So this here is the post that was thrown in the moderation queue. What could have triggered this? Let's see... no swearing. No aggressiveness. No insults. Not even so much as an ad hominem. No links. There is nothing in the moderated post that I am replying to that could be interpreted by any rational spam algorithm as questionable in any way.
Unless... 'Google is evil'? That's got to be it. The only conclusion I can really come to from this incident is either (1) Techdirt puts any post in a moderation queue if it combines the words 'Google' and 'evil' or (2) because I recently criticised Google a lot in another thread, including taking Mike personally to task on his opinion, I've been put in a category of poster where I personally cannot post things like 'Google is evil' without being put in a moderation queue.
Either way, this kind of moderation obviously reflects very badly on Techdirt. Even though I agree with 99% of stuff posted here, I am really starting suspect that the haters are onto something when it comes to Techdirt and Google.
Yes yes, moderation takes time. I understand this. I'm just wondering why some of my posts are suddenly going into a moderation queue, when none of them were, before. It certainly doesn't make one feel welcome, but then... maybe that's the point.
Why are my comments suddenly being moderated now? Can anyone reading this thread really see a sensible reason to moderate me, other than disagreeing with whatever I said?
Interesting. It has always been Yahoo from the start. Later on it seems you are right b/c they've added Bing as an option, which is not much of an improvement in my book.
Anyway, even if they were reskinning Google itself, if they are based in the US they are in the same legal position as Google. I don't think Google is evil. I think their moves have been partially dictated by a sort of risk management analysis following the lead of an overweeningly intrusive government that holds all the cards. Duckduckgo operates under that same regime - this is the main takeaway point I'd like to make, regardless of what's under the hood.
(1) People's 'real names' don't get audited until other users complain about them, so if you said nothing controversial or that ever pissed anyone off, ever in your life, you were probably never going to have your 'real name' audited, anyway. You could have chosen 'Cookie Monster' as your name, and as long as you never actually posted anything for anyone to find objectionable, you would never be audited. Therefore, people's anecdotal stories of how they were able to use weird names are not really relevant to the situation being discussed - they misunderstand the way the policy operates. It operates on people who aren't shrinking 'violet's.
(2) People don't want just any name. The point of choosing a name is to be able to choose the pseudonym YOU WANT. Not the pseudonyms left over after Google has disqualified anything remotely interesting. People want to choose the names they had already branded themselves with in other media, not 'Kirk Jones' #356.
So, all you people who come out with things like, 'I just did it the way Google wanted me to do it, and I had no problem.' WAY TO MISS THE DAMNED POINT
Duckduckgo is primarily Yahoo with a different skin. If you like Yahoo's search engine but don't want Yahoo to be able to track you, use Duckduckgo. If, like me, however, you have always found Yahoo's search to be the most piss poor pile or irrelevance in the universe, then the fact that Duckduckgo is providing you with a condom for using it is not going to sound very attractive.
Besides which, Duckduckgo is based in the USA, which means regardless of what they claim to their users, the US govt can serve them with a National Security Letter (NSL) that will force them to turn on logging software in order to track you. NSLs automatically include a gag order preventing them from revealing to the public that the US govt has secretly forced them to do the precise opposite of what they claimed. (This is why Lavabit shutdown - it was either that or be forced to lie.)
So the salient question a person with a healthy, accurate dose of modern paranoia should ask about Duckduckgo is not, 'What do they claim about my privacy?' but rather 'Is this a company I trust to GO OUT OF BUSINESS rather than obey a secret govt order to do the opposite of what they claim about privacy?'
The only rational answer to this question is, 'No.' That is why the American gov't has completely destroyed the credibility of the American tech industry when it comes to privacy. Repairing this problem is going to be very, very difficult, and considering the incredible role that privacy and govt-enforced secrecy have played, convincing people that they are not being lied to when told that the problem is repaired is going to be nearly impossible, for a long, long time.
Google's description of the history of its own service is not just woefully lacking, but glaringly propagandistic.
Google Plus did NOT begin by requiring real name. It began with a wild exuberant party to which absolutely everyone with any sort of Google identity was invited. Google had never asked for a real name before in any of its products, and it didn't start with G+.
