urza9814 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Elon Musk Demonstrates How Little He Understands About Content Moderation

    urza9814 ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2022 @ 10:56am

    I don't think he's missed that at all, really. This guy founds new companies on a whim. If he really thought he could do better, he'd just do it. Surely he knows it would not be that difficult to replicate the platform itself. Wouldn't cost nearly as much as what it'll cost to buy it out. The only logical reason to buy Twitter is to buy the established audience. Their value is not in the platform, it's in the users. Of course, that just leaves us with a whole new set of questions. It is pointless to hypothesize about what he might want to do to the platform; those answers will ultimately be driven by what he wants to do with the users. And that, perhaps, is why his answers here make so little sense and seem so poorly thought out -- that's not the part he's actually spending time thinking about. Or perhaps he's just running a massive pump and dump scam -- promise to solve all Twitter's problems, get people more interested in it, drive the stock price up a bit, and then sell it all. He's already talking about selling it all. Brilliant strategy, he can suck money out of the investors and get them to blame Twitter for not being willing to destroy their platform for him!

  • On the post: Court Says City Of Baltimore's 'Heckler's Veto' Of An Anti-Catholic Rally Violates The First Amendment

    urza9814 ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2021 @ 05:23pm

    Re:

    I highly doubt Trump is capable of such an accurate assessment...

  • On the post: Texas Legislature Has Another Ridiculous And Unconstitutional Content Moderation Bill; Say Goodbye To Email Filters

    urza9814 ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2021 @ 08:43am

    Re: Re: IMPEDING ELECTRONIC MAIL MESSAGES PROHIBITED

    They do. Email also ought to be covered by the "right to petition for redress of grievances". But did they argue that the mailboxes should have infinite capacity or that it should be illegal to delete such messages or that they couldn't hire a third party service to listen to those messages?

  • On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible To Do Well: Series About Antisemitism Removed By Instagram For Being Antisemetic

    urza9814 ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2021 @ 03:02am

    Faulty premise

    The problem with this whole argument is it's all built upon what I think is likely a flawed premise that this removal was some kind of unintentional collateral damage. Given Face-tagram's history, I find that implausible.

    If you consider the possibility that the moderation guidelines aren't meant to promote "good" content or police hate speech or anything like that, but are instead designed primarily to reduce controversy, then this makes a lot more sense. They don't want to kick out or drive away the Nazis, that's bad for business! They also don't want to be investigated and questioned by cops and government officials. They want a bland, sanitized, advertiser-friendly network. They aren't doing this to push social progress, they're doing it so they can be the place where Nazis and Antifa alike can chat with grandma and wish their college roommate a happy birthday and never encounter anything that might make them too uncomfortable.

    Perhaps, with sufficient public outrage, they'll restore this video. Perhaps they'll decide the controversy of removing it is worse than the controversy of leaving it up. That still won't make them good people though...

  • On the post: Report Again Finds US Government IT Security Sucks, Three Years After Saying The Same Thing

    urza9814 ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2021 @ 07:49am

    Re: Re:

    If they ever bothered to seriously prosecute the negligent corporations that made systems with less security awareness than an average nine year old things would change real fast. But as long as breaches don't actually cost these companies anything at all it would be pretty illogical for them to spend the money for proper security... Next time a sensitive government system gets hacked through some unintentional back door or some undisclosed "support" account, fine them a couple million and give the CTO a year behind bars, it'll be the last time that ever happens.

  • On the post: Report Again Finds US Government IT Security Sucks, Three Years After Saying The Same Thing

    urza9814 ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2021 @ 07:19am

    Go after the negligence!

    Anyone else notice that when there's some massive hack caused by someone putting systems on the open internet with a password of 1234, they act like it's some natural disaster on act of terrorism instead of properly handling it as a simple act of corporate negligence! Security costs money, breaches currently do not.

  • On the post: Anti-Vaxxers Countermeasures Show Why It's Not So Simple To Just 'Delete' Anti-Vax Misinfo On Social Media

    urza9814 ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2021 @ 03:29pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Oh, and in addition to "wear your damn masks", stay the heck out of crowded bars and clubs and such! I really don't think those morons are any better than the anti-vaxxers. This global pandemic is not magically ended just because you personally got a somewhat effective prophylactic! It is not party time yet! An anti-vaxxer who stays home is still a MUCH lower risk than the unmasked vaccinated guy at a rave...

