"Why is it necessary to buy booze to drink alone, but not to check out books to read alone?"
Because book withdrawal isn't going to kill anyone. Now is not the time to be putting people in the hospital for other reasons. The alcoholics can detox later.
"how come schools don't teach 'critical thinking'?"
Well, they're supposed to. I remember that being an EXTREMELY popular buzzword when I was in school. But that's basically all it was. Although I guess I'm not sure that I remember it ever being taught on its own really, just vague statements when some kid would ask what that meant when instructed to "think critically" when analyzing a sonnet or something. Not too sure the teachers get it either.... but the words surely appeared on all of the state-mandated standardized testing!
If I were a bit more cynical I might suggest that nobody understanding what those words really mean is intentional...throw the term at kids when they're too young to really get it, so instead they attach to it some false/partial definition of whatever got them through the test -- so something like just explaining in greater detail. Later in life, when they are asked to think critically about something, they'll end up doing that instead.
Yeah, first time I've seen that usage...thankfully Merriam-Webster has a pretty good explanation. Although they confusingly chose to illustrate that with a bunch of embedded tweets that don't actually show the numbers they're discussing...
I can see why this would be a thing people point out on Twitter...I do not see how it is headline news. I'm not sure I "get it" though...if my favorite musician posts a new album, am I gonna reply? Probably not. Am I gonna share it? Sure. So if everyone does that, that means they got "ratioed" and therefore must have done something bad? That doesn't make sense...
...until there's a traffic jam and the cops arrest everyone on the road. If you're doing 5MPH, you probably don't need to see asphalt at all; meanwhile if you're doing any more than 25MPH, that rule will probably have you WAY too close to be safe.
Also, it's hard to call it "objective" when you already prefaced the thing by saying that it varies based on the car you're driving, and it also varies based on the speed and the condition of the vehicle and the condition of the driver...
"If the driver does something to communicate that you're following too closely, such as flashing their hazards or their brake lights at you, and you don't back off, at that point it's definitely a threat. "Start moving faster, in violation of the law, or I will hit you.""
That is not being communicated clearly enough to constitute a legal threat. Personally, I would probably interpret that action as "Wait I want to finish reading your stickers"...because I have a lot of them and get a lot of reactions to them.
"Even if they have no intention of actually hitting you, it's still very much a credible threat, because it means that anything you do to slow down could cause you to brake right into them."
That may constitute negligence, but it does not constitute a threat. By your logic anyone drinking a coffee while they're driving is also guilty of making threats against everyone else on the road. That's not how those laws work.
If your interpretation is correct, why did DUI laws ever get passed? Why did cellphone bans ever get passed? Why did reckless driving laws ever get passed? All of those crimes are just a form of "credible threats" and can be handled under one pre-existing law, right? All those other laws are just a waste of paper! Inspections on elevators? Not necessary, not maintaining it is a "credible threat" that will get you arrested. FDA regulations? Not necessary, unsafe food is a "credible threat". Automotive safety standards? Well, if you produce a car without seatbelts, that constitutes threatening to assault your customers! Brilliant work, now we can repeal all other laws, right?
Yeah, but standing on the sidewalk swinging your fists back and forth is not a credible threat, even if someone happens to walk into them and get punched (that would of course be an assault once it happens, but it's not a threat until then). Driving too close is not the same as threatening to run someone over. Not even close.
Sometimes people do it because they're angry at the person in front of them. Sometimes they do it because they're from a more urban area where typical following distances tend to be shorter. Sometimes they'll do it to read a bumper sticker. Sometimes they'll do it because they suck at driving or they're rushing to get over before missing their exit. Are you seriously going to assert that ALL of these situations constitute a "credible threat" of an impending assault?
At this point I think one of the biggest problems is that people have some twisted belief that money is always clean and always amoral....that business transactions exist in their own special world entirely divorced from the rest of reality. Just last night I spent a few hours arguing with someone who kept insisting that even if the owner and founder of a business is funneling millions of dollars that they get from that business into the WBC or the KKK or whatever, it's immoral to criticize the business because of that. You shouldn't leave bad reviews, you shouldn't call them to complain, you shouldn't boycott, you shouldn't involve the business in any way. Because apparently ignoring where the money ends up is some kind of high moral ideal. So many people -- generally GOOD people -- will sit there and honestly argue that it's actually immoral to try to avoid financing evil. And then they wonder why there's so many sociopathic billionaires running everything. WHERE DO YOU THINK THEY GET THOSE BILLIONS??
