% optional–if users do not opt-in to these changes, their Google experience will remain unchanged.”
...
To opt-out of Google’s identified tracking, visit the Activity controls on Google’s My Account page, and uncheck the box next to “Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services."
Wait, so is this opt-in or opt-out? That's kind of a huge difference...
Re: Re: Re: "Wikileaks is not explicitly anti-American."
Sensationalism is great PR for wikileaks as an organization, its a shitty way to run a democracy.
Philosophical question: if you use bad democracy to thwart a corrupt candidate whose entire campaign has literally been built on subverting democracy, is the result good or bad for democracy?
On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 98: Is There A Better Way To Pick A President?
No there won't. There will be a new presumptive President-elect, which will be made official after the electors vote.
Next January there will be a new President of the United States.
On the post: Why Is Your Bigoted, Luddite Uncle Crafting Internet Policy In Europe?
Re: Re:
See, that's exactly the point that you are missing. You appear to be operating under the unspoken assumption that simply because something exists and is widespread to some degree, that there necessarily exists a legitimate need for it.
Do you believe it's ever the case that this is not true?
On the post: Adobe Asked Google To Censor Techdirt's Story On How Adobe's DRM Got Cracked
Re:
Argh. DMCA brokenness, even.
(from the why-do-we-still-not-have-an-edit-button dept)
On the post: Adobe Asked Google To Censor Techdirt's Story On How Adobe's DRM Got Cracked
The term sin querer, quierendo immediately comes to mind.
It comes from a Mexican sitcom called El Chavo del Ocho, a really bizarre show about a bunch of young children getting into all sorts of mishaps, except they were all played by actors who are obviously mature adults. (It gets weirder from there.)
Chavo is really clumsy, but the accidents he causes frequently tend to cause trouble for rivals. His standard semi-apologetic catch phrase was "fue sin querer, quierendo," which kind of loses something in translation. "Sin querer" means literally "without wanting to," and is used where an English speaker would say "it was an accident!" But he then follows it with "quiriendo" (wanting to,) making the phrase translate very roughly as "it was an accident that happened on purpose!"
These "accidents" with automated takedown systems (and with DMCS brokenness in general) have always seemed like obvious examples of sin querer, quierendo to me. They're screwing up in exactly the way they were designed to screw up, to provide plausible deniability for the tightening of censorship and control at the expense of Promoting The Progress.
If it happened once or twice, we could be justified in calling it a legitimate accident. But when it keeps on happening, the same way, over and over and over, and no one causing the "accidents" is doing anything to fix them, it keeps getting harder and harder to believe it's not intentional.
On the post: Another Whistleblower Highlights The Futility Of The 'Proper Channels'
While most of this is (depressingly) par for the course, business as usual, I just have to wonder about one point.
The Senate Banking Committee?!? Why in the world were they the ones investigating this, rather than something more military-oriented?
On the post: Why Is Your Bigoted, Luddite Uncle Crafting Internet Policy In Europe?
This is tricky. While I agree that he's probably not the best guy for the job, it's dangerous to take a principled stand on that particular principle, because of the way it can come back and bite you in the end: you're essentially saying that nobody who is against X has any business setting policy for X. (Abortion and the drilling of new oil wells immediately come to mind, to drive the point home on both sides of the political spectrum.)
On the post: FBI Opens Internal Investigation Into One Of Its Own Twitter Accounts Because Good Lord This Year Is So Stupid
Last I heard, Comey was perfectly content to let status quo ante sit as it was, until things got out of his hands. Over 100 agents were so disgusted by the whole "yeah, she totally broke the law but no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute her for totally breaking the law" stunt that they threatened to resign en masse unless he actually did his job, so he reopened the investigation.
On the post: Appeals Court Reinstates 'True Threat' Conviction Supreme Court Overturned, Still No Answers On First Amendment
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Abject authoritarian..." What does that even mean? That I believe in the institutions of society that keep things running in a civilized, orderly fashion? Guilty as charged, I guess.
What you call "fear" I call "wisdom," preferring to learn from the lessons of the past instead of constantly saying "this time will be different" and constantly being wrong.
So you're a kid who never grew up. Gotcha.
