Chicago has gun control. Were you really so stupid to post that without checking?
The real issue is that Chicago has gun control, but not the surrounding areas or neighboring states. The real issue is that gun control doesn't do a lot to address the guns already in the streets. The real issue is that shouting gun control from the top of the roof tops is as asininely simplistic a solution as "Moar cops", "Moar Guns" and "Shotspotter" are.
Bans are very rarely described as a technical glitch. Those quotes you used suggest you are taking a quote fragment from one event and one ban and generalizing it to every event and every ban.
Social media typically directs to community standards, which are valid reasons. The issue is that they often aren't specific. This is generally because they don't want to imply character traits. For instance, Facebook doesn't want to say "IMADouche88 was banned for advocating White Supremacy". Thats not a good look for Facebook and would rightly piss everyone off. See the Boiler Plate on the roger stone ban - its for violating Gettr Terms. Not for impersonating roger Stone, not for fraud, not for anything but violating Gettr terms. Every other ban has that same boiler plate. If they had never banned the actual roger stone, that is all anyone would have gotten over the fake account bans.
You are objectively wrong about the differences, because in this specific case you can find a mildly more specific explanation because they made that mistake. But the actual explanation provided at the time of banning was just as specific as any other website, which is why Roger Stone had to complain on Gab.
The purpose of the copyright is to encourage public release of works. The purpose if he DMVA is to help secure those rights. If it gives power beyond that(which it does), it’s going to see a lot of coverage for its abuses (which are legion)
Generally, Techdirt doesn’t like the DMCA because Techdirt thinks (and i agree) the DMCA goes too far in protecting the copyright without also protecting the rights of the end user and the DMCA also fails to be narrowly tailored to supporting the purpose of copyright, treating copyright itself as the goal rather than only the means to another end. This is why Techdirt advocates a different notice system. (notice and notice rather than notice and takedown) and introducing real teeth to penalties against bad faith takedowns. They advocate reform, so you should expect articles here to only highlight the abuse
Case in point: Marketing material. While legally that material has copyright, and is a valid subject if a DMCA claim, infringement of marketing materials doesn’t harm the copyright holder. Marketing materials work best when widely disseminated to the target audience. The purpose of marketing material is to build hype for some other work or event. To do this most effectively it needs to be shared, repeatedly, to as many people as possible. a copyright only gets in the way of that. It makes the DMCA an odd tool to use against marketing material generally. Using the DMCA to limit the spread of a work intended to be distributed at the expense of the copyright holder to the public at large makes no sense.
The unfinished trailer has the similar issue. They could have played the leak as a marketing ploy. get the rabid fans to watch the raw trailer for free, with no ad buys, then when the finished trailer drops 2 days later they get free marketing as videos compare the unfinished and finished shots. bulls a ton of goodwill by playing into fan interest in how the sausage is made, and the rabid fanbase will the evangelize the finished trailer to less dedicated friends and family. but that doesn’t fit in the focus tested hyper detailed marketing release schedule from which there can be no deviation, so executives throw away the free advertising and shut down that discussion (or at least try to)
Taking down the trailer might enforce copyright, but what it doesn’t do is “promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts”, nor does it protect the market for a work whose marketable value is $0 (arguably, negative because you expect to spend as money distributing this and than not selling it. The movie needs protection, not the marketing. It’s serves the law, but it doesn’t serve the purpose of copyright, it does not serve the reasons copyright exists and can only serve to slow fan support and hurt the content being marketed.
As is often the refrain, just because you legally can, doesn’t mean you should.
How is it a downside that those that can not afford to pay fines don’t pay fines? the root cause of most crime is poverty. Financially punishing a person for being poor is immoral and unethical and only serves to inflict a cycle of poverty based punishment. (interest for failing to pay fines, fines for failing to pay fines, void drivers licenses, arrests, and jail time for failure to pay fines leading to chronic unemployment leading to not paying court fees, resulting in more of the same.
Fines as a form of punishment, in a capitalist system that criminalizes poverty, are designed to keep people incarcerated or in low wages positions from which escape is i feasible, creating a captive serf class in as well as feeding modern slavery.
And that’s before talking about how failure to pay a fine can justify your death by cop.
