It's very sad as Hong Kong was a beacon of free speech and
had a great output of movies and art before China clamped down
That was actually only during a fairly narrow window. For most of its time under British rule, it was operated by a governor and cronies appointed in London and generally accountable only to their corporate masters.
Shortly before the handover, Britain allowed some representative government to be set up. It was always understood that representative government was intended only as a poke in the eye to Red China, and that it would be abolished when it became inconvenient.
It has become inconvenient. Red China is therefore clamping down on those recent representative institutions, and indeed on all insufficiently obsequious speech. Try to act surprised.
When they arrest the wrong person based on an obviously wrong ``match'' by the Facial Recognition Technolog (FRT, or ``fart''), the person or his estate will likely bring suit for all the usual things. The courts will dismiss, because there is no clearly established case law that arresting and beating the wrong person is in any wise contrary to the Constitution.
They will claim good faith based on the FRT, even though some of the matches may appeared to be pulled from the machine's nether regions. The level of good faith for cops is stunningly low. Where you or I might, for instance, think that having a warrant for one address should not allow violent entry into another, the courts find good faith and qualified immunity. A fortiori, where the machine says ``match'', emitting a gaseous cloud of suspicion along with its report.
Probably a bad thing to do, especially in what we call the ``real world''. But in the rarified atmosphere of government, all that stuff is, or ought to be, public records. It is the public's business being carried out, by the public's paid servants.
So, while the defendant appears to have done everything wrong, and clumsily, condemnation may be unduly harsh on these facts.
I've little doubt that the ghost accounts thing is so they can crow about how many users they have without actually having said accounts signed up for by actual human beings
The mechanics will prove problematic. User A on platform A creates his new account on gettr. System imports and creates ghost accounts for his followers, including user B. Now, when user B (who would naturally follow A anyway) goes to create his account, the name is taken . He cannot log in using the ghost account because he does not know the ghost password.
It's regrettable that [Florida] won't just snap off and drift away at high speed.
My preference would be to build machine gun towers at the bridges over the St Marys, particularly focusing on the south-bound lanes of I-95. That would offer less disruption than a complete separation.
The problem is that we get so many people here from up north. A lot of them stay. If they were to go home, they would probably raise the average both here and in their home states.
Please feel free to point out the specific conservative viewpoints for which Trump was banned
Advocacy and encouragement of armed violence against the govt of the United States.
I presume that supporting armed efforts to overthrow the govt is still considered a ``conservative'' value because the GOP seems very much in favor of such, and opposed to anything that would discourage or learn from such violence.
A company running an election on contract is a state actor. They lost any right they had to act like a private entity and must respect First Amendment rights
It might be, though I do not see any citation to authority for your bare assertion.
UItimately, however, the lack of authority does not matter because the implicit premise is missing. That is, the voting machine company was not running the election, on contract or otherwise. It was simply providing machinery for use in the election.
The nature of the machinery may make it distinguishable from the car dealer who sold the vans that carry the ballots between the supervisor of elections office and the polling places, but it is not going to be an easy distinction to make. It is as though the paving company which put down the blacktop for the roads would deemed a state actor rather than a vendor, because in theory the state could pour the blacktop itself.
If I say untruthful things about the paving company, I could get sued. If I say untruthful things about the car dealer, I could get sued. If I say untruthful things about the voting machine vendor, I could get sued. Indeed, if I say untruthful things about the supervisor of elections, with reckless disregard for their falsity, I could get sued.
I suspect that you are largely engaging in the practice known as ``making stuff up'' to reach your conclusion. That practice might explain the lack of cited authority.
Re: Re: Re: Couldn't have happend to a more deserving man
in character for him to treat sanction as more 'suggestions' than legally binding rulings
Well, he explained the failure to file in some cases as inadvertence or mistake, rather than a determination that the order to file in all his firms' cases did not apply. He was unsure of the status in some, he said, claiming that they might have been closed and therefore not subject to the order.
He also claimed that his computers were not able to accurately identify all the cases on which the attys in the firm were working.
