A wonderful exploration of terrorist speech/hate speech internet regulation and so many of its pitfalls with guests who have really thought about these challenges.
"The expectation is that the draft directive will push the online platforms/news aggregators to finally roll out a policy to fairly remunerate all those from whose work they make their money."
'Tas been done. They pay the wages of the people who wrote, maintain and improve their search engines/social platforms etc.. Hosting copyrighted content costs them money in royalties (pitiful perhaps, but not free) and legal representation.
The real deal is not "from whose work" they make their money, but "from whose data". But, you cant "remunerate that" because people are giving it up at no cost for digital services.
Given that Langley was handling the official twitter handle of a branch office of a political party, and that the party's rules stipulate that the local party's chairman must authorize all public statements via channels that use the party logo, then it makes complete sense that the chairman (Wood) is responsible.
So, the outrageous thing is not that Wood is responsible for Langley's tweet, but that the motivation for shifting the blame is financial.
But, event that is not so outrageous, because the whole point of defamation law is to provide for restitution for damages. If you'd been falsely labelled a paedophile or someone grooming children for paedophiles you would want some compensation.
The error here was Wood's. He did not treat seriously enough the responsibility of his role as the local party chairman. In the 86 page highly detailed judgement, it seems clear that Wood was doing his best to keep a "clean shop" (no racism, homophobia etc.) but all it takes is one person with less scruples being handed the reigns of an official communications channel and it all comes back to haunt you.
The thing that irks me is that the defaming party looks to escape all punishment. That is the outrageous part.
This sort of comment is why I actually read the comments at TD. Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Actually, thanks to most of the non-troll responses :)
I think the "batting practice"/"sport" argument sums it up best. The "threaded view" is perhaps the most useful actionable response, and the "expand/shrink" feature is perhaps the best useful technical innovation.
Oh, and I found a rather wonderful anti-troll response at The Intercept. Its stolen from photosymbiosis and goes:
Pay no attention to this one. It’s just a youtube comment section bot that has forgotten where it’s supposed to be.
Firstly, well done again TD. Another year of looking issues in the eye and trying to work out how best to navigate them.
I have a pet peeve, and wish to try to address it constructively.
When the comments receive an obvious troll comment either it is responded to pithily and the thread stops there (yay!) or it goes on and on. Personally, I find that the second version just wastes space and I cant be bothered reading it, and just scroll down and down until we get back on topic. I would like to encourage more of the former and have a suggestion.
The easy solution is for people just to hit the troll button, which many do. Great. But, some feel a need to verbally respond. For that I suggest a very small response, which may be an acronym. Perhaps we should have a TD survey to come up with some great ideas and choose one.
Some ideas:
ICGN = I Can't Get No (Satisfaction) ; a reference to a Rolling Stones song but meaning "get a life"
WDFT = We Dont Feed Trolls
You get the idea. I am certain that this community could up with a real hum-dinger.
Then, if the chosen short response is the first response to a troll comment, you can then just hit the 'lol' button for that first response. Thus, you feel like you have helped the anti-trolling but dont need to go through the typing, and you're not feeding the troll either.
Finally, any 'lol' points for the chosen short response are not counted towards "funniest comment of the <period>".
A better suggestion would be to have a new button for "Yeah I agree that the above is just trolling garbage designed to waste our time". But, that requires effort by TD.
Thanks for the input, Drew. And well done for your successes and continued efforts in Canada.
I did my part for this effort. Signed onto the letter coordinated by the EFF, and then got interviewed by the BBC World Service tech program "Click". The lesson? Taking action can actually help. OMG!
Hats off to everyone who did anything, however small, to help with this limited victory.
And, a big h/t to TechDirt/MM who have covered the topic with brilliant detail.
It is important to celebrate victories, however small.
I've been watching Rick Beato's youtube channel. He's a professional musician and music producer and recently had a 30 min chat with a colleague moaning about the lack of variety in today's "top 40" list. Check it out:
They come up with exactly this conclusion. It all started in the mid 90's with the IPO's of the big labels. Its all about money, not about creativity or fostering potentially big artists.