Defemation is about false statements of fact. The ruling says that no statements of fact are disputed, that only the opinion is in contest, and opinion based on disclosed facts is not defamitory. Maddow can absolutely be held accountable for false statements of fact. Nowhere does the court say otherwise. The court has said that no false statements of facts were made, as supported by OAN's statement.
Bold assumption to assume I haven't just been on the loosing side of the vote.
No candidate is close to 100% on my views. And once the primary (where I vote for the candidate which best supports my veiws) is over (generally with my candidate losing), its rarely who do I support. In my entire voting life (with the first post 9/11 presidential election being my first), the important concern with my representatives is who will do less damage to our representative democracy, not who is best on broadband policy. This has been a non-partisan endevor, though democrat candidates have won that math more than they have lost it.
Worse, while those concerns have tended to dove tail, 'best' on broadband policy is still super bad.
A note about this possibly being about investors is in the tech dirt article:
Of course, there's a lot likely happening behind the scenes here. Just two days earlier OnlyFans announced a separate app of non-adult content, while simultaneously noting that it was having difficulty finding investors, despite its overwhelming success.
I have included the link to source of the claim, which notes that OF is looking to cash out the founder with the investment money. Its absolutely at least partially financial. Thats not hidden. But Advertising? Pssh. Under the current finances they don't need an advertising revenue stream. They have their revenue stream.
I know several non-sexual content creators. Subscribe to one. They need to advertise the OF right and set expectations. Something Belle Delphine never understood, choosing instead to hint at explicit content and providing vanilla content.
Nothing you say here is new, but it also relies on the ability to maintain revenue after losing its core audience. Case in point, Tumblr didn't want to be known as an "adult site". They were a business valued by Verizon at a billion dollars, but after banning sexual content in an ambiguous, its not clear what is still allowed way, Verizon barely managed to get 20 million for what was left. They curated their niche audience, and when they booted that audience off they had nothing left. (And its important they booted off a lot more than porn in booting off sexual material)
Which is why its the dumbest move for OF to boot off that core audience if the move is to get more money.
You are wrong. Betting websites were shut down in 2011 for violating state level gambling as well as money laundering and wire fraud by manipulating transaction data on payouts to appear as something other than income from gambling. While not stated in the case, they likely did not report gambling winnings to the IRS, as required by law.
A corp like OF, looking for investors, is absolutely reporting its income to the IRS and would, like patreon, report 1099-NEC income earned on its platform to the government. I know, for a fact, Only fans requires tax info to pay out more than $600 in a calender year to comply with reporting requirements. You don't report that thousands of content creators are earning over 50K to investors if you aren't reporting that income.
It was a huge MRA talking point that cam girls weren't paying taxes a few years back. This was not based in anything solid. The basis was that at the same time those workers were getting hit by the IRS. But the idea these were people trying to hide income is, generally bunk. It wasn't a widespread issue and those hit were hit because because the sites (chaturbate, MFC) were reporting income to the IRS and the actual issue was many of these young girls were unaware of the special tax situtaion an independent contractor is in (i.e. you need to pay taxes quarterly, not just at the end of the year). The people "not paying taxes" were, and reporting requirements caught those doing it wrong. Which is why it didn't make headline news about MFC not reporting income and being indicted.
The content is legal. It isn't about "not paying taxes". Its about Onlyfans trying to cash out its founder, and finding no one other than a porn mogel wants to invest in a site known for porn thanks to our entire history of law enforcement and anything sex related online.
OF is seeking to limit sexually explicit content to gain INVESTORS.
Why is this meaningful? OF's amazing income, which is the attraction for investors, is built on this content. Just like Tumblr's value plummeted from Verizon's acquisition to Verizon's sale of OF, from 1 billion to 20 million. Nearly Two full orders of magnitude. The major loss seems to be from Tumblr's user exodus in the wake of a no-sexual-content policy that also killed off large Trans and Neurodivergent communities supporting each other, including my discussing unique challenges romantic and sexual relationships faced in these communities. A huge reason some communities left is the lack of clarity for what was allowed (text was supposed to be okay, then it wasn't/.
Its the curated audience problem. OF has a giant audience looking for sexually explicit material. When it cuts off that audience, like a minecraft or fortnite youtuber shifting to a new game, that audience, and the income, goes away.
Any investor looking to invest in OF at a valuation based on the last 2 years growth is a fool, and the attempt to cash out the owner at the expense of those who built the platform's value deserves to tank the entire endevor.
