"You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler, that's who!"
As arguments go, it's not up to much. I'm no fan of Disney, but I'm really struggling to see a side to this incident that even begins to make them look bad.
In the same situation, with my commercial name and reputation being dragged right into the shit the same way, I'm fairly sure I'd do the same thing as Disney, if I had the power. Outside of making a point for free speech, I think most people would, any number of TD commenters included.
If somebody cloned your work and used it as a platform for promoting racial, religious and sexual hate - and quite possibly, actual paedophile grooming - would you really consider their free speech rights more important than your right to avoid being sued, or even jailed, for not stopping it?
Epic insists on two-factor authentication, which is fine from a security standpoint, but, given that I've no intention of using the store for anything else, it'll be a cold day in hell before I give them my 'phone number.
Even if they don't use it for marketing purposes, it's inevitable that the more companies have that information, the more likely it is to leak out in a breach. Unlike my email address, I'm currently blessed with a spam-free 'phone experience. I'm not putting that at risk for an ageing £25 videogame, from a company I'd much prefer to avoid.
As much as it pains me, I have to side with Disney here (lord, my brain feels dirty just typing those words - and not in a good way).
Consider this from Disney's perspective:
• All the indications are that there's a site using your good name to probably operate as a paedophile grooming tool targeting children. If you don't do anything, you're potentially liable in the civil courts for millions in damages, for tolerating abuse of one sort or another;
• The "proper channels" are the police, FBI and DoJ, who may take literally years to actually do anything, if they do anything at all - and "anything" here seems less than entirely likely, given that they've already done nothing about the site, even after arresting the owner;
• That's without going into the whole FOSTA / SESTA thing, with the authorities infamously ignoring actual widespread abuse, in favour of attacking easier and more PR-friendly targets like Craigslist, et al;
• The courts are notably hostile to anything resembling prior restraint, sometimes even where convicted paedophiles are involved - appeals might keep the site online for years, even after a major win by the state;
• Regardless of what "should" be, the only tools you really have for taking the site down, quickly and more-or-less reliably, are copyright and trademark law.
I think asking Disney to put their faith in the authorities is like asking whistleblowers to keep quiet and let their bosses handle it. I can wish for things to go a certain way, but that's almost-certainly not going to do anything good in practise.
I don't know what the opposite of the Streisand Effect is, but it seems like Quibi is doing it's damnedest to find out. I honestly can't remember ever seeing any major venture work so hard to look like some kind of designed-to-fail tax dodge.
Ads that avoid explaining what the product is, complete lockdown on all social media, content that needs to be watched at least two or three times to get the most out of it... hey, thanks Quibi, you've sold us a set of errands, delivered in the form of video landmine shrapnel - just what we all wanted!
Evidently nobody's learned from similar past failures such as the various multi-angle DVD, satellite & cable services, most of VR's history, etc. If anyone misses Quibi after it goes under, just wait a while, I'm sure there'll be another dead-before-launch service coming along in just a year or two...
Or you could just replay Quibi's content on YouTube, where most of it's content is more-or-less guaranteed to end up.
Looked at the links, including that very first blog post. Did people really call it "the hi-tech industry" back then? It all feels so charmingly young. :D
Many congratulations, Mr Masnick.
Onward to 100,000! Onward and upward! :)
Well, spank my poodle and call me Aunt Jebidisa! :D
Mr Cushing, thank you for correcting the record. It's good to know the people I've put my faith in care enough about the truth to do this. I unreservedly tip my hat: huge respect to you, sir.
I also apologise for my more inauspicious comments, in my exchange with the other commenter. I wanted to find out what kind of commenter he was, which worked, but my choice of words along the way was less than kind and too unfair to yourself and TechDirt.
I'm sorry. I don't always mean to sound like I'm a drunken, abusive, rambling idiot, half the time, but I am, so that's the way it comes out. It's been a very long month, involving quite a lot of rather cheap whiskey. I'll try to do better, next time.
