Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the whatcha-sayin' dept

This week, both our top winners on the insightful side come in response to a comment on our post about Price Harry using the GDPR to go after a photographer, asserting that it’s a good thing because the target was a paparazzi, not a journalist. Stephen T. Stone won first place by asking a simple question:

Who gets to make that determination? How do they make that determination?

Gary won second place with a more concrete version of the same point:

This case is. But it’s established a precedent about taking photographs which isn’t limited to paparazzi.Don’t be so quick to cheer for judgements just because you don’t like the defendants.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from That One Guy highlighting two points from our post about the new Assange indictment:

That’s a feature, not a bug

But, that’s what lots of reporters do all the time in cultivating sources within the government. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein became celebrated and famous by getting government officials to leak classified information. Indeed, it’s what a bunch of reporters at the NY Times, Washington Post, etc. are doing right now to try to find information about this White House. And, yes, President Trump likes to refer to them as “fake news,” and if you buy that you are too stupid to read this site, so go away. This is a full frontal attack on the First Amendment and basic reporting. If this works it sets a precedent to go after any investigative reporting of the government.

Welp, I’d say it’s pretty clear what the goal with this trial is, beyond merely sticking it to someone the USG has hated for years.

Next, we’ve got an anonymous comment about the indictment:

A publisher is being charged with espionage

… and the press will cheer.

First they came for the journalists …
We dont know what happened after that.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous commenter with a bit of highly-contextual wordplay that I could try to explain but you should probably just read the original thread:

Carreon Righthaven Prenda — Strike 3 — You’re OUT!!

In second place, we’ve got an anonymous response to Craig Wright’s copyright registration on the original Bitcoin paper:

Rumour has it he may have also created email.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a response from Gary to the new study that found almost no evidence for social media making kids unhappy:

This study is depressing

Obviously social media causes depression and we don’t need studies for that.
Also, video games cause violence. Marijuana causes heroin, and homosexuality causes flooding.

Who needs science when you have opinions?

And finally, we’ve got an anonymous response to one commenter’s hilariously bizarre assertion that Facebook shouldn’t get to decide what content it blocks because it’s “a business is in The Public’s markets”:

So than I say that all movie studios release all of their movies via torrents! That is the final say on how they operate because the business is the The Public’s markets!

That’s all for this week, folks!