And no, Pai's behavior - and that of the rest of the administration - is not "regular run of the mill. People thought Wheeler would be unusually bad. He wasn't. Not great, but not unusually bad. Pai goes far beyond even the worst fears about Wheeler.
You're not fooling anyone. You may call him corrupt, but you're using dishonest normalization and moral equivalence claims to defend his actions.
"Providers at the app layer" aren't managing the infrastructure. They don't any sort of monopoly, as is often the case with infrastructure.
If a smart TV only came with specific built-in streaming services, that's fine. There's plenty of selection for other TVs. But if a cable provider with a monopoly on the poles in your neighborhood dictated what streaming services you could use, (or throttled some) that's a whole other matter.
"Providers at the app layer" are the former. If you don't like Techdirt or Twitter's Terms of Service, you're not stuck with them regardless.
If it were a "he said / she said" situation, you'd have a point. If the situation hadn't been impeccably investigated, you'd have a point.
The Moore case situation is "he said / six or seven women plus Moore's co-workers plus a couple police officers plus various others at the mall and YMCA said." With even his closest supporters not even disagreeing, but giving Biblical and political justifications for why trolling for 14-year-olds is acceptable.
The Washington Post did a thorough enough job that they caught onto and rejected a false victim, a hoax claim put forth by James O’Keefe's "Project Veritas" disinformation group.
This has been quite good actually, for the trustworthiness of journalism.
Its just that the sharing was not as visible to outsiders.
Pre-internet conspiracy theories were some times political but they spread too slow to affect a current election cycle. It was the UFO, the Lock Ness monster and sasquatch type theories that were the most popular. Largely because they could be monetized - slowly - with speeches and books.
The internet meant that you could monetize conspiracy theories much faster. WorldNetDaiy and InfoWars made a fortune monetizing inbreds with ads, online store sales and gold scams, using claims about 9/11, the North American Union and the Amero.
Social media kicked it into overdrive. Now you can reach enough people to make a difference in the polls. Because unlike a website or blog, the people who read your message can spread it to a large number of friends with a single click.
You can do it fast enough to stay well ahead of the debunking. Unlike blogs, people are checking their Facebook feed many times a day. A couple years ago (and probably still?) there was an endless stream of anti global warming claims being spread on Reddit and Facebook: Scientists committing fraud. Computer models proven wrong. Predictions proven wrong. These would all get definitively debunked within days, but by then the next such claim was making the rounds. It's the same with political smears.
The elements were in place and in use before social media, but social media made a big difference.
Most people in a church or activist bubble still got their news from relatively unfiltered newspapers or TV news. Now they can get it filtered for their bubble.
When someone claimed that (presidential candidate) was caught red-handed being a Satanist commie, it was unsupported hearsay. Now they can post news stories from multiple sites "reporting" that Hillary controls ISIS. "They wouldn't be allowed to report it if it wasn't true!" Their FaceBook friends don't need any more memory capacity, intelligence or language skills than a chicken trained to peck a "Like" button, to pass the claims along to their own friends.
At the same time, it seems possible for internet platforms to anonymize data they collect in ways that pre-internet commercial enterprises never could.
It's also possible that Steve Bannon will endorse Elizabeth Warren for President in 2018. But that has nothing to do with what's likely.
It's not just what people post on FaceBook, with gaps filled in by their FaceBook 'Friends' contact lists:
When they browse the Web, Facebook collects information about pages they visit that contain Facebook sharing buttons. When they use Instagram or WhatsApp on their phone, which are both owned by Facebook, they contribute more data to Facebook’s dossier.
And in case that wasn’t enough, Facebook also buys data about its users’ mortgages, car ownership and shopping habits from some of the biggest commercial data brokers.
This lets them get rather detailed:
Indeed, we found Facebook offers advertisers more than 1,300 categories for ad targeting — everything from people whose property size is less than .26 acres to households with exactly seven credit cards.
Pre-internet commercial enterprises never had dossiers like this, and never for so many people.
Amazon's 1-click patent expired on September, and now even your local government charges you a $750 1-click payment for a Freedom of Access Act request regarding Amazon.
Perhaps we can respond to the next hurricane the same way. Just refuse to repeat the hurricane meme®. Don't make it part of your (Orwellian) vocabulary. Do the same for earthquakes, cancer and whatnot.
On the post: After Attacking Random Hollywood Supporters Of Net Neutrality, Ajit Pai Attacks Internet Companies
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That would be too big a coincidence.
And no, Pai's behavior - and that of the rest of the administration - is not "regular run of the mill. People thought Wheeler would be unusually bad. He wasn't. Not great, but not unusually bad. Pai goes far beyond even the worst fears about Wheeler.
You're not fooling anyone. You may call him corrupt, but you're using dishonest normalization and moral equivalence claims to defend his actions.
On the post: Absent Facts To Support Repealing Net Neutrality, Ajit Pai Wildly Attacking Hollywood Tweeters
Re: Re: Re: Little details matter.
Being removed from his judge's position - twice - for unconstitutional abuse of power, may be acceptable for Republican officials.
That doesn't make it "a mistake" for everyone else to reject him on that.
YES, you CAN really judge a man for trolling malls and high school events for high school students while in his thirties.
And we can judge you for claiming otherwise.
On the post: After Attacking Random Hollywood Supporters Of Net Neutrality, Ajit Pai Attacks Internet Companies
Re: We've always been at war with EastAsia.