Very well done for finding all those sources. I've just had another go and still can't find some of them through Google, even knowing what I'm looking for. Your research skills evidently vastly outstrip my own. I'm uncertain how you discovered Aberdeen's Evening Express newspaper, which I didn't know existed. I had somehow thought publisher D.C. Thomson went to the wall years ago - it's quite pleasing to see they're actually still around.
Interestingly, the Guardian's article doesn't mention DEFRA at all, but the ICO (For those unaware, the Information Commissioner's Office handles registrations, inquiries, complaints and suchlike relating to the Data Protection Act). I would have thought DEFRA would have their own sub-department for handling things like this, but if they're yeeting all of the things to another government department entirely, it probably explains where the delay came from.
It's still DEFRA's fault, since it's hardly the first emergency they've ever had to deal with - and with 3,500 employees they really should have staff for this - but it does at least make sense of the issue here.
Once again, my unbounded thanks for the updated article.
Stay safe, Mr Cushing. :)
We are also continuing to work to support those who have been identified by the NHS as clinically vulnerable people and are being asked to shield themselves at home but are in need of help with food supplies. If you received a letter from the NHS, registered on the Government website and requested essential food supplies, you will be eligible for a Government food parcel to be delivered to your home. Your information will be also be passed to food retailers to prioritise you for home delivery slots.
With that reply, your goal becomes all too clear. You carefully avoided all points of criticism with weight and substance in my earlier post, but you're more than happy to engage with the easier targets you're fed. Being truthful or helpful in any way is not what you care about here, you just want to argue for the sake of it, even if the conversation devolves into nonsense. I think you're just another troll, albeit a long-term troll with a username.
You enjoy yourself, PaulIT. I've already said all I think needs saying. With a lot of luck, perhaps someone who genuinely values TechDirt will pay it some attention, maybe even be encouraged to speak up and complain, the next time we get an article like this one.
Help yourself to the last word.
Have a good one, PaulIT. :)
"Do you really think that repeating my login makes your points any more important?"
No, I just wanted to emphasise that I was talking directly to you, rather than being general. In the absence of your real name, a username will have to do. But, since you've already made up your mind to do the partisan thing and ignore bad work, rather than push TD to create something better, there was clearly no point, in hindsight.
"[...] you acting like an asshole [...]"
That's fair enough. /Mea culpa./ If you can think of a better way to tell an otherwise good person that they turn into racist dicks with certain topics, a way that's both kinder and more effective than mine, I'm absolutely all ears.
"I don't think they will be swayed in any way whatsoever by any article written here [...] they just have a blog [...]"
I think you're underestimating TechDirt. When the average mainstream journalist, or parliamentary civil servant, or EU member has to research a new technology topic, where do you think they go first? Some of them will have special advisors for the job, but most will do what the rest of us do: they'll Google it.
Depending on what they're looking for, they wind up reading articles on Wikipedia, Ars Technica, TorrentFreak... and TechDirt. TD - and other sites - have a reach and an influence that can't be easily quantified, but I've no doubt it's there. Just the number of times it's been quoted on the BBC News website is good enough evidence for that.
If TD weren't regarded as some kind of professional writers, worthy of some respect, the BBC wouldn't be quoting them like they're experts - and I certainly wouldn't be putting this much effort into their comment section.
When random advisors poke around the internet for information on how GDPR is working out, I want them to find something better than this article.
As I understand it, we're still following the GDPR, but only of our own volition, as we're no longer legally accountable to the EU bodies that were previously responsible for enforcing EU-wide laws and regulations. Our government can change the rules whenever they have the time and inclination. Presumably, they're busy with something else, just at the moment.
PaulIT, let me ask you something: you've been posting on TD's comment section a long time, probably far longer than I... when some policeman in the US decides that accurate warrants are too much effort and screws up a drug bust, child abuse conviction, or whatever... do you and I and TechDirt all call that a Fourth Amendment problem or a bad policing problem?
Would TechDirt spend three paragraphs listing out all the problems the Fourth Amendment has allegedly caused in the past, followed by seven paragraphs of new material, where virtually every major sentence openly attacks the Amendment for causing the crime?
Would they do that, PaulIT? Would you - or they - consider it fair and honest journalism, if they did?