But how do you define "users"? Is it everyone who ever downloaded the app? Everyone who ever logged in? Everyone who logged in in the past day? Everyone who installed it once upon a time and forgot about it and left it running as a background service? I have a lot of installed apps that could break and I wouldn't notice. I even have some apps that I use daily that could have major bugs in major features and I would never notice because I'm only using one minor piece of the app. I don't want to be giving others a false impression that these apps work well when I really don't know or care.
As I posted elsewhere on this article, I think a better method would be to weight reviews based on the play/usage time of the user writing the review. So you still only get reviews from people who are actually invested in the app in some way, but one review from a loyal, long-term user will overrule hundreds from people who are just review bombing.
Meh, that's still providing useful information about replayability, so it would be a good metric to have in addition to a star rating. But even better I think would be to weight star ratings based on the play/use time. A one star review from someone who has played a hundred hours counts a hundred times more than a one star review from someone who played for less than an hour. And you'd need some expiry method too, so that a five star review from someone who hasn't logged in for a year isn't overruling newer ratings. So maybe [star rating] * [play time - time since last login]...and then normalize that by dividing by the value as if every user had given five stars.
If you don't trust the manufacturer of the app, why are you installing it? In most cases I trust them more than I trust Google.
Google catches the obvious malware, but they're also the delivery system for the less obvious malware. Moderating for viruses is no easier than moderating for content (it's probably harder, as bad content often isn't trying to hide that fact.) and malware has gotten through in the past and will in the future. Better to download from a reputable source in the first place rather than downloading any random garbage that pops up in a search result and assuming it's safe.
I would argue that moderation isn't really the problem here, the problem is schools relying on third-party services that they have no control over and which were designed for a very different use case. It's an easy enough problem to solve, just post an APK on your own website and nobody can take that down but you.
They do claim that it would do exactly that. But customers report otherwise.
So either they tried to implement that and it just didn't work right...or they did something stupid like breaking if it couldn't verify their subscription was valid.
It's not entirely unreasonable for something like this to require external servers rather than trying to sort out NAT traversal and dynamic IPs and all of that. And it's not unreasonable for something that requires external servers to require a subscription to maintain them. And it's not entirely unreasonable for something to stop working if your subscription expires. Reasonable decisions when taken in isolation, with a rather unreasonable result.
Ultimately I think what it comes down to is that people don't care. People who actually give a damn about their pet wouldn't use a device like this in the first place (it's not gonna WALK the dog, is it? So you still gotta hire a sitter unless you're just keeping it locked up all day.) Instead, you've got people buying the cheapest device possible, with the possibility of failure not even entering their mind, or figuring they'll just go after the company if it does. And that means a device that actually does the job right will have a tough time entering the market since this kind of garbage will be the dominant (and likely cheaper, at least up-front) platform.
Always had a couple dogs and a cat growing up...but we had two parents with fairly consistent hours, two kids, and multiple neighbors who were happy to help out when necessary. I'd like a pet myself one day, but until I have the necessary support to know I can ensure it is properly cared for, I'm not doing that.
"Also note, if you target audience is you followers on Facebook, just write up your ad and post it on your page. This also means that the distinction between user posrts and adverts is not always clear cur."
Right, but that's posted from a user account, distributed the same as any other post by that user account, and doesn't go through any kind of approval process. So yes, those shouldn't be restricted, because they're published by the user and not by Facebook itself. And this law wouldn't restrict those either, since they wouldn't be "knowingly" published by the service provider. Whether or not they could as advertisement is debatable as well -- it depends how the bill actually defines "advertisement", as it's not uncommon for that term to be defined in a way that requires a payment of some kind.
"when a legitimate complaint of defamation is made, they should remove the hurtful, ruinous, false content."
The only legitimate way to determine what is a "legitimate complaint of defamation" is in a court of law, and such courts already have the authority to compel the removal of such content. And if the content is actually illegal, it is not protected by section 230 to begin with.
Otherwise, you have to leave the determination of what is "legitimate" up to the service providers, and let them decide what to remove...which they would not be able to do without the protection for content moderation contained in section 230.
OK...so how do I go post my ad on Facebook by myself without going through any Facebook staff? Because I would think that is what is meant by "user content". The ad model -- I pay them, I give them some specifications, we agree to contract terms, they review the content of the ad, and they they publish it themselves -- doesn't look like user content to me. By that definition why couldn't a newspaper could say that every article they publish is just "user content", with the individual journalists being the users?