A few months later, AFTER the service had its jumpstart into wide adoption helped along by a whole lot of unmitigatedly positive buzz, Google pulled what should now be a bait-and-switch so infamous that their PR should not be able to lie about it without having egg all over their face. After getting everyone to sign up, Google suddenly started suspending accounts indiscriminately, subjecting them to a draconian 'real names' review process which involved for the first time ever, for Google, real name documentation. We were all completely blindsided by this.
As we all recall, there was a great hue and cry. Google said you could close your G+ account without affecting much else. They lied. People tried it and a fair number lost access to years of Gmail over this. Google had to fix that.
A few months and tons of spilled digital ink later, Google put out a press release that they were no longer requiring real names. Another lie. They were still requiring real names, but would let you choose a pseudonym in slightly more circumstances than they had been before (you could get permission to use a pseudonym if you were a minor celebrity instead of a major celebrity - ordinary unknown grunts could still go pound sand).
A few months after that, Google announced that they were liberating their real names policy even more, which was odd, since they said they had sort of stopped it before, but apparently they were stopping it again. Only they didn't really stop it, I guess, because here we are a couple of years later, and they are stopping the crappy harmful that they already claimed they stopped, once again.
Well it's too fucking late. I don't believe Google's promises anymore, and even if I did, I closed my G+ account ages ago, and a whitewashed revisionist history of the situation is no way to make amends.
While I agree with your general point, it simply isn't true that "every time a creator puts their creative works on line for down load, while not requiring payment, that too is copyrighted stuff that is available free".
A significant and increasing number of creators are releasing their works directly into the Public Domain (which you can accomplish by using the Creative Commons non-licence CC0). Unlike every other licence inluding all other CC licences, releasing into the Public Domain is not a permissive copyright licence, but rather a form of renouncing copyright altogether, obviating any legal requirement for any licensing of that work, ever.
Anyone who thinks people wanting to remix works in order to produce a commentary on them is about 'getting copyright stuff free' is really not thinking very clearly.
Furthermore, anyone who thinks people WATCH remix works because they want to see the original 'copyright stuff free' has got to have some form of brain damage going on...
I don't get you and Mike. How difficult is it to understand that the holding your former URL hostage in order to force you to sign a new deal is extortion?
How difficult is it to understand that the right thing to do here was to allow indie labels to opt out and STILL KEEP THEIR OLD URL. There is no Earthly reason not to allow this. Mike's blustering about legal liability is just -- bluster. Any change in liability could have been accomplished by having the user sign an opt out waiver in order to keep their music video's canonical URL. Since You Tube didn't provide this no-brainer option, clearly they are trying to railroad users into accepting rights by threatening to destroy data they've accumulated.
It is totally unethical and congratulations: you two are not only helping Google, you're pretending as if this is the only way.
My respect for Techdirt has just gone through the floor on this. I definitely don't think I will trust anything y'all ever have to say about Google again -- I'll have to make damn sure to corroborate your nonsense elsewhere.
'Gee... that's an awfully great music video. What's it got? 100,000 views? How many likes? How many comments? That's a lot of momentum you've built behind that URL! It'd be a shame if anything were to suddenly... happen to that URL that would force to re-upload all over again and start from zero. But you can keep that URL by signing this new contract...'
This is what you're supporting Mike, and I'm shaking my head here, wondering why you can't see this from the uploader's point-of-view. I never credited any accusations that you have a blind spot for Google, but this article here is the first that has ever given me pause.
You called this one wrong, period. YouTube's 'sign on the dotted line or be removed' tactics are pure slime, and obviously a form of extortion. Sooner you own up to that, the better for all of us.
If you click on such links, then you are a fool. I never do and that is the main reason that I have never been hacked. In fact, if your *only* security measure were to not click on links to well-known sites sent to you via email, then you probably would not even need an antivirus (although you should install one, anyway).
Blame the user is absolutely the correct mantra here, since it is the ONE PHILOSOPHY that will result in NO INFECTIONS FOR THE USER once that user realises that he/she is at fault for putting faith in a plaintext medium with zero security.
What kind of a cryptographer clicks links to a well-known site received via *email* instead of opening a browser and typing the address in manually? The fact that he fell prey to the simplest and most easily avoided attack in the world does not speak very well for Mr. Quisquater. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt by speculating that maybe his expertise is not in the area of malware, and advise him to take the most basic, remedial course on how remain secure, online.