I love TechDirt. I've been reading it for years. I wear my Home Cooking t-shirt to work with great pride. Against that, I'm no big fan of the GDPR. It is ridiculously bureaucratic, problematic and poorly written, no question.
But I'd be lying if I said I thought that mattered here. In all the years I've been reading, TD has almost never had a single good word to say about any legislation other than the US Constitution - and on the rare occasions when it has, it's usually lathered in so much hyperbolic, face-fanning incredulity they might as well not have bothered.
PaulIT, do you think anyone in the EU will ever be encouraged to fix the GDPR by reading blatantly dishonest and prejudiced articles like this one? Shouldn't honesty and better speech be a thing, here of all places?
We all have our failings. My own sins and prejudices are far worse, I'm sure. The right thing to do is to help each other overcome those flaws, if we can. Should you really be defending TechDirt - however lightly - when they're getting something badly wrong? Wouldn't it be better to help them improve?
TechDirt can do better than this. They're professional journalists. They can fact-check their sources. They can learn the legal context. They can put their personal hostilities aside and be honest.
But that will only happen if enough commenters like you and I put our hands up, call them on their mistakes and demand they tell the truth.
The TD article is drawn from two highly dishonest articles published in the Telegraph, an overtly-xenophobic, anti-European, British newspaper. Once the political biases are boiled out a little, the underlying truth seems to be somewhat different.
AFAICT, this is a complete non-story that no other UK publications seem to have covered, in the two weeks since the Telegraph originally manufactured it.
Both the Telegraph and TD try to sell this as an EU problem, but this seems to actually be more of a UK-specific bureaucracy issue.
Our Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was supposed to give that big list to the UK's big-name supermarket chains - but someone obviously dragged their feet on the paperwork they were supposed to do first, causing a short delay.
The Telegraph and TD spin this as being the fault of the GDPR, but under the UK's previous law - the Data Protection Act 1998 (variously amended) - the exact same legal obligations for personal information-handling were in place for at least a couple of decades, as far as I know.
The Telegraph quotes a DEFRA spokesperson as saying “Subject to data protection agreements being in place, we expect this [lists] to be shared imminently.”
Managing data-protection in this fashion has been a normal part of DEFRA's day-to-day business since it was founded. Any delay here isn't down to the GDPR, it's down to DEFRA not getting it's job done in timely fashion, for whatever reason.
Any claim to the contrary is simply a lie.
Par for the course for the Telegraph.
Rather a crying shame for TechDirt.
No disrespect intended, but your mum isn't really evidence of anything except your mum. From the EC press release linked at the top of the article:
• on Android devices (with Google Search and Chrome pre-installed) more than 95% of all search queries were made via Google Search; and
• on Windows Mobile devices (Google Search and Chrome are not pre-installed) less than 25% of all search queries were made via Google Search. More than 75% of search queries happened on Microsoft's Bing search engine, which is pre-installed on Windows Mobile devices.
That's the kind of evidence the verdict is based on. Most people do not behave like your mum.
Oh, you use an iPhone... got it. ;)
Ha ha ha! No. Apple's walled garden can suck my juicy plums. I've had three Android smartphones in my life. The first one died of a wall at high speed. The second died of hammers. The third died of a large barbecue.
I don't get on well with smartphones. Part of the reason is the mild but ever-present pain in the arse involved in finding genuine versions of things on that fucking stupid Play Store. :P
While most of what you have to say makes sense, I'm going to have to disagree with you on two points.
First, Google - as well as any other overwhelmingly dominant players in the tech field - now have a clear disincentive from engaging in such anti-competitive practises, either at present or in the future.
Second...
Here on TechDirt, when it comes to video-on-demand services, one point that's been raised time and again is that it isn't enough for a service to merely exist somewhere, in some form: it must be fairly accessible to constitute true competition.
In another TD article today, Mr Geigner wrote:
[...] so-called pirates are perfectly willing to pay for content if its offered to them in a convenient and reasonable way with few mental transactions needed. You know, how all of commerce works.
DLing and installing alternative browsers and search engines is par for the course for you, me and most TD commenters, but not so much for Joe and Jane Ordinary. As evidenced by basically everything, most people just stick with whatever's already there, absent a compelling reason to change things.