Generally, Fox has used that defense in cases over on air statements made by opinion commentors, notably Tucker Carlson.
Their defense most often builds on previous rulings that despite calling itself News, Fox News has no legal obligation to state factual claims and then claims that no reasonable person would be persuaded that hyperbolic bloviating by an opinion host was actually factual news, despite the use of the word news on the chyron as they are being said. The court thinks a lot of the US is unreasonable and not worth considering.
The core difference with Powell is repeated out of court claims of a factual basis. At this point her argument might still succeed at a summary judgement or in front of a jury. But for instance, whether she had “evidence from [the] mouth of the guy who founded [Dominion] admit[ting that] he can change a million votes, no problem at all.” is a factual claim. Either she had the evidence (a video from other statements) or she did not. And we need to go through discovery to establish the basis for her factual claims before we can assess the "no reasonable person' defense.
That magically 1 phone call makes all of the problems for them vanish, so they just assume everyone else gets the same treatment (or thats their story & they are sticking with it because playing stupid works out so well).
You can't fix the loss of PID with a phone call. Though they probably can get a lot of fraud addressed much easier than You or I could.
That said, I think more likely stealing the identity of a US congressperson is just not a good fit for identity theives. Too much exposure. You need someone small-time enough that they don't have power to fight you effectively, not someone who can bring an army of lawyers to bear.
I act as though we live in a country of laws and believe that lying to a regulatory body about the consequences of a merger to gain approval for that merger is a fraud on the public. CA seems to have little recourse in this case, but has highlighted that the statements made by Tmobile affected approval and were in violation of the law. My point was that penalties are so minor compared to gains that even in a case like this where regulatory bodies call out that material lies were made, they still can actually do nothing, the law provides an insufficient remedy.
Given that a large issue is that breaking the law is merely a cost of doing business for many large corps, the poison pill clause, which would need to be written into a functional standard that can be attached to a merger, is intended to be so ruinous that the gains are not worth the risk of overstating or bloviating or lying or posing conditions you can't or wont meet.
You act like I'm not making this point about merger claims regulators have already ruled were made in bad faith.
I don't understand why the court won't sanction council (Biss) for actively trying to violate a protective order, though I am sure the court will find a reason.. Nunes is not a party to the suit, but is closely related to parties from whom the recordings should be hidden. It is impossible to read the transcript and not come away with the conclusion Biss and Nunes are hoping to subvert the protective order for the benefit of Nunes, particularly given Biss' history of attempting to use unrelated litigation to abuse the courts authority to unmask anonymous speech. Its a pattern of behavior, and he needs to be nailed to the wall over it.
Re: Re: Re: I've said it before, I'll say it again
The system needs to stop thinking in terms of loss-of-money as a punishment, and start thinking in terms of loss-of-stature for the perpetrator(s)
That is just scapegoating if you get caught, IMO. My normal response is to say that we need to treat law and regulation breaking with divestiture of revenues on top of fines, which should be based on the revenue forfeited. Asset forfeiture for illegally obtained goods. Don't use the bullshit civil forfeiture. Criminal forfeiture.
The issue is actually determining what are illegal gains in a merger. And of course, if we let the merger stand no fine or imprisoning of executives affects the math for shareholders with the profits market consolidation can bring. That's why I recommended the destructive act of unwinding. You need to ruin the very idea of lying during a merger. Make it so costly, so no amount of revenue justifies the risk.
Not a bad idea, im just not sure it would handle the issues effectively.
Perhaps an attempted merger could result in financial disaster for investors, but it need not be so for everyone else
The financial hit is expected to be threefold. The first is a hit to the stock price as confidence collapses. This shouldn't affect everyone, but the ability of a company to gain vital short term funding (Terms on purchases, payroll funding) and attract business will be significantly impacted. Who wants to sign a phone contract with a company going under?
The second is in the actual impact on the business. Splitting assets, tossing out a bunch of new branding, paying to restore old branding, reopening closed locations. Expensive customer service due to heavy customer confusion. Lost business as customers move away. The confusion alone could cripple both businesses outright and likely will harm workers no matter what as revenue drops.
The third is the issue that it doesn't discharge the debt. See, we can't force individuals to rebuy the stock they sold for the merger to happen. That's what a merger is, the purchase of outstanding stock so one company fully owns the other. We can un wind the combined entity, but that doesn't pay off loans taken to buy that stock, and now they face just as much debt without the market share they expected to pay the debt off with. This could easily snowball into complete collapse of the org.
