blakestacey 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (204)

• On the post: Hollywood Believes The Time Is Ripe To Bring Back SOPA

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2024 @ 01:48pm

  Hollywood: We want to be able to shut down websites by saying the word "copyright" Also Hollywood: By the way, we'll be scraping every picture ever drawn in order to train bots to replace artists Also Hollywood: We need to do this so we can make movies that we will throw in the shit-can to get the tax write-off

• On the post: Hillary Clinton Joins The Chorus Of Ignorant Pundits Insisting Section 230 Must Go

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 04 Apr, 2024 @ 01:28pm

  There's going to be a House subcommittee hearing about Section 230 in a week (Thursday the 11th), if anyone feels like torturing themselves.

• On the post: Elon Lost The Spam Wars To ‘Pussy In Bio’ Spam

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2024 @ 02:17pm

  The days of V1agra and C1al1s have returned.

• On the post: Last Week Missouri Told The Supreme Court No Gov’t Should EVER Interfere With Speech; This Week It Sues Media Matters For Its Speech

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2024 @ 04:46pm

  Also apt: "I always discover that my interlocutor idolizes Hitler, not in spite of the high-altitude bombs and the rumbling invasions, the machine guns, the accusations and lies, but because of those acts and instruments. He is delighted by evil and atrocity. The triumph of Germany does not matter to him; he wants the humiliation of England and a satisfying burning of London. He admires Hitler as he once admired his precursors in the criminal underworld of Chicago. The discussion becomes impossible because the offenses I ascribe to Hitler are, for him, wonders and virtues. The apologists of Amigas, Ramirez, Quiroga, Rosas or Urquiza pardon or gloss over their crimes; the defender of Hitler derives a special pleasure from them. The Hitlerist is always a spiteful man, and a secret and sometimes public worshiper of criminal 'vivacity' and cruelty." — Jorge Luis Borges

• On the post: Anti-Porn Clusterfucks: Pornhub Blocks Texas, Indiana Adopts Age Verification

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2024 @ 11:36am

  These age-verification bills all seem to copy each other. Many of them say that they apply to sites where "more than one third" the material is "harmful to minors". My question: How the Glob do you measure that?

• On the post: Once Again, Google Caves To Political Pressure And Supports Questionable STOP CSAM Law

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2024 @ 01:01pm

  If anyone is curious, I was able to read that without registering by going into Firefox's Reader View.

  Section 230 immunity hinges on the question of how much tech platforms are controlling editorial discretion, Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told us. "Are these people forums or are they exercising editorial controls that would make them publishers?" he said. "I think there are very strong arguments that they’re exercising editorial control."

  Don't make me tap the sign.

  ... said Dani Pinter, senior legal counsel at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center.

  Ding ding ding! It's our very special friends formerly known as Morality in Media!

• On the post: Once Again, Google Caves To Political Pressure And Supports Questionable STOP CSAM Law

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2024 @ 12:41pm

  Lots of people have been saying that Durbin has a new, better version of STOP CSAM, and I've seen a couple drafts that are being passed around. But the current version of the bill still has many problems. Maybe Google is endorsing a fixed version of the bill, but if so, it sure would be nice if the rest of us could see it.

  If it were actually a good bill, would it have to be written in a smoky backroom?

• On the post: 5th Circuit Is Gonna 5th Circus: Declares Age Verification Perfectly Fine Under The First Amendment

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2024 @ 05:20pm

  It's an article of faith among these people that any child will be forever damaged by an encounter with one (1) instance of pornography, instead of dismissing it as gross and weird (like the kissing parts of movies, but more so) and going back to defending the treehouse against the velociraptor invasion.

• On the post: Twitter’s Former Top Execs All Sue Elon Over Missing Severance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2024 @ 09:04pm

  Or more time on Pornhub and less time here.

• On the post: Twitter’s Former Top Execs All Sue Elon Over Missing Severance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2024 @ 02:07pm

  <sickos yes yes.jpg>

• On the post: Wikipedia Wisely Downgrades CNET Reliability Score After Lazy AI Screw Ups

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2024 @ 07:42am

  The Wikipedia community's list of "perennial sources" makes for interesting reading. There's a lengthy diatribe against Forbes.com "contributors", for example. Know Your Meme and TV Tropes both apparently have come up often enough that it's worth designating them "generally unreliable". The discussion that led to the downgrading of CNET can be found here.