Does this include the outrageous lies he keeps pulling out of his fat butt?
Sure, most of his lies are protected speech. That does not mean that any given platform ought to be required to host them. If Twitter does not wish to host that particular collection of vulgar falsehoods, Mr. Trump is free to go to Parler, or Stormfront, or Fox News, or donaldjtrump.com for that matter.
Let me ask one question, why do you think Trump is banned from social media?
Question assumes the premise. In fact, Trump is banned only from certain social media platforms, but is free to use others.
As to those from which he is banned, I need not discern a reason; it being their soapbox, they may lend its use to whom they please. Likewise, my living room shall not contain rude people who offend my other guests.
While I may not discern the reason for Trump's ouster from particular platforms, I suspect that it comes down to a totality of factors:
telling many lies
harmful covid disinformation
leading armed rebellion against U.S. govt
endorsement of ``proud boys'' and similar hate groups
But, really, I am just guessing. The platforms which do not choose to have him as a user are free to choose on that basis or on the basis of coin flips. Their platform, their choice. If I do not like it, I can go to Parler or Stormfront where I can have all the Trump promotion I want.
I think the last paragraph highlights something that can sometimes be overlooked — the attorneys drafting this response aren’t necessarily die-hard advocates for the positions they’re asserting
Perhaps, but observe that the paper is signed by the chief deputy AG, who presumably has read it and has likely shown it to the AG, who is a defendant. I am guessing that a chief deputy is chosen for political alignment, and probably gets sacked if he steps far out of line.
The Florida AG is generally considered strongly supportive of the entire mess. In fact, a stunningly large portion of Florida govt is thus aligned. In a one-party state, you tend to find officials with toes firmly planted on the line.
An hundred miles south of Florida, the one-party state substitutes ``Castro'' for ``Trump'' but the results appear similar.
prohibited from obtaining services, including website and domain services, in the United States without an OFAC license
Naturally, this prohibition does not apply to competing website and domain service providers located outside of the U.S. The prudent tech services purchaser may want to be sure that his vendor is located elsewhere in order to reduce his exposure to the risk of having U.S. government interference with his contracts.
A healthy democracy needs at least two reasonably sane parties
The problem is when you wind up with just two parties. The chances of them remaining reasonably sane are limited because the leadership starts defining their respective parties so as to distinguish them from the other.
For instance, one party dislikes pollution as an economic externality, so the party dislikes govt regulation of polution. One party now dislikes overt racism, the other party embraces nazis and proud boys and says there are good people on both sides. One party endorses a living wage, so the other party wants tax credits for exporting jobs to the slave labor plants in Red China.
I could go on. The problem is that, with but two parties, you may wind up with two idiots feuding instead of any realistic choice.
And no ignoramus who hasn't walked far enough in your moccasins to wear holes--has a right to an opinion on how well your job has been done
I think this demonstrably false. I am such an ignoramus, having done essentially no content moderation at all. Yet truly I can say that Twitter, in suspending people who mention the county seat of Shelby, did a really crummy job of moderating. And, I suspect, others would agree with me.
$4,295??!! Geez!! For that price, when I got off that thing, I'd want to be somewhere else miles away.
Sure, we can do that. We have the technology, at least around the City. We call this sort of tech ``sidewalks'',.
How it works: I get on them in the morning and start a walking motion. I continue for a little less than a half-hour. When I get off the sidewalks, I am at the office. For two-a-days, I can start up in the evening, with similar body motions,and wind up at the house.
And believe me, it is expensive. You should see my quarterly property tax bills if you have any doubts.
I don’t doubt for a second if if the quote stolen was MLK it would have a different reaction
I do not doubt it either. Many people think much more favorably of MKL than of Adolf Hitler. So a quote from the one would be generally better received, outside of GOP circles at any rate.
sad cos hong kong used to a beacon of freedom and open democratic culture
Actually, no. For roughly an hundred years prior to the hand-over, HK was a British colony, run by a governor and bureaucrats appointed from London. The citizens were free to do as they were told.