One must assume that Big Content know what they are doing. Article 13 would have damaged the little players. One must therefore assume that that is the intended affect. Aaaaah, they want to kill the *alternate funding sources* for artists. E.g Patreon, bandcamp etc. etc.
That is their **entire point**. To preserve their monopoly on controlling artists.
> Here is a compilation of all my favorite articles from Techdirt: > > ::Lists every article they have ever published:: > > I now own Techdirt. Sorry, Mike.
It seems that those little yellow dots that most commercial printers put on documents they print which ties the printed page to the printer was a major part of the case against Winner.
Interesting article at El Reg in which they also present some recent research by a german group which can obfuscate the secret dot labeling to break the link back to the originating printer.
Have we all missed the most beautiful observation in the piece whilst we rage about gun ownership, the NRA and our view of copyright? The article is about a silly law suit, and the big quote is this:
"The case was filed in Illinois, which has an okay anti-SLAPP law, which means the end result may actually be that Kapoor ends up paying the NRA's legal fees."
The NRA will be laughing. Kapoor may actually be *helping* them. Maybe he pays their fees and they get all this publicity and can spin lines about crazy anti-gun nut artists (the left!) suing them.
"There is no cloud, only other people's computers" FSF Europe.
I am totally on board with what MM is saying here, but please must we use the ephemeral and meaningless term "cloud"?
Eben Moglen was trying to push the distributed approach with "Freedom Box" (an easy to configure, low powered combo server of a website + email etc.) but that project seems to have died.
There are two problems: deployment and uptake. Configuring all the techery to get yourself a secure web service (of whatever type) is non-trivial. Getting other people to use said service is the other challenge.
We are living in the age of "convenience". This, I suspect, relates to the fact that wages have stagnated for the last 30 years and people are living close to their means. They lack the patience and/or time to devote to participating in a distributed web. Add to that the network effect and that's why you get Bookface and Titter etc..
Once you've got that, you get censorship. It all started with copyright protection, then it was scrubbing the neo-nazi propaganda, etc. etc. and then when they came for me there was no one left to band up with to protest.
We've seen this before. Its sad. MM is right to speak out against the risks of centralization.
Can anyone remember Snowden? NSA piggybacking of the centralized big players. Distributed is defense in depth.
I'll be interviewed by the BBC's Click program on Article 13 of the upcoming EU Copyright reform and I'll be sure to give a shout out to techdirt as one of my primary sources on the topic. The show should go live at 19:32 CEST on June 19th 2018. Click's url is https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002w6r2
Hopefully TD gets a little traffic spike from the plug. :)
I am a great believer in following people, not organisations. This is especially true in news. Follow the journalist, not the publisher.
In the podcast I finally 'get' why I like Mike. "Not gaming dig", "Not gaming facebook" ... "It just feels wrong". Post good content and hope that people find it ...
The [linked](http://jeffreyfossett.com/2017/05/13/fcc-filings.html) statistical analysis at is wonderful. Here is the data, and when the publisher is unsure of claims explicitly says so.
You know, using the all too unfamiliar question mark ! ?
Huge issues are raised here. The use of data breaches to auto-spam public feedback mechanisms is, IMHO, the most interesting.
Despite failing to protect developed rabid windows vulnerabilities, the NSA must be assumed to have a very high percentage of border transit electronic surveillance, as per order.
Ah, the fourth. The issue is the definition of "seizure". For they are not seizing, they are copying! c.f. Utah data center.
I suggest a copyright infringement charge x 10^100000 ;)
A wonderful podcast that highlights the *fundamental* problem with US elections and your congress: get money out of politics. (nb: this is a global problem).
The DOJ is using underhanded, inconsistent, and legally absent arguments to coerce the extradition and seize the assets of a foreign national. i.e YOUR justice department is doing crazy work for the content (copyright) industries.
So, the "interested parties" of FOSS people get the story right, but the general (commercial) tech journalists get it wrong (with some margin of error on that statement).
Commercial journalists are on a treadmill and, as well observed, the title "MP3 is Dead" looks great. Compose, link, file, forget.
I saw the issue early, thanks to techdirt, and read the Iprogrammer article. This, I hope, is what we hope our media audience (i.e everyone) will do.
