Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the raised-voices dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side Bloof making a point that really shouldn’t need to be made anymore but apparently always does:

The first amendment does not guarantee you access to other people’s property so you can access to the largest available audience. If you want access to a platform, obey the terms of service you agreed to when you signed up. It’s not hard, millions of us have done so since these platforms were in their infancy without issue.

‘Conservative beliefs’ are not a ‘get out of consequences free’ card. You guys love telling others ‘If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime’, well, maybe you should think about that next time you post things you know violate rules you chose to accept.

In second place, it’s an anonymous commenter with a suggested resolution for the standoff between newspapers and Google:

Google is missing an amazing business opportunity.

Here’s the proposal:

1. Google will pay the Newspapers 10% of the revenue they get from news.google.com.
2. The newspapers pay Google 10% of the ad revenue from the pageviews sent to them by Google News.

At the end of each month, tally up the numbers, and see who gets the Free Parking money.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got a pair of comments from our post about Florida’s insane social media law. First, it’s James Burkhardt expanding on the relationship between platforms and users:

Contracts require that each side is giving up something of value. Social media gives you access to their property. That is the ‘consideration’ they bring. Analogous Physical situations (museums, theme parks) explicitly understand that access can be revoked on the discretion of the property owner or their representative. The best compensation you could get is your consideration back. Normally that is money.

You don’t pay facebook money. But at best the ‘consideration’ you provide is your content. Banning you involves stripping that content out of their site. If fact, that is the goal.

This gets right back to the point you were responding to. Either you aren’t providing consideration, and therefore you can’t rely on a contract, or your consideration, your thing of value, is your content. And if that consideration in the opinion of the property holder does not have value, or has negative value, they have a right to remove you to protect the value of the property. This is well adjudicated in the courts.

This is why free speech has long been the point of argument. You need a wedge to drive through long standing judicially recognized property rights and force new contract terms into the contract. Conservatives have been convinced free speech is that wedge as it was in the past for bigotted speech on TV, radio, and print. That you aren’t even that far into the logic tells me how surface level your understanding of everything is.

Next, it’s an anonymous challenge for the governor:

I would love DeSantis to give one example where a twitter ban meant that the person banned could no longer speak freely “throughout society.”

Let’s take Trump as an example, after being banned from most all social media, he is still able to publish his own blog site, can still have rallies, and whenever he wants, he can call up fox news and be heard by millions.

Explain to me how he is “silence[d] both on their platforms and throughout society.”

Over on the funny side, both our winners come in response to our post about Trump allegedly demanding Parler kick off his critics before he would use the platform. In first place, it’s Stephen T. Stone musing about possibilities:

Right-wing social media has too much of an anti-liberal bias. Surely there must be some law we can enact to take care of this issue. An equality declaration of some sort, a doctrine dedicated to allowing the fair and equitable expression of opposing ideas, could handle that.

?or we could all come to our fucking senses and laugh at Trump for being such a basic bitch that he can?t handle even the mildest criticism of his bullshit.

In second place, it’s Greg Glockner with a quick quip:

Silly Techdirt, freedom of speech only applies to my speech, not the other guy. #sarcasm

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Bloof about the oh-so-awful political tragedy of courts shutting down Florida’s law:

They’ll be MARXIST, LENINIST LEFT WING ACTIVIST JUDGES.. Chosen by Conservative pressure groups and appointed by known liberals George Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

Last but not least, it’s Norahc with a comment on our post about the 2nd Circuit upholding sanctions against Richard Liebowitz:

Righthaven: We’re the best copyright trolls ever.

Prenda: You’re not even in the big leagues yet.

Liebowitz: Hold my beer.

That’s all for this week, folks!