For the last few years of British rule, they were given some nominal freedom to hold elections. That was largely a stick in the eye of Red China, to whom HK was to be handed over. With the handing over, HK retained the form of elections, though obviously the candidates had to be approved from Peking.
What HK had going for it was its location and ability to handle incredible amounts of trade. So long as that continues, HK retains some advantage over the rest of Red China. It provides some insulation and deniability for entities who prefer not to deal directly with the ``butchers of Beijing'', but who still would like access to the mainland's slave labor plants.
Banking in HK may eventually fail if it winds up behind the Great Firewall of China. Other tech industries may suffer similarly.
But there was never any real tradition of freedom and democracy in HK. It was taken over by the Brits as a convenient base of operation during the opium years, and now HK can serve as a caution to Taiwan as to what awaits if it unifies with the mainland.
narrowly circumvented by loopholes just to remain legal
Do not count on it. The FBI does not have a history of carefully remaining legal. Rather, they have a history of trying not to get caught. That, combined with AUSAs who do not prosecute the guys on ``their team'', generally provides adequate safety for the FBI operatives.
So far, having a DoJ take the threat seriously isn't a real problem for me.
Then you may not have been paying attention. When DOJ takes this threat seriously, you get enforcement of CFAA, meaning that screen scrapers and givers of false names and disposable mailboxes are suddenly felons.
On the post: Hong Kong Kowtows To China Again, Turns Virtual Police State Into An Actual Police State
Re:
That was actually only during a fairly narrow window. For most of its time under British rule, it was operated by a governor and cronies appointed in London and generally accountable only to their corporate masters.
Shortly before the handover, Britain allowed some representative government to be set up. It was always understood that representative government was intended only as a poke in the eye to Red China, and that it would be abolished when it became inconvenient.
It has become inconvenient. Red China is therefore clamping down on those recent representative institutions, and indeed on all insufficiently obsequious speech. Try to act surprised.
On the post: Federal Watchdog Finds Lots Of Facial Recognition Use By Gov't Agencies, Very Little Internal Oversight
Qualified Immunity Does Not Help
When they arrest the wrong person based on an obviously wrong ``match'' by the Facial Recognition Technolog (FRT, or ``fart''), the person or his estate will likely bring suit for all the usual things. The courts will dismiss, because there is no clearly established case law that arresting and beating the wrong person is in any wise contrary to the Constitution.
They will claim good faith based on the FRT, even though some of the matches may appeared to be pulled from the machine's nether regions. The level of good faith for cops is stunningly low. Where you or I might, for instance, think that having a warrant for one address should not allow violent entry into another, the courts find good faith and qualified immunity. A fortiori, where the machine says ``match'', emitting a gaseous cloud of suspicion along with its report.
On the post: Georgia Supreme Court Overturns Computer Crime Conviction For Man Who Copied Himself On Emails Sent To His Boss
Re: Hmmm
Probably a bad thing to do, especially in what we call the ``real world''. But in the rarified atmosphere of government, all that stuff is, or ought to be, public records. It is the public's business being carried out, by the public's paid servants.
So, while the defendant appears to have done everything wrong, and clumsily, condemnation may be unduly harsh on these facts.
On the post: Court Rejects Facebook User's Lawsuit Demanding $10 Million Per Day In Damages For Having His Posts Removed
Re: what are those rights?
Let me know when one actually goes to prison for it.
On the post: Former Trump Aide Launches Twitter Clone, That Seems To Yank A Ton Of Data Right Out Of Twitter; Already Has First Content Moderation Crisis
Re: Re:
The mechanics will prove problematic. User A on platform A creates his new account on gettr. System imports and creates ghost accounts for his followers, including user B. Now, when user B (who would naturally follow A anyway) goes to create his account, the name is taken . He cannot log in using the ghost account because he does not know the ghost password.