• On the post: Justin Trudeau Rightly Points Out That Internet Porn Licenses Are A Dumb Fucking Idea; But He Still Supports Internet Censorship Bill

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2024 @ 01:59pm

  For those curious: Michael Geist has two posts, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a press release.

• On the post: No One Cares That Bill Ackman’s Wife May Have Plagiarized; They Care About Ackman’s Hypocritical Double Standard

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2024 @ 06:36pm

  "Take a look / it's in a book..." The Internet Archive has a copy of MIT's Academic Integrity handbook dated to 2005 and saved in 2006. Let's see what it has to say about citing the Internet! Under "What should I cite?" (p. 7), we find this bullet point:

  Electronic sources: web pages, articles from online newspapers and journals, articles retrieved from databases like Lexis Nexis and ProQuest, government documents, newsgroup postings, graphics, E-mail messages, and web logs (i.e., any material published or made available on the Internet).

  Gee whillickers! And on the very next page,

  Because it is relatively new and because so much of what appears on the Internet does not indicate the author’s name, people tend to think the information they find there is “free” and open for the taking. Everything on the Internet has been written by someone. The author may be an organization or an individual, but there is an author – or at least, a traceable source.

  Jinkies!

  Treat the information you find electronically the way you would treat it if it were printed on paper. If you quote, paraphrase, or summarize, cite your source as you would an article in a journal or newspaper. Do the same for a web site or web page.

• On the post: No One Cares That Bill Ackman’s Wife May Have Plagiarized; They Care About Ackman’s Hypocritical Double Standard

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2024 @ 03:41pm

  Fun fact: Wikipedia has a whole documentation page about how to cite Wikipedia articles. It was created in 2003, and at the end of 2009, it looked like this. The very first thing it says is,

  Wikipedia has a tool to generate citations for particular articles. For the cite tool, see ... the "Cite this page" link on the left of the page with the article you wish to cite.

• On the post: Surprise: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (Correctly) Explains Why Florida’s & Texas’ Social Media Laws Are Horrible And Unconstitutional

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2024 @ 07:25pm

  SCOTUSblog also has a summary.

• On the post: Surprise: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (Correctly) Explains Why Florida’s & Texas’ Social Media Laws Are Horrible And Unconstitutional

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2024 @ 07:15pm

  Another take:

  At the end of the arguments, a majority of the justices appeared to agree that, at a minimum, the laws could not be applied to the social media companies’ expressive activities, specifically, when they are taking actions that amount to editorial discretion. However, it was also clear, particularly as to the Florida law, that the resolution of the cases could be more complicated than that. [...] At the end of the arguments, it appeared likely that the preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the Texas law — which targets a narrow group of very large social media companies but specifically bars them from viewpoint-based content moderation decisions — will remain in effect while that case proceeds, a decision reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit but in agreement with the district court in the case. [...] As to the Florida law, however, the arguments — which were first — quickly got stuck on this question about the scope of the law.

  And another:

  It is difficult or impossible to predict what the justices will do. It would not surprise me if there are more than 2 opinions from the 9 justices. Fractured courts do happen in difficult speech cases, such as the Turner case, where no single position garnered a majority of the justices. Both sides finger-pointed at each other for the lack of a more developed record, but without such a record, the justices were vexed by the proper procedural move. I did like what Justice Sotomayor had to say near the end. Something to the effect of: “I have a problem with laws that are so broad that they stifle speech on its face.” If a majority of justices share that sentiment, then they will have to find an appropriate procedural mechanism to make sure that speech-stifling statutes don’t go into effect. To me, the appropriate step would be to impose the preliminary injunctions and let the district courts apply any further guidance when evaluating the permanent injunction.

• On the post: Mayor Adams Files Ridiculously Stupid, Dangerous Lawsuit Against Social Media, Claiming It’s A Public Nuisance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2024 @ 05:24pm

  specifically White men, currently the most-persecuted group in tech in America

  (wipes away a single tear) Ah, thanks. I needed a laugh today.

• On the post: Mayor Adams Files Ridiculously Stupid, Dangerous Lawsuit Against Social Media, Claiming It’s A Public Nuisance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2024 @ 02:50pm

  Eric Adams versus Facebook: the lawyers win, the people lose.

• On the post: The Copia Institute Tells The Ninth Circuit That The District Court Got It Basically Right Enjoining California’s Age Design Law

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2024 @ 12:52pm

  The link to the brief itself seems to be missing, but it can be found here.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 05:23pm

  Ding ding ding

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