The issues faced here aren't likely manageable unless they just maintain the companies separately and don't merge. Its a question of market forces, and the complexity of a company this large with this many customers, not merely a lack of foresight.
Hire back the workers
Who months later should all have new jobs. If the workers are available over a year after the merger, the crippled economy isn't going to support the workforce doubling. And if the experienced workers do have jobs, hiring a second workforce isn't going to be easy, particularly given the financial squeeze both entities will be under. Not to mention the inflationary pressures such an event is likely to cause.
put back the customers
Ignoring that customers might, after forcibly being moved to a new company twice, likely to take the business elsewhere
restore competition.
Which only works if the orgs don't collapse in the split.
A very surface analysis. You've ignored likely snowball effects of a collapsing stock price, and ripple effects on the larger economy to a sudden significant increase in staffing needs. Definitely got me thinking though.
T-mobile has admitted it plans to shave time off the merger agreement. It has admitted it lied when it said, under oath, that 5g rollouts wouldn't impact CDMA service. It wants to claim Dish has no basis for its claims, but T-mobile's blog explicitly states that it intends to closedown cdma before the end of 2022, at best shaving 3 months off the deadline, but just as easily could be 14 months before the deadline. The blog post also explicitly states this is for 4g/5g rollouts.
Mega mergers need poison pill clauses. If you lie during the merger process and its discovered, or if you fail to meet conditions for a merger, the merger should be undone. I know it'll be ruinous for everyone, investor, worker, or bystander. Thats why its a poison pill.
If the company can't risk it, don't do a merger. If the DOJ can't accept that ruin, don't let the merger happen. Otherwise, "The CPUC can impose penalties against T-Mobile of up to $100,000 for each offense." is meaningless. "I fine you a million dollars for telling 10 lies, and then you get to keep your ill-gotten gains" is a big reason regulation is so feckless, it just becomes a cost of doing business. You want anti-trust? Shatter mega mergers. Investors will start avoiding them, start avoiding the CEOs who hype them, and we might see a pivot away from growth by merger as the grift du jour.
Real historical take, trading cards were banned/regulated by gambling laws in many jurisdictions. Baseball cards were an american pastime, and so gambling was redefined in a way to carve out trading cards.
I appreciate you pointing out that CSAM is not an opinion, but is a criminal activity, and isn't even something protected by Section 230 or the 1st amendment.
You say that as if Techdirt hasn't made the point repeatedly that federal criminal crimes committed by the owner of a website are not protected by section 230 and therefore section 230 provides no protection against crimes committed by the owner of a website. What was your point?
-Getting censored proves that your opinion is the strongest.
By your definition of censor, People love to censor the opinion that pedophillia is fine. Guess that is the best opinion?
If your shit gets taken down, understand that someone in your circle thinks you're an asshole.
There are a lot of Conservative assholes who report tweets on people not in their own circle. To assume the same case isn't true of liberals and leftists is folly. We definitely have people who police a public twitter like MTG specifically because they will find anti-vaxx nonsense (what she keeps getting banned for).
On the post: Chicago PD Oversight Says ShotSpotter Tech Is Mostly Useless When It Comes To Fighting Gun Crime
Re:
Social construction of crime. When you steal $100 from an employer, its a crime. When your employer steals $100 from your wages, its a civil matter.
When you shoot someone, you are assumed a criminal by the police. When a police officer shoots someone, a presumption of lawful action is made.
And when you falsify evidence its a crime. When a cop falsifies evidence, its just a civil rights violation in the line of duty.
On the post: Chicago PD Oversight Says ShotSpotter Tech Is Mostly Useless When It Comes To Fighting Gun Crime
Re:
Chicago has gun control. Were you really so stupid to post that without checking?
The real issue is that Chicago has gun control, but not the surrounding areas or neighboring states. The real issue is that gun control doesn't do a lot to address the guns already in the streets. The real issue is that shouting gun control from the top of the roof tops is as asininely simplistic a solution as "Moar cops", "Moar Guns" and "Shotspotter" are.
On the post: Trumpist Gettr Social Network Continues To Speed Run Content Moderation Learning Curve: Bans, Then Unbans, Roger Stone
Re: Probably Not
Bans are very rarely described as a technical glitch. Those quotes you used suggest you are taking a quote fragment from one event and one ban and generalizing it to every event and every ban.