On the post: Florida Steps Up To Defend Its Unconstitutional Social Media Law And It's Every Bit As Terrible As You'd Imagine
Re:
My preference would be to build machine gun towers at the bridges over the St Marys, particularly focusing on the south-bound lanes of I-95. That would offer less disruption than a complete separation.
The problem is that we get so many people here from up north. A lot of them stay. If they were to go home, they would probably raise the average both here and in their home states.
On the post: Florida Steps Up To Defend Its Unconstitutional Social Media Law And It's Every Bit As Terrible As You'd Imagine
Re: Re: Failure
Advocacy and encouragement of armed violence against the govt of the United States.
I presume that supporting armed efforts to overthrow the govt is still considered a ``conservative'' value because the GOP seems very much in favor of such, and opposed to anything that would discourage or learn from such violence.
On the post: Former Trump Lawyer Facing Sanctions In Michigan Now Saying The Things She Said Were Opinions Are Actually Facts
Re:
It might be, though I do not see any citation to authority for your bare assertion.
UItimately, however, the lack of authority does not matter because the implicit premise is missing. That is, the voting machine company was not running the election, on contract or otherwise. It was simply providing machinery for use in the election.
The nature of the machinery may make it distinguishable from the car dealer who sold the vans that carry the ballots between the supervisor of elections office and the polling places, but it is not going to be an easy distinction to make. It is as though the paving company which put down the blacktop for the roads would deemed a state actor rather than a vendor, because in theory the state could pour the blacktop itself.
If I say untruthful things about the paving company, I could get sued. If I say untruthful things about the car dealer, I could get sued. If I say untruthful things about the voting machine vendor, I could get sued. Indeed, if I say untruthful things about the supervisor of elections, with reckless disregard for their falsity, I could get sued.
I suspect that you are largely engaging in the practice known as ``making stuff up'' to reach your conclusion. That practice might explain the lack of cited authority.
On the post: 2nd Circuit Upholds Non-Monetary Sanctions Against Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz
Re: Re: Re: Couldn't have happend to a more deserving man
Well, he explained the failure to file in some cases as inadvertence or mistake, rather than a determination that the order to file in all his firms' cases did not apply. He was unsure of the status in some, he said, claiming that they might have been closed and therefore not subject to the order.
He also claimed that his computers were not able to accurately identify all the cases on which the attys in the firm were working.
On the post: Florida Steps Up To Defend Its Unconstitutional Social Media Law And It's Every Bit As Terrible As You'd Imagine
Re: Re: Re:
Sure, most of his lies are protected speech. That does not mean that any given platform ought to be required to host them. If Twitter does not wish to host that particular collection of vulgar falsehoods, Mr. Trump is free to go to Parler, or Stormfront, or Fox News, or donaldjtrump.com for that matter.
On the post: Florida Steps Up To Defend Its Unconstitutional Social Media Law And It's Every Bit As Terrible As You'd Imagine
Re: Re: Re:
Question assumes the premise. In fact, Trump is banned only from certain social media platforms, but is free to use others.
As to those from which he is banned, I need not discern a reason; it being their soapbox, they may lend its use to whom they please. Likewise, my living room shall not contain rude people who offend my other guests.
While I may not discern the reason for Trump's ouster from particular platforms, I suspect that it comes down to a totality of factors:
But, really, I am just guessing. The platforms which do not choose to have him as a user are free to choose on that basis or on the basis of coin flips. Their platform, their choice. If I do not like it, I can go to Parler or Stormfront where I can have all the Trump promotion I want.
On the post: Florida Steps Up To Defend Its Unconstitutional Social Media Law And It's Every Bit As Terrible As You'd Imagine
Re:
Perhaps, but observe that the paper is signed by the chief deputy AG, who presumably has read it and has likely shown it to the AG, who is a defendant. I am guessing that a chief deputy is chosen for political alignment, and probably gets sacked if he steps far out of line.
The Florida AG is generally considered strongly supportive of the entire mess. In fact, a stunningly large portion of Florida govt is thus aligned. In a one-party state, you tend to find officials with toes firmly planted on the line.