Re: The Great Leader doesn't like it, therefore it isn't true
I think this is the wrong argument and the wrong lesson. I don't see any evidence that the problem you are discussing actually describes what happened.
The problem is that the official truth does not and cannot account for the latest information. The official truth is what was true yesterday. Most of what was false yesterday is still false today, but when new information comes in, it can be hard to differentiate it from the outright fraud unless you're actually doing in-depth analysis...and you can't possibly do in-depth analysis of every single article, every post, every tweet, etc.
In theory a lot of people would say that hiding information that those in power don't like isn't a problem in a democratic state, as those in power should generally represent the will of the people. Hiding information solely because it's new, however, is a much stronger problem statement IMO.
The Ninth Circuit disagrees. See the opinion in Lenz v. Universal. The DMCA requires copyright holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notice.
On the post: Senator Tillis Angry At The Internet Archive For Helping People Read During A Pandemic; Archive Explains Why That's Wrong
Re:
"Why is it necessary to buy booze to drink alone, but not to check out books to read alone?"
Because book withdrawal isn't going to kill anyone. Now is not the time to be putting people in the hospital for other reasons. The alcoholics can detox later.
On the post: How Steak-umm Became The Tweeting Voice Of Reason In A Pandemic
Re: might just have to try some of that...
"how come schools don't teach 'critical thinking'?"
Well, they're supposed to. I remember that being an EXTREMELY popular buzzword when I was in school. But that's basically all it was. Although I guess I'm not sure that I remember it ever being taught on its own really, just vague statements when some kid would ask what that meant when instructed to "think critically" when analyzing a sonnet or something. Not too sure the teachers get it either.... but the words surely appeared on all of the state-mandated standardized testing!
If I were a bit more cynical I might suggest that nobody understanding what those words really mean is intentional...throw the term at kids when they're too young to really get it, so instead they attach to it some false/partial definition of whatever got them through the test -- so something like just explaining in greater detail. Later in life, when they are asked to think critically about something, they'll end up doing that instead.
On the post: Michigan State Police Spend The Weekend Getting Ratioed For Bragging About Stealing $40,000 From A Driver
Re: Re: Why is "ratioed" a thing?
Yeah, first time I've seen that usage...thankfully Merriam-Webster has a pretty good explanation. Although they confusingly chose to illustrate that with a bunch of embedded tweets that don't actually show the numbers they're discussing...
I can see why this would be a thing people point out on Twitter...I do not see how it is headline news. I'm not sure I "get it" though...if my favorite musician posts a new album, am I gonna reply? Probably not. Am I gonna share it? Sure. So if everyone does that, that means they got "ratioed" and therefore must have done something bad? That doesn't make sense...
On the post: Michigan State Police Spend The Weekend Getting Ratioed For Bragging About Stealing $40,000 From A Driver
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
...until there's a traffic jam and the cops arrest everyone on the road. If you're doing 5MPH, you probably don't need to see asphalt at all; meanwhile if you're doing any more than 25MPH, that rule will probably have you WAY too close to be safe.
Also, it's hard to call it "objective" when you already prefaced the thing by saying that it varies based on the car you're driving, and it also varies based on the speed and the condition of the vehicle and the condition of the driver...
On the post: Michigan State Police Spend The Weekend Getting Ratioed For Bragging About Stealing $40,000 From A Driver
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"If the driver does something to communicate that you're following too closely, such as flashing their hazards or their brake lights at you, and you don't back off, at that point it's definitely a threat. "Start moving faster, in violation of the law, or I will hit you.""
That is not being communicated clearly enough to constitute a legal threat. Personally, I would probably interpret that action as "Wait I want to finish reading your stickers"...because I have a lot of them and get a lot of reactions to them.
"Even if they have no intention of actually hitting you, it's still very much a credible threat, because it means that anything you do to slow down could cause you to brake right into them."
That may constitute negligence, but it does not constitute a threat. By your logic anyone drinking a coffee while they're driving is also guilty of making threats against everyone else on the road. That's not how those laws work.
If your interpretation is correct, why did DUI laws ever get passed? Why did cellphone bans ever get passed? Why did reckless driving laws ever get passed? All of those crimes are just a form of "credible threats" and can be handled under one pre-existing law, right? All those other laws are just a waste of paper! Inspections on elevators? Not necessary, not maintaining it is a "credible threat" that will get you arrested. FDA regulations? Not necessary, unsafe food is a "credible threat". Automotive safety standards? Well, if you produce a car without seatbelts, that constitutes threatening to assault your customers! Brilliant work, now we can repeal all other laws, right?