  • On the post: Anti-Vaxxers Countermeasures Show Why It's Not So Simple To Just 'Delete' Anti-Vax Misinfo On Social Media

    urza9814 ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2021 @ 03:20pm

    Re: Re:

    The antivaxers are far from the only problem though. The vaccinated ones acting like it's a 100% effective full immunity aren't helping much either. We know the vaccines aren't 100% effective at preventing symptoms. We suspect they're even less effective at preventing infection. We know that vaccination can create a higher rate of asymptomatic carriers, which is one of the biggest problems with covid to begin with! If the mask mandates had stayed in place we could have stopped this. With the current tactics, we can only hope the vaccines alone will be enough, and it doesn't look like they will be. Wear your damn masks, people! It legitimately feels like our elected officials are trying to keep this pandemic around sometimes...every time we start to make progress they all trip over each other racing to roll back protections before the rates can fall too far..and then the rates start to climb again and everyone acts like it's a complete mystery why... TL;DR: the world is full of idiots and anti-vaxxers are merely one particularly potent strain...

  • On the post: LA Court Abusing Copyright Law To Take Down (Unauthorized) Recording Of Britney Spears Hearing

    urza9814 ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2021 @ 08:08am

    Re: YouTube mistake?

    I don't think "They didn't have the form I wanted" is a valid defense against perjury....surely there are ways to serve a court order to YouTube even if they don't have an automated system set up to handle it.

  • On the post: A Second Cambrian Explosion of Open Source Licenses Or Is it Time For Open Source Lawyers to Have Fun Again?

    urza9814 ( profile ), 29 May, 2021 @ 03:48am

    Re: Re: Re: Call a spade a spade

    Well sure, but it's fraud to call this an open license, and it's kinda fraud to call it a license at all. It's no different that a regular copyright really. You can use it as you want until they decide you can't. Most licenses can't be revoked in that way. Most licenses have clearly defined terms. And furthermore...I think this document claims rights that they legally do not have. Ultimately it's all based on copyright, right? You agree to and comply with the terms or it's copyright infringement. Since when does the copyright holder of a book get to say who can READ or OWN the book though? Copyright covers production and distribution, not use. This license is trying to claim a right to regulate use. You could say it's just a combined distribution license and EULA, but EULAs cover services. A document isn't a service. You can regulate access to a server with a EULA, but once it leaves that server (which this license allows) the EULA can no longer apply (but this license claims it would). The whole thing is a mess and hopefully largely unenforceable...

  • On the post: A Second Cambrian Explosion of Open Source Licenses Or Is it Time For Open Source Lawyers to Have Fun Again?

    urza9814 ( profile ), 29 May, 2021 @ 03:37am

    Re: Context free zone

    No concrete examples? Did you miss the paragraph about ml5.js and the link to its bizarre terms?

  • On the post: A Second Cambrian Explosion of Open Source Licenses Or Is it Time For Open Source Lawyers to Have Fun Again?

    urza9814 ( profile ), 28 May, 2021 @ 09:17am

    Re: Call a spade a spade

    "Freedom 0" is the Free Software definition, this article is discussing open source. And in THAT context....we just need to talk about principles five and six of the open source definition. :) Most CoCs are more of a terms of service document for a project's private infrastructure...and as far as F/OSS goes, that's perfectly fine. But making that into a license -- saying you can revoke someone's right to use a library (not distribute, use, which goes beyond what traditional open licenses even attempt to regulate -- although that may make sense in a SaaS age) if you feel they don't sufficiently "acknowledge others' feelings" or because you used it to build a dildo is a clear violation of the OSD and also just an utterly ridiculous thing to do. The license says that if you use that library, you MUST make me "feel heard". So if I ask a question but I'm distracted and don't hear your response, YOU violated the license terms! My personal feelings are now YOUR responsibility! Brilliant idea, isn't it? Isn't precision also something lawyers are supposed to like? Kinda goes along with the hating uncertainty thing, doesn't it? But this license sets up a small, self-appointed committee (with no system in place for that committee to ever change or be in any way responsive to the community) that can revoke anyone's rights for any reason at any time -- literally "they looked at me in a way that made me uncomfortable" seems to be a perfectly valid justification under that text, so ultimately the committee can justify almost any decision they want. I really hope nobody would use such vague, arbitrary, and dictatorial terms for anything serious....