Social media typically directs to community standards, which are valid reasons. The issue is that they often aren't specific. This is generally because they don't want to imply character traits. For instance, Facebook doesn't want to say "IMADouche88 was banned for advocating White Supremacy". Thats not a good look for Facebook and would rightly piss everyone off. See the Boiler Plate on the roger stone ban - its for violating Gettr Terms. Not for impersonating roger Stone, not for fraud, not for anything but violating Gettr terms. Every other ban has that same boiler plate. If they had never banned the actual roger stone, that is all anyone would have gotten over the fake account bans.
You are objectively wrong about the differences, because in this specific case you can find a mildly more specific explanation because they made that mistake. But the actual explanation provided at the time of banning was just as specific as any other website, which is why Roger Stone had to complain on Gab.
On the post: Sony Takes Down Leaked Unfinished Spider-Man Trailer, Releases Finished One Days Later
Re: Re: Re:
The purpose of the copyright is to encourage public release of works. The purpose if he DMVA is to help secure those rights. If it gives power beyond that(which it does), it’s going to see a lot of coverage for its abuses (which are legion)
Generally, Techdirt doesn’t like the DMCA because Techdirt thinks (and i agree) the DMCA goes too far in protecting the copyright without also protecting the rights of the end user and the DMCA also fails to be narrowly tailored to supporting the purpose of copyright, treating copyright itself as the goal rather than only the means to another end. This is why Techdirt advocates a different notice system. (notice and notice rather than notice and takedown) and introducing real teeth to penalties against bad faith takedowns. They advocate reform, so you should expect articles here to only highlight the abuse
Case in point: Marketing material. While legally that material has copyright, and is a valid subject if a DMCA claim, infringement of marketing materials doesn’t harm the copyright holder. Marketing materials work best when widely disseminated to the target audience. The purpose of marketing material is to build hype for some other work or event. To do this most effectively it needs to be shared, repeatedly, to as many people as possible. a copyright only gets in the way of that. It makes the DMCA an odd tool to use against marketing material generally. Using the DMCA to limit the spread of a work intended to be distributed at the expense of the copyright holder to the public at large makes no sense.
The unfinished trailer has the similar issue. They could have played the leak as a marketing ploy. get the rabid fans to watch the raw trailer for free, with no ad buys, then when the finished trailer drops 2 days later they get free marketing as videos compare the unfinished and finished shots. bulls a ton of goodwill by playing into fan interest in how the sausage is made, and the rabid fanbase will the evangelize the finished trailer to less dedicated friends and family. but that doesn’t fit in the focus tested hyper detailed marketing release schedule from which there can be no deviation, so executives throw away the free advertising and shut down that discussion (or at least try to)
Taking down the trailer might enforce copyright, but what it doesn’t do is “promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts”, nor does it protect the market for a work whose marketable value is $0 (arguably, negative because you expect to spend as money distributing this and than not selling it. The movie needs protection, not the marketing. It’s serves the law, but it doesn’t serve the purpose of copyright, it does not serve the reasons copyright exists and can only serve to slow fan support and hurt the content being marketed.
As is often the refrain, just because you legally can, doesn’t mean you should.
On the post: Washington State Supreme Court Says $547 Fine Imposed On A Homeless Man Violates The Constitution
Re: Re: Let's turn that around shall we?
How is it a downside that those that can not afford to pay fines don’t pay fines? the root cause of most crime is poverty. Financially punishing a person for being poor is immoral and unethical and only serves to inflict a cycle of poverty based punishment. (interest for failing to pay fines, fines for failing to pay fines, void drivers licenses, arrests, and jail time for failure to pay fines leading to chronic unemployment leading to not paying court fees, resulting in more of the same.
Fines as a form of punishment, in a capitalist system that criminalizes poverty, are designed to keep people incarcerated or in low wages positions from which escape is i feasible, creating a captive serf class in as well as feeding modern slavery.
And that’s before talking about how failure to pay a fine can justify your death by cop.