For people: trust and verify. For journalists: doubt and verify
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Hugo Connery.
Great job
A wonderful exploration of terrorist speech/hate speech internet regulation and so many of its pitfalls with guests who have really thought about these challenges.
Hats off.
Re: Re: I'm confused...
Expectation Idiocy
"The expectation is that the draft directive will push the online platforms/news aggregators to finally roll out a policy to fairly remunerate all those from whose work they make their money."
'Tas been done. They pay the wages of the people who wrote, maintain and improve their search engines/social platforms etc.. Hosting copyrighted content costs them money in royalties (pitiful perhaps, but not free) and legal representation.
The real deal is not "from whose work" they make their money, but "from whose data". But, you cant "remunerate that" because people are giving it up at no cost for digital services.
In which the comments section explores the nuance of the case
Given that Langley was handling the official twitter handle of a branch office of a political party, and that the party's rules stipulate that the local party's chairman must authorize all public statements via channels that use the party logo, then it makes complete sense that the chairman (Wood) is responsible.
So, the outrageous thing is not that Wood is responsible for Langley's tweet, but that the motivation for shifting the blame is financial.
But, event that is not so outrageous, because the whole point of defamation law is to provide for restitution for damages. If you'd been falsely labelled a paedophile or someone grooming children for paedophiles you would want some compensation.
The error here was Wood's. He did not treat seriously enough the responsibility of his role as the local party chairman. In the 86 page highly detailed judgement, it seems clear that Wood was doing his best to keep a "clean shop" (no racism, homophobia etc.) but all it takes is one person with less scruples being handed the reigns of an official communications channel and it all comes back to haunt you.
The thing that irks me is that the defaming party looks to escape all punishment. That is the outrageous part.
Re: Re: Anti-trolling
This sort of comment is why I actually read the comments at TD. Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Actually, thanks to most of the non-troll responses :)
I think the "batting practice"/"sport" argument sums it up best. The "threaded view" is perhaps the most useful actionable response, and the "expand/shrink" feature is perhaps the best useful technical innovation.
Oh, and I found a rather wonderful anti-troll response at The Intercept. Its stolen from photosymbiosis and goes:
Pay no attention to this one. It’s just a youtube comment section bot that has forgotten where it’s supposed to be.
lol
Anti-trolling
Firstly, well done again TD. Another year of looking issues in the eye and trying to work out how best to navigate them.
I have a pet peeve, and wish to try to address it constructively.
When the comments receive an obvious troll comment either it is responded to pithily and the thread stops there (yay!) or it goes on and on. Personally, I find that the second version just wastes space and I cant be bothered reading it, and just scroll down and down until we get back on topic. I would like to encourage more of the former and have a suggestion.
The easy solution is for people just to hit the troll button, which many do. Great. But, some feel a need to verbally respond. For that I suggest a very small response, which may be an acronym. Perhaps we should have a TD survey to come up with some great ideas and choose one.
Some ideas:
ICGN = I Can't Get No (Satisfaction) ; a reference to a Rolling Stones song but meaning "get a life"
WDFT = We Dont Feed Trolls
You get the idea. I am certain that this community could up with a real hum-dinger.
Then, if the chosen short response is the first response to a troll comment, you can then just hit the 'lol' button for that first response. Thus, you feel like you have helped the anti-trolling but dont need to go through the typing, and you're not feeding the troll either.
Finally, any 'lol' points for the chosen short response are not counted towards "funniest comment of the <period>".
A better suggestion would be to have a new button for "Yeah I agree that the above is just trolling garbage designed to waste our time". But, that requires effort by TD.
Just an idea.
Happy new year all,
Hugo
Re: Not Unprecedented
I did my part for this effort. Signed onto the letter coordinated by the EFF, and then got interviewed by the BBC World Service tech program "Click". The lesson? Taking action can actually help. OMG!
Hats off to everyone who did anything, however small, to help with this limited victory.
And, a big h/t to TechDirt/MM who have covered the topic with brilliant detail.
It is important to celebrate victories, however small.
Re: Re: Re: Re: You admitted it's MOSTLY Big Tech Lobbying, far and away.