Researching for whichever browser might be an improvement for our needs, hunting through the Play Store for it and identifying and installing the genuine version (rather than a dubious personal-data-hoovering piratey clone) is trivial enough for us, but how're the Ordinarys supposed to navigate in what - for them - is largely terra incognita?
Surely, the competition isn't real if most people can't easily and reliably find and make use of the genuine article. :P
Oops! The exact Google phrase I used to find prior references contained the word "platforms", rather than "platform". Sorry for any confusion!
Searching for the phrase in singular yields no useful results on Google, but does produce a single result on DuckDuckGo: a mostly-paywalled, IFPI-sponsored 2016 paper, evidently laying the groundwork for Article 13.
Hmm. I'm sure Mr McCartney supports the letter and Article 13: the legacy system has made him a billionaire and given him a life of unremitting luxury, after all, so he'd be rather hypocritical not to.
Still, there's no question in my mind that the letter was written by someone other than McCartney: the language used is brutally efficient, packing a huge amount of implicit information into a very few, very easily-understood sentences.
While McCartney may be a very clever man in other ways, his use of written English - seen in various published letters over the years - is much more expansive and lyrical, nowhere near as incredibly precise. It's also much more English, as opposed to this very American piece. The letter is just not his style at all, not even a little bit.
At the time of writing, a Google search for the unusual phrase
"User Upload Content platform" -McCartney
suggests the only parties using it are the US recording industry: it only seems to have appeared previously in a letter they collectively sent to President Donald Trump, shortly after he took office.
I doubt it matters too much - again, I'm sure Mr McCartney fully supports this insanity - but it is interesting. :)
Even in the event of a compartmentalised corporate structure that allows abusive trade to be laundered out (as per AC's comment above), the mere acknowledgement of the issues is something that would inevitably come back to bite them later on. Few such secrets ever seem likely to last forever.
Today, this man and his company show every sign of having conducted themselves with honour. A measure of respect is something they've earned. :)
Londoner here. FYI: no-one much cares about refugees in London, apart from the extreme right (shower of bitches) and my mum (more full of bitch than Battersea Dogs Home).
Somehow, I don't think a FOSS project is quite the same thing as a Ubisoft project.
Having now looked over this project a bit more, it really doesn't appear to be a bad thing, here at the outset: HitRECord don't come across as asshats and the push for this initiative is apparently creator-led - with no small amount of enthusiasm - rather than accountancy-led, which seem to be very good signs.
There's every chance that it could deliver an excellently diverse and rich game-world - and, hopefully, all the contributors will be fairly rewarded.
I can see why Mr Geigner's excited about it. It does all depend on Ubisoft management behaving themselves, however. They're not known for showing their paying customers much more than complete disdain. I can only hope that they've somehow learned a shred of respect.
Moreover, even if Ubisoft do support their new community properly, if this becomes the success I hope for, it really remains to be seen how many other companies will jump on the same bandwagon, but with no better intentions than to rip off their developers and external contributors.
On the post: Disney: If We Can't Run Club Penguin, No One Can Run Club Penguin [Updated]
Re: Police everywhere support that comment
Hello, T.O.G. :)
"You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler, that's who!"
As arguments go, it's not up to much. I'm no fan of Disney, but I'm really struggling to see a side to this incident that even begins to make them look bad.
In the same situation, with my commercial name and reputation being dragged right into the shit the same way, I'm fairly sure I'd do the same thing as Disney, if I had the power. Outside of making a point for free speech, I think most people would, any number of TD commenters included.
If somebody cloned your work and used it as a platform for promoting racial, religious and sexual hate - and quite possibly, actual paedophile grooming - would you really consider their free speech rights more important than your right to avoid being sued, or even jailed, for not stopping it?
On the post: Hey, Epic, If you're Going To Boldly Give Away A Historically Popular Game For Free, Make Sure You Can Handle The Demand
There's free and then there's free.
Epic insists on two-factor authentication, which is fine from a security standpoint, but, given that I've no intention of using the store for anything else, it'll be a cold day in hell before I give them my 'phone number.