On the post: Appeals Court Reinstates 'True Threat' Conviction Supreme Court Overturned, Still No Answers On First Amendment
Re: Re:
Of course, it's also possible that I know, from direct, personal experience, that the kind of man who would make threats like that--particularly against his own family--is the kind of man who isn't likely to stop at threats.
It's possible that I live in Eastern Pennsylvania and don't want a dangerous thug like this man walking free anywhere near me.
It's possible that you're an idealistic kid (would I be correct in guessing you're under 30?) who's been fed a steady stream of nonsense like the sort of stuff Tim Cushing regularly writes all your life, who has lived a relatively comfortable life with no exposure to the sorts of conditions that are the reason that these laws exist, and therefore you are literally not capable of seeing the other side of the issue.
You never can tell, on the Internet.
On the post: Appeals Court Reinstates 'True Threat' Conviction Supreme Court Overturned, Still No Answers On First Amendment
It's good to see that the appeals court has their heads on straight, that they realize that just because there was some minor technicality that was problematic with the earlier ruling, it doesn't actually do anything to show that Mr. Elonis wasn't exactly what he appeared to be: a violent thug trying to intimidate people, then making up a completely transparent excuse when called on it.
A violent thug who, by the way, doesn't even listen to rap according to his wife.
On the post: Only Thing 'Exposed' By Bad Reporting About Russia/Trump Link Is Malware Researchers' Unethical Behavior
It's not about reality; it's about influencing perception. With all the trouble Hillary's in for her abysmal email mishandling, it suddenly makes her look a lot less bad by comparison if her opponent was also doing bad things with email. (Nevermind the fact that Trump's email didn't contain any classified information; we can just neglect to mention that little detail.)
On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 97: Can Tech Be Trusted Without Antitrust?
Hersch (I think; I'm not 100% clear which cohost voice belongs with which name) was absolutely right about Yelp. When your business model involves literally running a protection racket, you have no moral high ground from which to launch attacks on Google.
As for Apple, IMO there is no question that they need to be smacked down. Their iOS "walled garden" is prima facie an abusive business practice. It's not a question of whether you can uninstall Apple apps, but of whether you can install other apps in the first place. There's nothing stopping anyone from putting a different app store on an Android device, but when Apple gets to decide what you can and cannot do with your own property, that's a violation of your rights and it needs to stop, or to be stopped.
On the post: Copyright Office Fucks Over Thousands Of Sites With Plans To Remove Their DMCA Safe Harbors
...
Reading these two things together appears to suggest that the author of an anonymous blog is legally required to dox himself in order to avoid legal liability.
Surely that can't be right...
On the post: Sega/Steam Took Down A Bunch Of Legitimate Steam Workshop Mods Over Copyright Concerns
Re: Re: Why must innocent modders suffer, like a villager caught in a cluster bomb?
But as we've all seen over the years, when it comes to copyright, all reason goes straight out the window.
On the post: DOJ Finally Releases Its Internal, Mostly-Vague CFAA Prosecution Guidelines
Which is exactly how it should be. Or do you somehow think that the DOJ has a better idea than the owner of private property regarding who is and who is not trespassing on that property without the authorization of the owner?
Are you seriously suggesting that laws wear out from old age and need to be done away with? How about throwing these ones out, then? They're even older!
On the post: Belgian Court Fines Microsoft For Failing To Comply With Its Impossible Order
On the post: Swedish Court: News Site Embedding A YouTube Video Guilty Of Copyright Infringement
Wait. Are these guys seriously in trouble, in a court of law, for literally failing to prove a negative?!?
On the post: Comcast Joins AT&T, Files Lawsuit Against Nashville To Slow Google Fiber
I know it's generally not a good idea to accept Comcast's claims at face value, but in this case I'd be willing to make an exception: this is exactly why we should proceed with it ASAP!
On the post: Google's Quiet, Confusing Privacy Policy Change Is Why We Need More Transparency & Control
...
Wait, so is this opt-in or opt-out? That's kind of a huge difference...
On the post: Just How Wise Is It When Marco Rubio Promises To Swear Off Factual Information From Wikileaks?
Re: Re: Re: "Wikileaks is not explicitly anti-American."
Philosophical question: if you use bad democracy to thwart a corrupt candidate whose entire campaign has literally been built on subverting democracy, is the result good or bad for democracy?
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