On the post: Michigan State Police Spend The Weekend Getting Ratioed For Bragging About Stealing $40,000 From A Driver
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, but standing on the sidewalk swinging your fists back and forth is not a credible threat, even if someone happens to walk into them and get punched (that would of course be an assault once it happens, but it's not a threat until then). Driving too close is not the same as threatening to run someone over. Not even close.
Sometimes people do it because they're angry at the person in front of them. Sometimes they do it because they're from a more urban area where typical following distances tend to be shorter. Sometimes they'll do it to read a bumper sticker. Sometimes they'll do it because they suck at driving or they're rushing to get over before missing their exit. Are you seriously going to assert that ALL of these situations constitute a "credible threat" of an impending assault?
On the post: Michigan State Police Spend The Weekend Getting Ratioed For Bragging About Stealing $40,000 From A Driver
Re: NOW how much would you pay?
At this point I think one of the biggest problems is that people have some twisted belief that money is always clean and always amoral....that business transactions exist in their own special world entirely divorced from the rest of reality. Just last night I spent a few hours arguing with someone who kept insisting that even if the owner and founder of a business is funneling millions of dollars that they get from that business into the WBC or the KKK or whatever, it's immoral to criticize the business because of that. You shouldn't leave bad reviews, you shouldn't call them to complain, you shouldn't boycott, you shouldn't involve the business in any way. Because apparently ignoring where the money ends up is some kind of high moral ideal. So many people -- generally GOOD people -- will sit there and honestly argue that it's actually immoral to try to avoid financing evil. And then they wonder why there's so many sociopathic billionaires running everything. WHERE DO YOU THINK THEY GET THOSE BILLIONS??
On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible; Naughty Kids In Wuhan Edition
Re:
But how do you define "users"? Is it everyone who ever downloaded the app? Everyone who ever logged in? Everyone who logged in in the past day? Everyone who installed it once upon a time and forgot about it and left it running as a background service? I have a lot of installed apps that could break and I wouldn't notice. I even have some apps that I use daily that could have major bugs in major features and I would never notice because I'm only using one minor piece of the app. I don't want to be giving others a false impression that these apps work well when I really don't know or care.
As I posted elsewhere on this article, I think a better method would be to weight reviews based on the play/usage time of the user writing the review. So you still only get reviews from people who are actually invested in the app in some way, but one review from a loyal, long-term user will overrule hundreds from people who are just review bombing.
On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible; Naughty Kids In Wuhan Edition
Re: Re:
Meh, that's still providing useful information about replayability, so it would be a good metric to have in addition to a star rating. But even better I think would be to weight star ratings based on the play/use time. A one star review from someone who has played a hundred hours counts a hundred times more than a one star review from someone who played for less than an hour. And you'd need some expiry method too, so that a five star review from someone who hasn't logged in for a year isn't overruling newer ratings. So maybe [star rating] * [play time - time since last login]...and then normalize that by dividing by the value as if every user had given five stars.
On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible; Naughty Kids In Wuhan Edition
Re: Re: The problem isn't the moderation
If you don't trust the manufacturer of the app, why are you installing it? In most cases I trust them more than I trust Google.
Google catches the obvious malware, but they're also the delivery system for the less obvious malware. Moderating for viruses is no easier than moderating for content (it's probably harder, as bad content often isn't trying to hide that fact.) and malware has gotten through in the past and will in the future. Better to download from a reputable source in the first place rather than downloading any random garbage that pops up in a search result and assuming it's safe.
On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible; Naughty Kids In Wuhan Edition
The problem isn't the moderation
I would argue that moderation isn't really the problem here, the problem is schools relying on third-party services that they have no control over and which were designed for a very different use case. It's an easy enough problem to solve, just post an APK on your own website and nobody can take that down but you.
On the post: PetNet 'Smart' Pet Feeders Go Offline For A Week, Customer Service Completely Breaks Down
Re: How bad is this design?
They do claim that it would do exactly that. But customers report otherwise.
So either they tried to implement that and it just didn't work right...or they did something stupid like breaking if it couldn't verify their subscription was valid.
It's not entirely unreasonable for something like this to require external servers rather than trying to sort out NAT traversal and dynamic IPs and all of that. And it's not unreasonable for something that requires external servers to require a subscription to maintain them. And it's not entirely unreasonable for something to stop working if your subscription expires. Reasonable decisions when taken in isolation, with a rather unreasonable result.