Even if they don't use it for marketing purposes, it's inevitable that the more companies have that information, the more likely it is to leak out in a breach. Unlike my email address, I'm currently blessed with a spam-free 'phone experience. I'm not putting that at risk for an ageing £25 videogame, from a company I'd much prefer to avoid.
On the post: Disney: If We Can't Run Club Penguin, No One Can Run Club Penguin [Updated]
Re: Update added
Hello, Mr Masnick. :)
As much as it pains me, I have to side with Disney here (lord, my brain feels dirty just typing those words - and not in a good way).
Consider this from Disney's perspective:
• All the indications are that there's a site using your good name to probably operate as a paedophile grooming tool targeting children. If you don't do anything, you're potentially liable in the civil courts for millions in damages, for tolerating abuse of one sort or another;
• The "proper channels" are the police, FBI and DoJ, who may take literally years to actually do anything, if they do anything at all - and "anything" here seems less than entirely likely, given that they've already done nothing about the site, even after arresting the owner;
• That's without going into the whole FOSTA / SESTA thing, with the authorities infamously ignoring actual widespread abuse, in favour of attacking easier and more PR-friendly targets like Craigslist, et al;
• The courts are notably hostile to anything resembling prior restraint, sometimes even where convicted paedophiles are involved - appeals might keep the site online for years, even after a major win by the state;
• Regardless of what "should" be, the only tools you really have for taking the site down, quickly and more-or-less reliably, are copyright and trademark law.
I think asking Disney to put their faith in the authorities is like asking whistleblowers to keep quiet and let their bosses handle it. I can wish for things to go a certain way, but that's almost-certainly not going to do anything good in practise.
Sometimes, pragmatism has to come first.
On the post: Quibi Is What Happens When Hollywood Overvalues Content And Undervalues Community
I don't know what the opposite of the Streisand Effect is, but it seems like Quibi is doing it's damnedest to find out. I honestly can't remember ever seeing any major venture work so hard to look like some kind of designed-to-fail tax dodge.
Ads that avoid explaining what the product is, complete lockdown on all social media, content that needs to be watched at least two or three times to get the most out of it... hey, thanks Quibi, you've sold us a set of errands, delivered in the form of video landmine shrapnel - just what we all wanted!
Evidently nobody's learned from similar past failures such as the various multi-angle DVD, satellite & cable services, most of VR's history, etc. If anyone misses Quibi after it goes under, just wait a while, I'm sure there'll be another dead-before-launch service coming along in just a year or two...
Or you could just replay Quibi's content on YouTube, where most of it's content is more-or-less guaranteed to end up.
On the post: This Is My 50,000th Techdirt Post, And I'm Busy Working On 50,001
Looked at the links, including that very first blog post. Did people really call it "the hi-tech industry" back then? It all feels so charmingly young. :D
Many congratulations, Mr Masnick.
Onward to 100,000! Onward and upward! :)
On the post: UPDATED: GDPR (Briefly) Blocked Grocers From Accessing Lists Of 'At Risk' People In Need Of Food Packages
Update response
Well, spank my poodle and call me Aunt Jebidisa! :D
Mr Cushing, thank you for correcting the record. It's good to know the people I've put my faith in care enough about the truth to do this. I unreservedly tip my hat: huge respect to you, sir.
I also apologise for my more inauspicious comments, in my exchange with the other commenter. I wanted to find out what kind of commenter he was, which worked, but my choice of words along the way was less than kind and too unfair to yourself and TechDirt.
I'm sorry. I don't always mean to sound like I'm a drunken, abusive, rambling idiot, half the time, but I am, so that's the way it comes out. It's been a very long month, involving quite a lot of rather cheap whiskey. I'll try to do better, next time.
Very well done for finding all those sources. I've just had another go and still can't find some of them through Google, even knowing what I'm looking for. Your research skills evidently vastly outstrip my own. I'm uncertain how you discovered Aberdeen's Evening Express newspaper, which I didn't know existed. I had somehow thought publisher D.C. Thomson went to the wall years ago - it's quite pleasing to see they're actually still around.