I've been watching Rick Beato's youtube channel. He's a professional musician and music producer and recently had a 30 min chat with a colleague moaning about the lack of variety in today's "top 40" list. Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If2Bli0rZcA
They come up with exactly this conclusion. It all started in the mid 90's with the IPO's of the big labels. Its all about money, not about creativity or fostering potentially big artists.
One must assume that Big Content know what they are doing. Article 13 would have damaged the little players. One must therefore assume that that is the intended affect. Aaaaah, they want to kill the *alternate funding sources* for artists. E.g Patreon, bandcamp etc. etc.
That is their **entire point**. To preserve their monopoly on controlling artists.
One of the best of all time:
>
> ::Lists every article they have ever published::
>
> I now own Techdirt. Sorry, Mike.
A creatively curated copywrong.
Printer tracking strikes again
It seems that those little yellow dots that most commercial printers put on documents they print which ties the printed page to the printer was a major part of the case against Winner.
Interesting article at El Reg in which they also present some recent research by a german group which can obfuscate the secret dot labeling to break the link back to the originating printer.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/27/german_researchers_defeat_printer_tracking_dots/
NRA, 2nd Ammendment, silly suit ...
"The case was filed in Illinois, which has an okay anti-SLAPP law, which means the end result may actually be that Kapoor ends up paying the NRA's legal fees."
The NRA will be laughing. Kapoor may actually be *helping* them. Maybe he pays their fees and they get all this publicity and can spin lines about crazy anti-gun nut artists (the left!) suing them.
Ha ha.
(untitled comment)
Well said.
Flamewars and other joys
I am totally on board with what MM is saying here, but please must we use the ephemeral and meaningless term "cloud"?
Eben Moglen was trying to push the distributed approach with "Freedom Box" (an easy to configure, low powered combo server of a website + email etc.) but that project seems to have died.
There are two problems: deployment and uptake. Configuring all the techery to get yourself a secure web service (of whatever type) is non-trivial. Getting other people to use said service is the other challenge.
We are living in the age of "convenience". This, I suspect, relates to the fact that wages have stagnated for the last 30 years and people are living close to their means. They lack the patience and/or time to devote to participating in a distributed web. Add to that the network effect and that's why you get Bookface and Titter etc..
Once you've got that, you get censorship. It all started with copyright protection, then it was scrubbing the neo-nazi propaganda, etc. etc. and then when they came for me there was no one left to band up with to protest.
We've seen this before. Its sad. MM is right to speak out against the risks of centralization.
Can anyone remember Snowden? NSA piggybacking of the centralized big players. Distributed is defense in depth.
My two bits, Hugo
TechDirt meet's Click
Hopefully TD gets a little traffic spike from the plug. :)
I love your content and community,
Hugo
The ethics of TechDirt
In the podcast I finally 'get' why I like Mike. "Not gaming dig", "Not gaming facebook" ... "It just feels wrong". Post good content and hope that people find it ...
Yes.
Happy Birthday.
This is what journalism looks like
You know, using the all too unfamiliar question mark ! ?
Huge issues are raised here. The use of data breaches to auto-spam public feedback mechanisms is, IMHO, the most interesting.
The birth of creativity
Copyright a language? Social protocol? Morality?
The whole thing is insane.
Who holds the copyright on a work that describes history of copyright?
When has the US sued another nations for incorporating significant elements of its law on copyright into theirs ?
Meta-confusion ...
NSA competence
Ah, the fourth. The issue is the definition of "seizure". For they are not seizing, they are copying! c.f. Utah data center.
I suggest a copyright infringement charge x 10^100000 ;)
The Lawrence Lessig / Aaron Schwartz issue
The DOJ is using underhanded, inconsistent, and legally absent arguments to coerce the extradition and seize the assets of a foreign national. i.e YOUR justice department is doing crazy work for the content (copyright) industries.
Meh.
Doubt and verify
Commercial journalists are on a treadmill and, as well observed, the title "MP3 is Dead" looks great. Compose, link, file, forget.
I saw the issue early, thanks to techdirt, and read the Iprogrammer article. This, I hope, is what we hope our media audience (i.e everyone) will do.
For people: trust and verify.
For journalists: doubt and verify
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Hugo Connery.
Submit a story now.
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