Ultimately I think what it comes down to is that people don't care. People who actually give a damn about their pet wouldn't use a device like this in the first place (it's not gonna WALK the dog, is it? So you still gotta hire a sitter unless you're just keeping it locked up all day.) Instead, you've got people buying the cheapest device possible, with the possibility of failure not even entering their mind, or figuring they'll just go after the company if it does. And that means a device that actually does the job right will have a tough time entering the market since this kind of garbage will be the dominant (and likely cheaper, at least up-front) platform.
On the post: PetNet 'Smart' Pet Feeders Go Offline For A Week, Customer Service Completely Breaks Down
Re: Re: Lazy
Well yeah...and this is why I don't have a pet.
Always had a couple dogs and a cat growing up...but we had two parents with fairly consistent hours, two kids, and multiple neighbors who were happy to help out when necessary. I'd like a pet myself one day, but until I have the necessary support to know I can ensure it is properly cared for, I'm not doing that.
On the post: Rep. Cicilline Wants To Remove Section 230 Protections For Platforms That Host 'Demonstrably False' Political Ads
Re: Re: Re: Re: Partly makes sense
"Facebook exercise no more control over adverts than they do over user posts."
Facebook's own website seems to say otherwise:
https://facebook.com/business/help/2115855188432216
"Also note, if you target audience is you followers on Facebook, just write up your ad and post it on your page. This also means that the distinction between user posrts and adverts is not always clear cur."
Right, but that's posted from a user account, distributed the same as any other post by that user account, and doesn't go through any kind of approval process. So yes, those shouldn't be restricted, because they're published by the user and not by Facebook itself. And this law wouldn't restrict those either, since they wouldn't be "knowingly" published by the service provider. Whether or not they could as advertisement is debatable as well -- it depends how the bill actually defines "advertisement", as it's not uncommon for that term to be defined in a way that requires a payment of some kind.
On the post: Rep. Cicilline Wants To Remove Section 230 Protections For Platforms That Host 'Demonstrably False' Political Ads
Re:
"when a legitimate complaint of defamation is made, they should remove the hurtful, ruinous, false content."
The only legitimate way to determine what is a "legitimate complaint of defamation" is in a court of law, and such courts already have the authority to compel the removal of such content. And if the content is actually illegal, it is not protected by section 230 to begin with.
Otherwise, you have to leave the determination of what is "legitimate" up to the service providers, and let them decide what to remove...which they would not be able to do without the protection for content moderation contained in section 230.
On the post: Rep. Cicilline Wants To Remove Section 230 Protections For Platforms That Host 'Demonstrably False' Political Ads
Re: Re: Partly makes sense
OK...so how do I go post my ad on Facebook by myself without going through any Facebook staff? Because I would think that is what is meant by "user content". The ad model -- I pay them, I give them some specifications, we agree to contract terms, they review the content of the ad, and they they publish it themselves -- doesn't look like user content to me. By that definition why couldn't a newspaper could say that every article they publish is just "user content", with the individual journalists being the users?
On the post: Rep. Cicilline Wants To Remove Section 230 Protections For Platforms That Host 'Demonstrably False' Political Ads
Partly makes sense
Aren't they ALREADY liable for these kinds of ads? Section 230 protects against liability for USER content. Ads aren't user content, are they?
On the post: When You Set Out To Block Misinformation, You Can Wind Up Blocking A Hero Like Li Wenliang
Re: The Great Leader doesn't like it, therefore it isn't true
I think this is the wrong argument and the wrong lesson. I don't see any evidence that the problem you are discussing actually describes what happened.
The problem is that the official truth does not and cannot account for the latest information. The official truth is what was true yesterday. Most of what was false yesterday is still false today, but when new information comes in, it can be hard to differentiate it from the outright fraud unless you're actually doing in-depth analysis...and you can't possibly do in-depth analysis of every single article, every post, every tweet, etc.
In theory a lot of people would say that hiding information that those in power don't like isn't a problem in a democratic state, as those in power should generally represent the will of the people. Hiding information solely because it's new, however, is a much stronger problem statement IMO.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Live Stream Over Copyright Claim...Before Stream Even Starts
Re: Re:
That is the weirdest way I have ever seen of spelling President Clinton's name...
On the post: CBS Gets Angry Joe's YouTube Review Of 'Picard' Taken Down For Using 26 Seconds Of The Show's Trailer
Re:
The Ninth Circuit disagrees. See the opinion in Lenz v. Universal. The DMCA requires copyright holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notice.
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