Interestingly, the Guardian's article doesn't mention DEFRA at all, but the ICO (For those unaware, the Information Commissioner's Office handles registrations, inquiries, complaints and suchlike relating to the Data Protection Act). I would have thought DEFRA would have their own sub-department for handling things like this, but if they're yeeting all of the things to another government department entirely, it probably explains where the delay came from.
It's still DEFRA's fault, since it's hardly the first emergency they've ever had to deal with - and with 3,500 employees they really should have staff for this - but it does at least make sense of the issue here.
Once again, my unbounded thanks for the updated article.
Stay safe, Mr Cushing. :)
On the post: UPDATED: GDPR (Briefly) Blocked Grocers From Accessing Lists Of 'At Risk' People In Need Of Food Packages
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Alternative view
How the scheme works, from DEFRA's website:
On the post: UPDATED: GDPR (Briefly) Blocked Grocers From Accessing Lists Of 'At Risk' People In Need Of Food Packages
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No.
With that reply, your goal becomes all too clear. You carefully avoided all points of criticism with weight and substance in my earlier post, but you're more than happy to engage with the easier targets you're fed. Being truthful or helpful in any way is not what you care about here, you just want to argue for the sake of it, even if the conversation devolves into nonsense. I think you're just another troll, albeit a long-term troll with a username.
You enjoy yourself, PaulIT. I've already said all I think needs saying. With a lot of luck, perhaps someone who genuinely values TechDirt will pay it some attention, maybe even be encouraged to speak up and complain, the next time we get an article like this one.
Help yourself to the last word.
Have a good one, PaulIT. :)
On the post: UPDATED: GDPR (Briefly) Blocked Grocers From Accessing Lists Of 'At Risk' People In Need Of Food Packages
Re: Re: Re: Re: No.
That's a no, then. Ah, well. At least I tried.
"Do you really think that repeating my login makes your points any more important?"
No, I just wanted to emphasise that I was talking directly to you, rather than being general. In the absence of your real name, a username will have to do. But, since you've already made up your mind to do the partisan thing and ignore bad work, rather than push TD to create something better, there was clearly no point, in hindsight.
"[...] you acting like an asshole [...]"
That's fair enough. /Mea culpa./ If you can think of a better way to tell an otherwise good person that they turn into racist dicks with certain topics, a way that's both kinder and more effective than mine, I'm absolutely all ears.
"I don't think they will be swayed in any way whatsoever by any article written here [...] they just have a blog [...]"
I think you're underestimating TechDirt. When the average mainstream journalist, or parliamentary civil servant, or EU member has to research a new technology topic, where do you think they go first? Some of them will have special advisors for the job, but most will do what the rest of us do: they'll Google it.
Depending on what they're looking for, they wind up reading articles on Wikipedia, Ars Technica, TorrentFreak... and TechDirt. TD - and other sites - have a reach and an influence that can't be easily quantified, but I've no doubt it's there. Just the number of times it's been quoted on the BBC News website is good enough evidence for that.
If TD weren't regarded as some kind of professional writers, worthy of some respect, the BBC wouldn't be quoting them like they're experts - and I certainly wouldn't be putting this much effort into their comment section.
When random advisors poke around the internet for information on how GDPR is working out, I want them to find something better than this article.
On the post: UPDATED: GDPR (Briefly) Blocked Grocers From Accessing Lists Of 'At Risk' People In Need Of Food Packages
Re: Re: No.
Hello, PaulIT. :)
As I understand it, we're still following the GDPR, but only of our own volition, as we're no longer legally accountable to the EU bodies that were previously responsible for enforcing EU-wide laws and regulations. Our government can change the rules whenever they have the time and inclination. Presumably, they're busy with something else, just at the moment.
PaulIT, let me ask you something: you've been posting on TD's comment section a long time, probably far longer than I... when some policeman in the US decides that accurate warrants are too much effort and screws up a drug bust, child abuse conviction, or whatever... do you and I and TechDirt all call that a Fourth Amendment problem or a bad policing problem?
Would TechDirt spend three paragraphs listing out all the problems the Fourth Amendment has allegedly caused in the past, followed by seven paragraphs of new material, where virtually every major sentence openly attacks the Amendment for causing the crime?