On the post: Ninth Circuit Affirms MSNBC's Anti-SLAPP Motion Against OAN Network's Bullshit Defamation Lawsuit
Re: Re: Re: Its a Matter of Law Now
Defemation is about false statements of fact. The ruling says that no statements of fact are disputed, that only the opinion is in contest, and opinion based on disclosed facts is not defamitory. Maddow can absolutely be held accountable for false statements of fact. Nowhere does the court say otherwise. The court has said that no false statements of facts were made, as supported by OAN's statement.
On the post: Cable's US Broadband Monopoly Continues To Grow
Re: Re: Where's the outrage?
Bold assumption to assume I haven't just been on the loosing side of the vote.
No candidate is close to 100% on my views. And once the primary (where I vote for the candidate which best supports my veiws) is over (generally with my candidate losing), its rarely who do I support. In my entire voting life (with the first post 9/11 presidential election being my first), the important concern with my representatives is who will do less damage to our representative democracy, not who is best on broadband policy. This has been a non-partisan endevor, though democrat candidates have won that math more than they have lost it.
Worse, while those concerns have tended to dove tail, 'best' on broadband policy is still super bad.
On the post: OnlyPrudes: OnlyFans, The Platform For Sexually Explicit Content, Says No More Sexually Explicit Content (Except For Nudes)
Re: money money money
A note about this possibly being about investors is in the tech dirt article:
I have included the link to source of the claim, which notes that OF is looking to cash out the founder with the investment money. Its absolutely at least partially financial. Thats not hidden. But Advertising? Pssh. Under the current finances they don't need an advertising revenue stream. They have their revenue stream.
I know several non-sexual content creators. Subscribe to one. They need to advertise the OF right and set expectations. Something Belle Delphine never understood, choosing instead to hint at explicit content and providing vanilla content.
Nothing you say here is new, but it also relies on the ability to maintain revenue after losing its core audience. Case in point, Tumblr didn't want to be known as an "adult site". They were a business valued by Verizon at a billion dollars, but after banning sexual content in an ambiguous, its not clear what is still allowed way, Verizon barely managed to get 20 million for what was left. They curated their niche audience, and when they booted that audience off they had nothing left. (And its important they booted off a lot more than porn in booting off sexual material)
Which is why its the dumbest move for OF to boot off that core audience if the move is to get more money.
On the post: OnlyPrudes: OnlyFans, The Platform For Sexually Explicit Content, Says No More Sexually Explicit Content (Except For Nudes)
Re: Government Beneficiary
You are wrong. Betting websites were shut down in 2011 for violating state level gambling as well as money laundering and wire fraud by manipulating transaction data on payouts to appear as something other than income from gambling. While not stated in the case, they likely did not report gambling winnings to the IRS, as required by law.
A corp like OF, looking for investors, is absolutely reporting its income to the IRS and would, like patreon, report 1099-NEC income earned on its platform to the government. I know, for a fact, Only fans requires tax info to pay out more than $600 in a calender year to comply with reporting requirements. You don't report that thousands of content creators are earning over 50K to investors if you aren't reporting that income.
It was a huge MRA talking point that cam girls weren't paying taxes a few years back. This was not based in anything solid. The basis was that at the same time those workers were getting hit by the IRS. But the idea these were people trying to hide income is, generally bunk. It wasn't a widespread issue and those hit were hit because because the sites (chaturbate, MFC) were reporting income to the IRS and the actual issue was many of these young girls were unaware of the special tax situtaion an independent contractor is in (i.e. you need to pay taxes quarterly, not just at the end of the year). The people "not paying taxes" were, and reporting requirements caught those doing it wrong. Which is why it didn't make headline news about MFC not reporting income and being indicted.
The content is legal. It isn't about "not paying taxes". Its about Onlyfans trying to cash out its founder, and finding no one other than a porn mogel wants to invest in a site known for porn thanks to our entire history of law enforcement and anything sex related online.
On the post: OnlyPrudes: OnlyFans, The Platform For Sexually Explicit Content, Says No More Sexually Explicit Content (Except For Nudes)
A huge angle I think worth exploring
OF is seeking to limit sexually explicit content to gain INVESTORS.
Why is this meaningful? OF's amazing income, which is the attraction for investors, is built on this content. Just like Tumblr's value plummeted from Verizon's acquisition to Verizon's sale of OF, from 1 billion to 20 million. Nearly Two full orders of magnitude. The major loss seems to be from Tumblr's user exodus in the wake of a no-sexual-content policy that also killed off large Trans and Neurodivergent communities supporting each other, including my discussing unique challenges romantic and sexual relationships faced in these communities. A huge reason some communities left is the lack of clarity for what was allowed (text was supposed to be okay, then it wasn't/.