  • On the post: Big Telecom Sues New York State For Trying To Bring Cheap Broadband To Poor People

    urza9814 ( profile ), 07 May, 2021 @ 09:49am

    Re: competition

    They don't need to. I recently purchased a perfectly good PC for $25 at a local thrift shop. They had a whole wall of 'em. They aren't Ryzen or RTX, but they'll run office stuff just fine. If you can afford $15/mo for internet then you can probably afford $25-$50 for a PC that should last at least two or three years. And the government itself already provides food at least through food stamps, although you are correct that the government isn't setting retail prices there. However, the government also hasn't given grocery stores billions of dollars in grants specifically intended to provide access to low income or otherwise under-served communities, so it's also about time that they actually start asking for some return on those investments...

  • On the post: Captive Markets Are Just Hostages; Or Why Your McDonalds Never Seems To Have A Functioning Shake Machine

    urza9814 ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2021 @ 03:09pm

    Re: Re: Customers?

    "The other thing that is idiotic is why are there goddamn electronics in a fooken shake machine? Like, at all." Because otherwise you've gotta train the employees how to properly operate the thing. Much easier to train the electronics. Plus it keeps the employees less secure when the job is basic enough that they could be instantly replaced by any stoned teenager off the street.

  • On the post: Reporter Sues DOJ To See If It Is Trying To Help Devin Nunes Unmask @DevinCow Twitter Account

    urza9814 ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2021 @ 01:40pm

    Fucking fantastic...

    So, our nation's top law enforcement officials can neither confirm nor deny that they were involved in behavior that was at the very least extremely unethical, if not outright criminal.

    Yeah...even if they didn't do it, the fact that they can't give a straight 'no' is extremely concerning...or at least it ought to be in any nation whose laws actually mean anything...

  • On the post: ACLU Tells Congress: Do Not Add Copyright Trolling Bill To Government Funding Bill

    urza9814 ( profile ), 09 Dec, 2020 @ 03:55am

    Re: Re:

    I called, emailed, and then typed up a letter and mailed it.

  • On the post: Trump Makes It Official: He's Going To Pull Military Funding, Because Congress Won't Kill The Open Internet

    urza9814 ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2020 @ 04:27pm

    CASE Act?

    Good. Veto that fucker so they can't use it to sneak the CASE Act into law. And if that requires cutting off our bloated military budget for a short while...what's the problem, exactly?

    I mean I get it, Trump is a moron, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, right?

  • On the post: WHO Is Blocking Commenters From Even Mentioning Taiwan On Its Facebook Page

    urza9814 ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2020 @ 10:36am

    Re:

    Stop fuckin trolling. That's basically the only thing the Human Cheeto ever got right! WHO's absurd denial of the existence of Taiwan started long before the US left. Stop inventing "facts" just because you think they'll support your "team". This shit is not a goddamn sport, there are peoples' fucking lives at stake...

  • On the post: CBP So Confused It Seizes Clearly Labeled OnePlus Earbuds, And Falsely Claims They're Counterfeit Apple Airpods

    urza9814 ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2020 @ 04:16pm

    fraud.

    Hmm...there's a link on that page to report "suspected fraud". The claims that these are counterfeit Apple products seems pretty damn fraudulent to me...

  • On the post: The Next Generation Of Video Game Consoles Could Be The Beginning Of GameStop's Death

    urza9814 ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2020 @ 05:06am

    They sure aren't going retro..

    No way is Gamestop going to go retro and focus on older consoles. As far as I can tell they seem to deliberately try to stay out of that market. Sure, they'll sell whatever they get in trade-ins, but have you ever tried to buy any specific older hardware from them? Every time I've looked, even for stuff just one generation old, even for stuff that's still being manufactured, whether it's controllers or games or consoles, you've gotta search every Gamestop in the city and hope you get lucky. You might end up driving two hours just to find a single controller...or you could just buy it on Newegg. I bet they're already trying to get all the PS4 inventory out of their stores....

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