If a smart TV only came with specific built-in streaming services, that's fine. There's plenty of selection for other TVs. But if a cable provider with a monopoly on the poles in your neighborhood dictated what streaming services you could use, (or throttled some) that's a whole other matter.
"Providers at the app layer" are the former. If you don't like Techdirt or Twitter's Terms of Service, you're not stuck with them regardless.
On the post: After Attacking Random Hollywood Supporters Of Net Neutrality, Ajit Pai Attacks Internet Companies
Re: Re:
It's not tribalism or "group think" to recognize that an obviously corrupt official is corrupt or that his nonsense justifications are nonsense.
On the post: After Attacking Random Hollywood Supporters Of Net Neutrality, Ajit Pai Attacks Internet Companies
One can now fill a Bingo card with just Ajit Pai's nonsense.
On the post: Absent Facts To Support Repealing Net Neutrality, Ajit Pai Wildly Attacking Hollywood Tweeters
Re: Little details matter.
The Moore case situation is "he said / six or seven women plus Moore's co-workers plus a couple police officers plus various others at the mall and YMCA said." With even his closest supporters not even disagreeing, but giving Biblical and political justifications for why trolling for 14-year-olds is acceptable.
The Washington Post did a thorough enough job that they caught onto and rejected a false victim, a hoax claim put forth by James O’Keefe's "Project Veritas" disinformation group.
This has been quite good actually, for the trustworthiness of journalism.
On the post: Everything That's Wrong With Social Media And Big Internet Companies: Part 1
Re: Re: Re:
Pre-internet conspiracy theories were some times political but they spread too slow to affect a current election cycle. It was the UFO, the Lock Ness monster and sasquatch type theories that were the most popular. Largely because they could be monetized - slowly - with speeches and books.
The internet meant that you could monetize conspiracy theories much faster. WorldNetDaiy and InfoWars made a fortune monetizing inbreds with ads, online store sales and gold scams, using claims about 9/11, the North American Union and the Amero.
Social media kicked it into overdrive. Now you can reach enough people to make a difference in the polls. Because unlike a website or blog, the people who read your message can spread it to a large number of friends with a single click.
You can do it fast enough to stay well ahead of the debunking. Unlike blogs, people are checking their Facebook feed many times a day. A couple years ago (and probably still?) there was an endless stream of anti global warming claims being spread on Reddit and Facebook: Scientists committing fraud. Computer models proven wrong. Predictions proven wrong. These would all get definitively debunked within days, but by then the next such claim was making the rounds. It's the same with political smears.
The elements were in place and in use before social media, but social media made a big difference.
On the post: Everything That's Wrong With Social Media And Big Internet Companies: Part 1
Re:
When someone claimed that (presidential candidate) was caught red-handed being a Satanist commie, it was unsupported hearsay. Now they can post news stories from multiple sites "reporting" that Hillary controls ISIS. "They wouldn't be allowed to report it if it wasn't true!" Their FaceBook friends don't need any more memory capacity, intelligence or language skills than a chicken trained to peck a "Like" button, to pass the claims along to their own friends.
On the post: Everything That's Wrong With Social Media And Big Internet Companies: Part 1
It's also possible that Steve Bannon will endorse Elizabeth Warren for President in 2018. But that has nothing to do with what's likely.
ProPublica: What Facebook Knows About You
It's not just what people post on FaceBook, with gaps filled in by their FaceBook 'Friends' contact lists:
This lets them get rather detailed:
Pre-internet commercial enterprises never had dossiers like this, and never for so many people.
On the post: Maine Government Agency Tries To Charge Public Records Requester $750 For Opening A PDF
Amazon's Revenge
Amazon's 1-click patent expired on September, and now even your local government charges you a $750 1-click payment for a Freedom of Access Act request regarding Amazon.
On the post: Activision Considering An Opposition To Trademark For Dog-Curbing Company 'Call Of Doodee'
Re:
On the post: Treasury Department Report Shows ComputerCOP Used Bogus Endorsement Letter To Get Police To Distribute Keylogger
Re: Re: Re: soo...
On the post: Treasury Department Report Shows ComputerCOP Used Bogus Endorsement Letter To Get Police To Distribute Keylogger
Re:
On the post: Treasury Department Report Shows ComputerCOP Used Bogus Endorsement Letter To Get Police To Distribute Keylogger
Re: Re:
On the post: Treasury Department Report Shows ComputerCOP Used Bogus Endorsement Letter To Get Police To Distribute Keylogger
This was also DA Roy Moore's most successful shopping mall pickup line.
On the post: NY Attorney General Investigating Why Dead People Supported The FCC's Attack On Net Neutrality
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's what they're doing. The fight isn't about breaking up the monopoly; it's about not creating it in the first place.
On the post: NY Attorney General Investigating Why Dead People Supported The FCC's Attack On Net Neutrality
Re:
I hope they have the standard disclaimer:
On the post: NY Attorney General Investigating Why Dead People Supported The FCC's Attack On Net Neutrality
On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: November 19th - 25th
Re: Re: Without it, they can't sustain their little propaganda war on Putin.
On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: November 19th - 25th
Re:
Perhaps we can respond to the next hurricane the same way. Just refuse to repeat the hurricane meme®. Don't make it part of your (Orwellian) vocabulary. Do the same for earthquakes, cancer and whatnot.
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