So let me get this straight. Canada, which recently passed a new copyright law OUTLAWING the public from cracking DRM encryption for ANY purpose on penalty of IMPRISONMENT -- at the direct behest (according to leaked docs) OF the U.S. governemt -- has been secretly cracking the public's encryption FOR the U.S. government.
Maybe Canadians should just put DRM on all their online communications -- maybe then finally some spooks would go to jail. (Sorry, I was briefly indulging in the old school fantasy that the laws in a democracy apply to everyone. Forgive me naivete but I am, after all, over 40...)
This article would be a lot better if it actually stated what is the length of time that EA currently keeps their servers alive before shutting them down. Seeing as the alleged shortness of that window is the entire reason I am supposed to read this and get angry, it would be good to have been given that information in the actual article, instead of by a random (and possibly mistaken) commenter.
I don't perceive Techdirt as a soap opera, so I don't expect understanding each article to depend on having kept up and read the articles before. That's not what I want in a news site; I doubt that's what anybody wants in a news site.
Re: I don't understand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_bond
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Canadian_Criminal_Proced ure_and_Practice/Pre-Trial_Matters/Peace_Bonds
Pain!!!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Google Revises History - Again
If this happens to me again I will compain again the same way. Y'all will have to ban me to stop me complaining about this kind of thing.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Google Revises History - Again
Unless... 'Google is evil'? That's got to be it. The only conclusion I can really come to from this incident is either (1) Techdirt puts any post in a moderation queue if it combines the words 'Google' and 'evil' or (2) because I recently criticised Google a lot in another thread, including taking Mike personally to task on his opinion, I've been put in a category of poster where I personally cannot post things like 'Google is evil' without being put in a moderation queue.
Either way, this kind of moderation obviously reflects very badly on Techdirt. Even though I agree with 99% of stuff posted here, I am really starting suspect that the haters are onto something when it comes to Techdirt and Google.
Re: Comcast and Reddit AMA - at the same time?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Google Revises History - Again
Re: Re: I had to use my real name?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Google Revises History - Again
Re: Re: Re: Re: Google Revises History - Again
Anyway, even if they were reskinning Google itself, if they are based in the US they are in the same legal position as Google. I don't think Google is evil. I think their moves have been partially dictated by a sort of risk management analysis following the lead of an overweeningly intrusive government that holds all the cards. Duckduckgo operates under that same regime - this is the main takeaway point I'd like to make, regardless of what's under the hood.
Re: I had to use my real name?
(1) People's 'real names' don't get audited until other users complain about them, so if you said nothing controversial or that ever pissed anyone off, ever in your life, you were probably never going to have your 'real name' audited, anyway. You could have chosen 'Cookie Monster' as your name, and as long as you never actually posted anything for anyone to find objectionable, you would never be audited. Therefore, people's anecdotal stories of how they were able to use weird names are not really relevant to the situation being discussed - they misunderstand the way the policy operates. It operates on people who aren't shrinking 'violet's.
(2) People don't want just any name. The point of choosing a name is to be able to choose the pseudonym YOU WANT. Not the pseudonyms left over after Google has disqualified anything remotely interesting. People want to choose the names they had already branded themselves with in other media, not 'Kirk Jones' #356.
So, all you people who come out with things like, 'I just did it the way Google wanted me to do it, and I had no problem.' WAY TO MISS THE DAMNED POINT
Re: Re: Google Revises History - Again
Besides which, Duckduckgo is based in the USA, which means regardless of what they claim to their users, the US govt can serve them with a National Security Letter (NSL) that will force them to turn on logging software in order to track you. NSLs automatically include a gag order preventing them from revealing to the public that the US govt has secretly forced them to do the precise opposite of what they claimed. (This is why Lavabit shutdown - it was either that or be forced to lie.)
So the salient question a person with a healthy, accurate dose of modern paranoia should ask about Duckduckgo is not, 'What do they claim about my privacy?' but rather 'Is this a company I trust to GO OUT OF BUSINESS rather than obey a secret govt order to do the opposite of what they claim about privacy?'