Would they do that, PaulIT? Would you - or they - consider it fair and honest journalism, if they did?
I love TechDirt. I've been reading it for years. I wear my Home Cooking t-shirt to work with great pride. Against that, I'm no big fan of the GDPR. It is ridiculously bureaucratic, problematic and poorly written, no question.
But I'd be lying if I said I thought that mattered here. In all the years I've been reading, TD has almost never had a single good word to say about any legislation other than the US Constitution - and on the rare occasions when it has, it's usually lathered in so much hyperbolic, face-fanning incredulity they might as well not have bothered.
PaulIT, do you think anyone in the EU will ever be encouraged to fix the GDPR by reading blatantly dishonest and prejudiced articles like this one? Shouldn't honesty and better speech be a thing, here of all places?
We all have our failings. My own sins and prejudices are far worse, I'm sure. The right thing to do is to help each other overcome those flaws, if we can. Should you really be defending TechDirt - however lightly - when they're getting something badly wrong? Wouldn't it be better to help them improve?
TechDirt can do better than this. They're professional journalists. They can fact-check their sources. They can learn the legal context. They can put their personal hostilities aside and be honest.
But that will only happen if enough commenters like you and I put our hands up, call them on their mistakes and demand they tell the truth.
Do what's right, PaulIT.
On the post: UPDATED: GDPR (Briefly) Blocked Grocers From Accessing Lists Of 'At Risk' People In Need Of Food Packages
No.
The TD article is drawn from two highly dishonest articles published in the Telegraph, an overtly-xenophobic, anti-European, British newspaper. Once the political biases are boiled out a little, the underlying truth seems to be somewhat different.
AFAICT, this is a complete non-story that no other UK publications seem to have covered, in the two weeks since the Telegraph originally manufactured it.
Both the Telegraph and TD try to sell this as an EU problem, but this seems to actually be more of a UK-specific bureaucracy issue.
Our Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was supposed to give that big list to the UK's big-name supermarket chains - but someone obviously dragged their feet on the paperwork they were supposed to do first, causing a short delay.
The Telegraph and TD spin this as being the fault of the GDPR, but under the UK's previous law - the Data Protection Act 1998 (variously amended) - the exact same legal obligations for personal information-handling were in place for at least a couple of decades, as far as I know.
The Telegraph quotes a DEFRA spokesperson as saying “Subject to data protection agreements being in place, we expect this [lists] to be shared imminently.”
Managing data-protection in this fashion has been a normal part of DEFRA's day-to-day business since it was founded. Any delay here isn't down to the GDPR, it's down to DEFRA not getting it's job done in timely fashion, for whatever reason.
Any claim to the contrary is simply a lie.
Par for the course for the Telegraph.
Rather a crying shame for TechDirt.
On the post: In Defense Of Slow News
Hello, Mr Masnick. :)
I don't agree with everything you say - spin is always spin, after all - but I can only very rarely fault TD when it comes to factual accuracy.
I find TD to be a trustworthy source of information. Your approach works well, AFAICT. I tip my hat to you and your colleagues, sir. :)
On the post: Some Thoughts On The EU's Latest $5 Billion Google Antitrust Fine
Re: Re: Hmmm...
Hello, I.T. Guy. :)
No disrespect intended, but your mum isn't really evidence of anything except your mum. From the EC press release linked at the top of the article:
That's the kind of evidence the verdict is based on. Most people do not behave like your mum.
Ha ha ha! No. Apple's walled garden can suck my juicy plums. I've had three Android smartphones in my life. The first one died of a wall at high speed. The second died of hammers. The third died of a large barbecue.
I don't get on well with smartphones. Part of the reason is the mild but ever-present pain in the arse involved in finding genuine versions of things on that fucking stupid Play Store. :P
On the post: Some Thoughts On The EU's Latest $5 Billion Google Antitrust Fine
Hmmm...
Hello, Mr Masnick. :)
While most of what you have to say makes sense, I'm going to have to disagree with you on two points.