Its the curated audience problem. OF has a giant audience looking for sexually explicit material. When it cuts off that audience, like a minecraft or fortnite youtuber shifting to a new game, that audience, and the income, goes away.
Any investor looking to invest in OF at a valuation based on the last 2 years growth is a fool, and the attempt to cash out the owner at the expense of those who built the platform's value deserves to tank the entire endevor.
On the post: Judge Says Voting Machine Company Can Continue To Sue Trump's Buddies Over Bogus Election Fraud Claims
Re:
Generally, Fox has used that defense in cases over on air statements made by opinion commentors, notably Tucker Carlson.
Their defense most often builds on previous rulings that despite calling itself News, Fox News has no legal obligation to state factual claims and then claims that no reasonable person would be persuaded that hyperbolic bloviating by an opinion host was actually factual news, despite the use of the word news on the chyron as they are being said. The court thinks a lot of the US is unreasonable and not worth considering.
The core difference with Powell is repeated out of court claims of a factual basis. At this point her argument might still succeed at a summary judgement or in front of a jury. But for instance, whether she had “evidence from [the] mouth of the guy who founded [Dominion] admit[ting that] he can change a million votes, no problem at all.” is a factual claim. Either she had the evidence (a video from other statements) or she did not. And we need to go through discovery to establish the basis for her factual claims before we can assess the "no reasonable person' defense.
On the post: T-Mobile Confirms Major Hack, Social Security Numbers And Drivers License Data Exposed
Re:
You can't fix the loss of PID with a phone call. Though they probably can get a lot of fraud addressed much easier than You or I could.
That said, I think more likely stealing the identity of a US congressperson is just not a good fit for identity theives. Too much exposure. You need someone small-time enough that they don't have power to fight you effectively, not someone who can bring an army of lawyers to bear.
On the post: California Regulators Say T-Mobile Lied To Gain Sprint Merger Approval
Re: Re: I've said it before, I'll say it again
I act as though we live in a country of laws and believe that lying to a regulatory body about the consequences of a merger to gain approval for that merger is a fraud on the public. CA seems to have little recourse in this case, but has highlighted that the statements made by Tmobile affected approval and were in violation of the law. My point was that penalties are so minor compared to gains that even in a case like this where regulatory bodies call out that material lies were made, they still can actually do nothing, the law provides an insufficient remedy.
Given that a large issue is that breaking the law is merely a cost of doing business for many large corps, the poison pill clause, which would need to be written into a functional standard that can be attached to a merger, is intended to be so ruinous that the gains are not worth the risk of overstating or bloviating or lying or posing conditions you can't or wont meet.
You act like I'm not making this point about merger claims regulators have already ruled were made in bad faith.
On the post: Devin Nunes' Deposition Goes Off The Rails, As He Keeps Suing (And Actually Gets A Minor Victory In One Suit)
I don't understand why the court won't sanction council (Biss) for actively trying to violate a protective order, though I am sure the court will find a reason.. Nunes is not a party to the suit, but is closely related to parties from whom the recordings should be hidden. It is impossible to read the transcript and not come away with the conclusion Biss and Nunes are hoping to subvert the protective order for the benefit of Nunes, particularly given Biss' history of attempting to use unrelated litigation to abuse the courts authority to unmask anonymous speech. Its a pattern of behavior, and he needs to be nailed to the wall over it.
On the post: California Regulators Say T-Mobile Lied To Gain Sprint Merger Approval
Re: Re: Re: I've said it before, I'll say it again
That is just scapegoating if you get caught, IMO. My normal response is to say that we need to treat law and regulation breaking with divestiture of revenues on top of fines, which should be based on the revenue forfeited. Asset forfeiture for illegally obtained goods. Don't use the bullshit civil forfeiture. Criminal forfeiture.
The issue is actually determining what are illegal gains in a merger. And of course, if we let the merger stand no fine or imprisoning of executives affects the math for shareholders with the profits market consolidation can bring. That's why I recommended the destructive act of unwinding. You need to ruin the very idea of lying during a merger. Make it so costly, so no amount of revenue justifies the risk.