The only rational answer to this question is, 'No.' That is why the American gov't has completely destroyed the credibility of the American tech industry when it comes to privacy. Repairing this problem is going to be very, very difficult, and considering the incredible role that privacy and govt-enforced secrecy have played, convincing people that they are not being lied to when told that the problem is repaired is going to be nearly impossible, for a long, long time.
Google Revises History - Again
Google Plus did NOT begin by requiring real name. It began with a wild exuberant party to which absolutely everyone with any sort of Google identity was invited. Google had never asked for a real name before in any of its products, and it didn't start with G+.
A few months later, AFTER the service had its jumpstart into wide adoption helped along by a whole lot of unmitigatedly positive buzz, Google pulled what should now be a bait-and-switch so infamous that their PR should not be able to lie about it without having egg all over their face. After getting everyone to sign up, Google suddenly started suspending accounts indiscriminately, subjecting them to a draconian 'real names' review process which involved for the first time ever, for Google, real name documentation. We were all completely blindsided by this.
As we all recall, there was a great hue and cry. Google said you could close your G+ account without affecting much else. They lied. People tried it and a fair number lost access to years of Gmail over this. Google had to fix that.
A few months and tons of spilled digital ink later, Google put out a press release that they were no longer requiring real names. Another lie. They were still requiring real names, but would let you choose a pseudonym in slightly more circumstances than they had been before (you could get permission to use a pseudonym if you were a minor celebrity instead of a major celebrity - ordinary unknown grunts could still go pound sand).
A few months after that, Google announced that they were liberating their real names policy even more, which was odd, since they said they had sort of stopped it before, but apparently they were stopping it again. Only they didn't really stop it, I guess, because here we are a couple of years later, and they are stopping the crappy harmful that they already claimed they stopped, once again.
Well it's too fucking late. I don't believe Google's promises anymore, and even if I did, I closed my G+ account ages ago, and a whitewashed revisionist history of the situation is no way to make amends.
*Forever G Minus
Re: we can't get copyrighted stuff free
A significant and increasing number of creators are releasing their works directly into the Public Domain (which you can accomplish by using the Creative Commons non-licence CC0). Unlike every other licence inluding all other CC licences, releasing into the Public Domain is not a permissive copyright licence, but rather a form of renouncing copyright altogether, obviating any legal requirement for any licensing of that work, ever.
Re:
Furthermore, anyone who thinks people WATCH remix works because they want to see the original 'copyright stuff free' has got to have some form of brain damage going on...
Re: Re: YouTube is just implementing user 'protection'
How difficult is it to understand that the right thing to do here was to allow indie labels to opt out and STILL KEEP THEIR OLD URL. There is no Earthly reason not to allow this. Mike's blustering about legal liability is just -- bluster. Any change in liability could have been accomplished by having the user sign an opt out waiver in order to keep their music video's canonical URL. Since You Tube didn't provide this no-brainer option, clearly they are trying to railroad users into accepting rights by threatening to destroy data they've accumulated.
It is totally unethical and congratulations: you two are not only helping Google, you're pretending as if this is the only way.
My respect for Techdirt has just gone through the floor on this. I definitely don't think I will trust anything y'all ever have to say about Google again -- I'll have to make damn sure to corroborate your nonsense elsewhere.
YouTube is just implementing user 'protection'
This is what you're supporting Mike, and I'm shaking my head here, wondering why you can't see this from the uploader's point-of-view. I never credited any accusations that you have a blind spot for Google, but this article here is the first that has ever given me pause.
You called this one wrong, period. YouTube's 'sign on the dotted line or be removed' tactics are pure slime, and obviously a form of extortion. Sooner you own up to that, the better for all of us.
Re: Re:
Blame the user is absolutely the correct mantra here, since it is the ONE PHILOSOPHY that will result in NO INFECTIONS FOR THE USER once that user realises that he/she is at fault for putting faith in a plaintext medium with zero security.
(untitled comment)
(untitled comment)
Maybe Canadians should just put DRM on all their online communications -- maybe then finally some spooks would go to jail. (Sorry, I was briefly indulging in the old school fantasy that the laws in a democracy apply to everyone. Forgive me naivete but I am, after all, over 40...)
(untitled comment)
I don't perceive Techdirt as a soap opera, so I don't expect understanding each article to depend on having kept up and read the articles before. That's not what I want in a news site; I doubt that's what anybody wants in a news site.
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