First, Google - as well as any other overwhelmingly dominant players in the tech field - now have a clear disincentive from engaging in such anti-competitive practises, either at present or in the future.
Second...
Here on TechDirt, when it comes to video-on-demand services, one point that's been raised time and again is that it isn't enough for a service to merely exist somewhere, in some form: it must be fairly accessible to constitute true competition.
In another TD article today, Mr Geigner wrote:
DLing and installing alternative browsers and search engines is par for the course for you, me and most TD commenters, but not so much for Joe and Jane Ordinary. As evidenced by basically everything, most people just stick with whatever's already there, absent a compelling reason to change things.
Researching for whichever browser might be an improvement for our needs, hunting through the Play Store for it and identifying and installing the genuine version (rather than a dubious personal-data-hoovering piratey clone) is trivial enough for us, but how're the Ordinarys supposed to navigate in what - for them - is largely terra incognita?
Surely, the competition isn't real if most people can't easily and reliably find and make use of the genuine article. :P
On the post: EU Parliament Votes To Step Back From The Abyss On Copyright For Now
Re: Identifying the Author
Oops! The exact Google phrase I used to find prior references contained the word "platforms", rather than "platform". Sorry for any confusion!
Searching for the phrase in singular yields no useful results on Google, but does produce a single result on DuckDuckGo: a mostly-paywalled, IFPI-sponsored 2016 paper, evidently laying the groundwork for Article 13.
On the post: EU Parliament Votes To Step Back From The Abyss On Copyright For Now
Re: Identifying the Author
Jesus Christ. Just seeing that phrase makes me want to fuck my own eyes to death with an exploding frozen kitten.
What in God's name is wrong with you, America?
On the post: EU Parliament Votes To Step Back From The Abyss On Copyright For Now
Identifying the Author
Hmm. I'm sure Mr McCartney supports the letter and Article 13: the legacy system has made him a billionaire and given him a life of unremitting luxury, after all, so he'd be rather hypocritical not to.
Still, there's no question in my mind that the letter was written by someone other than McCartney: the language used is brutally efficient, packing a huge amount of implicit information into a very few, very easily-understood sentences.
While McCartney may be a very clever man in other ways, his use of written English - seen in various published letters over the years - is much more expansive and lyrical, nowhere near as incredibly precise. It's also much more English, as opposed to this very American piece. The letter is just not his style at all, not even a little bit.
At the time of writing, a Google search for the unusual phrase
suggests the only parties using it are the US recording industry: it only seems to have appeared previously in a letter they collectively sent to President Donald Trump, shortly after he took office.
I doubt it matters too much - again, I'm sure Mr McCartney fully supports this insanity - but it is interesting. :)
On the post: Facial Recognition Company Says It Won't Sell To Law Enforcement, Knowing It'll Be Abused
Even in the event of a compartmentalised corporate structure that allows abusive trade to be laundered out (as per AC's comment above), the mere acknowledgement of the issues is something that would inevitably come back to bite them later on. Few such secrets ever seem likely to last forever.
Today, this man and his company show every sign of having conducted themselves with honour. A measure of respect is something they've earned. :)
On the post: Activism & Doxing: Stephen Miller, ICE And How Internet Platforms Have No Good Options
Re:
On the post: In Defense Of Ubisoft: Crowdsourcing Game Content Creation Is Actually Fun And Non-Exploitive
Re: Re:
Having now looked over this project a bit more, it really doesn't appear to be a bad thing, here at the outset: HitRECord don't come across as asshats and the push for this initiative is apparently creator-led - with no small amount of enthusiasm - rather than accountancy-led, which seem to be very good signs.
There's every chance that it could deliver an excellently diverse and rich game-world - and, hopefully, all the contributors will be fairly rewarded.
I can see why Mr Geigner's excited about it. It does all depend on Ubisoft management behaving themselves, however. They're not known for showing their paying customers much more than complete disdain. I can only hope that they've somehow learned a shred of respect.
Moreover, even if Ubisoft do support their new community properly, if this becomes the success I hope for, it really remains to be seen how many other companies will jump on the same bandwagon, but with no better intentions than to rip off their developers and external contributors.
Time will tell.
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