An hundred miles south of Florida, the one-party state substitutes ``Castro'' for ``Trump'' but the results appear similar.
On the post: DOJ Seizes Iranian News Org Websites; Raising Many Questions
Take Your Business Offshore
Naturally, this prohibition does not apply to competing website and domain service providers located outside of the U.S. The prudent tech services purchaser may want to be sure that his vendor is located elsewhere in order to reduce his exposure to the risk of having U.S. government interference with his contracts.
On the post: Fuck This Cheer In Particular Says The Supreme Court In Decision Upholding Students' Free Speech Rights
Re: Re: Re: Liberalism vs conservatism?
The problem is when you wind up with just two parties. The chances of them remaining reasonably sane are limited because the leadership starts defining their respective parties so as to distinguish them from the other.
For instance, one party dislikes pollution as an economic externality, so the party dislikes govt regulation of polution. One party now dislikes overt racism, the other party embraces nazis and proud boys and says there are good people on both sides. One party endorses a living wage, so the other party wants tax credits for exporting jobs to the slave labor plants in Red China.
I could go on. The problem is that, with but two parties, you may wind up with two idiots feuding instead of any realistic choice.
On the post: Content Moderation Case Study: Instagram Takes Down Instagram Account Of Book About Instagram (2020)
Re:
I think this demonstrably false. I am such an ignoramus, having done essentially no content moderation at all. Yet truly I can say that Twitter, in suspending people who mention the county seat of Shelby, did a really crummy job of moderating. And, I suspect, others would agree with me.
On the post: You Don't Own What You've Bought: Peloton Treadmill Edition
Re: [miles away]
Sure, we can do that. We have the technology, at least around the City. We call this sort of tech ``sidewalks'',.
How it works: I get on them in the morning and start a walking motion. I continue for a little less than a half-hour. When I get off the sidewalks, I am at the office. For two-a-days, I can start up in the evening, with similar body motions,and wind up at the house.
And believe me, it is expensive. You should see my quarterly property tax bills if you have any doubts.
On the post: High School Responds To Student's Prank By Asking Local Law Enforcement To Step In And Investigate
I do not doubt it either. Many people think much more favorably of MKL than of Adolf Hitler. So a quote from the one would be generally better received, outside of GOP circles at any rate.
On the post: Chinese Government Now Using National Security Law To Censor Art Being Displayed In Hong Kong
Re: [history of HK]
Actually, no. For roughly an hundred years prior to the hand-over, HK was a British colony, run by a governor and bureaucrats appointed from London. The citizens were free to do as they were told.
For the last few years of British rule, they were given some nominal freedom to hold elections. That was largely a stick in the eye of Red China, to whom HK was to be handed over. With the handing over, HK retained the form of elections, though obviously the candidates had to be approved from Peking.
What HK had going for it was its location and ability to handle incredible amounts of trade. So long as that continues, HK retains some advantage over the rest of Red China. It provides some insulation and deniability for entities who prefer not to deal directly with the ``butchers of Beijing'', but who still would like access to the mainland's slave labor plants.
Banking in HK may eventually fail if it winds up behind the Great Firewall of China. Other tech industries may suffer similarly.
But there was never any real tradition of freedom and democracy in HK. It was taken over by the Brits as a convenient base of operation during the opium years, and now HK can serve as a caution to Taiwan as to what awaits if it unifies with the mainland.
On the post: FBI, Australian Police Ran A Backdoored Encrypted Chat Service For Three Years
Re: For once, a smart move by law enforcement
Do not count on it. The FBI does not have a history of carefully remaining legal. Rather, they have a history of trying not to get caught. That, combined with AUSAs who do not prosecute the guys on ``their team'', generally provides adequate safety for the FBI operatives.
On the post: DOJ Says It's Time To Add Ransomware Attacks To The Ever Expanding 'War On Terror'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lets be honest here......
Then you may not have been paying attention. When DOJ takes this threat seriously, you get enforcement of CFAA, meaning that screen scrapers and givers of false names and disposable mailboxes are suddenly felons.
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