On the post: California Regulators Say T-Mobile Lied To Gain Sprint Merger Approval
Re: Re: I've said it before, I'll say it again
Not a bad idea, im just not sure it would handle the issues effectively.
The financial hit is expected to be threefold. The first is a hit to the stock price as confidence collapses. This shouldn't affect everyone, but the ability of a company to gain vital short term funding (Terms on purchases, payroll funding) and attract business will be significantly impacted. Who wants to sign a phone contract with a company going under?
The second is in the actual impact on the business. Splitting assets, tossing out a bunch of new branding, paying to restore old branding, reopening closed locations. Expensive customer service due to heavy customer confusion. Lost business as customers move away. The confusion alone could cripple both businesses outright and likely will harm workers no matter what as revenue drops.
The third is the issue that it doesn't discharge the debt. See, we can't force individuals to rebuy the stock they sold for the merger to happen. That's what a merger is, the purchase of outstanding stock so one company fully owns the other. We can un wind the combined entity, but that doesn't pay off loans taken to buy that stock, and now they face just as much debt without the market share they expected to pay the debt off with. This could easily snowball into complete collapse of the org.
The issues faced here aren't likely manageable unless they just maintain the companies separately and don't merge. Its a question of market forces, and the complexity of a company this large with this many customers, not merely a lack of foresight.
Who months later should all have new jobs. If the workers are available over a year after the merger, the crippled economy isn't going to support the workforce doubling. And if the experienced workers do have jobs, hiring a second workforce isn't going to be easy, particularly given the financial squeeze both entities will be under. Not to mention the inflationary pressures such an event is likely to cause.
Ignoring that customers might, after forcibly being moved to a new company twice, likely to take the business elsewhere
Which only works if the orgs don't collapse in the split.
A very surface analysis. You've ignored likely snowball effects of a collapsing stock price, and ripple effects on the larger economy to a sudden significant increase in staffing needs. Definitely got me thinking though.
On the post: California Regulators Say T-Mobile Lied To Gain Sprint Merger Approval
I've said it before, I'll say it again
T-mobile has admitted it plans to shave time off the merger agreement. It has admitted it lied when it said, under oath, that 5g rollouts wouldn't impact CDMA service. It wants to claim Dish has no basis for its claims, but T-mobile's blog explicitly states that it intends to closedown cdma before the end of 2022, at best shaving 3 months off the deadline, but just as easily could be 14 months before the deadline. The blog post also explicitly states this is for 4g/5g rollouts.
Mega mergers need poison pill clauses. If you lie during the merger process and its discovered, or if you fail to meet conditions for a merger, the merger should be undone. I know it'll be ruinous for everyone, investor, worker, or bystander. Thats why its a poison pill.
If the company can't risk it, don't do a merger. If the DOJ can't accept that ruin, don't let the merger happen. Otherwise, "The CPUC can impose penalties against T-Mobile of up to $100,000 for each offense." is meaningless. "I fine you a million dollars for telling 10 lies, and then you get to keep your ill-gotten gains" is a big reason regulation is so feckless, it just becomes a cost of doing business. You want anti-trust? Shatter mega mergers. Investors will start avoiding them, start avoiding the CEOs who hype them, and we might see a pivot away from growth by merger as the grift du jour.
On the post: 4 Dems Pushing Game Companies To Drop Loot Boxes Pointing At UK Law That Doesn't Mention Loot Boxes
Re: Re:
Real historical take, trading cards were banned/regulated by gambling laws in many jurisdictions. Baseball cards were an american pastime, and so gambling was redefined in a way to carve out trading cards.
On the post: Now It's Harvard Business Review Getting Section 230 Very, Very Wrong
Re: Additional Appreciation
You say that as if Techdirt hasn't made the point repeatedly that federal criminal crimes committed by the owner of a website are not protected by section 230 and therefore section 230 provides no protection against crimes committed by the owner of a website. What was your point?
By your definition of censor, People love to censor the opinion that pedophillia is fine. Guess that is the best opinion?
On the post: Bad Faith Politicians Are Using Social Media Suspension To Boost Their Own Profiles
Re: Re: Stop Defining, Start Announcing
There are a lot of Conservative assholes who report tweets on people not in their own circle. To assume the same case isn't true of liberals and leftists is folly. We definitely have people who police a public twitter like MTG specifically because they will find anti-vaxx nonsense (what she keeps getting banned for).
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