aethercowboy 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (155) comment rss

  • On the post: Chooseco Chooses An Adventure In Bullying Indie Game Devs Over Trademark

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 12 Dec, 2019 @ 05:20am

    Everybody else should just call them "Chose Your Adventure," and abbreviate it as CYA.

  • On the post: Senator Hawley Responds To Techdirt With A Bunch Of Nonsense And Lies About His Own Bill That He Doesn't Seem To Understand

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 18 Sep, 2019 @ 11:38am

    Maybe he should be writing legislation governing the behavior of parents instead of tech companies. I'm sure that would go over better.

  • On the post: Reaping What They Sowed: Recording Industry Now Quite Upset About Copyright Run Amok

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 09 Aug, 2019 @ 10:10am

    Part of me wants to make an application that analyzes the metadata of every popular song and can generate a flowchart of whom to sue for what. Maybe I'll call it "ouroboros."

  • On the post: Google CEO Admits That It's Impossible To Moderate YouTube Perfectly; CNBC Blasts Him

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2019 @ 07:23am

    Re: Re: Re: I Can Fix YouTube Kids Content Problem

    Actually, the true underlying solution is for parents to take responsibility for what their kids are watching. Still a monumental task to ask of some parents, but, speaking as a parent, it comes with the territory.

  • On the post: Google CEO Admits That It's Impossible To Moderate YouTube Perfectly; CNBC Blasts Him

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2019 @ 05:09am

    I Can Fix YouTube Kids Content Problem

    Here's how to get perfect, scaled content moderation on YouTube (at least, for the kids)

    Step One: Link the YTK account to the parent's YouTube account
    Step Two: Before a video can show up in the YTK account, the parent account must watch it all the way through and approve it for that YTK account.
    Step Three: If their kid sees anything inappropriate, it's the parent's own fault.

    It scales perfectly, because, as far as I can tell, people generally have parents.

  • On the post: Copyright Office Weighs In After Wannabe Satoshi Craig Wright Registers Copyright On Original Bitcoin Paper

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 24 May, 2019 @ 10:10am

    But..

    If he gets a copyright on it, he invented it, right?

  • On the post: Laying Out All The Evidence: Shiva Ayyadurai Did Not Invent Email

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 22 May, 2019 @ 11:28am

    This should be a book

    You and Haigh should put this into long form. It could be called:

    "The Man Who Invented A LIE"

    (was trying to find a good anagram for EMAIL, but couldn't find a place to put the M)

  • On the post: Disney Takes Full Control Of Hulu, Ending Years Of Managerial Schizophrenia

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 15 May, 2019 @ 02:00pm

    I think you meant to call it "dissociative identity disorder" (aka "multiple personality disorder") and not "schizophrenia."

    When you have schizophrenia, you have a decreased ability to understand reality, which better describes the owners of Hulu, and not Hulu's management.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Asks White House To Weigh In On Copyrightability Of APIs

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 02 May, 2019 @ 05:13am

    You Just Have to Use a Language They Understand

    An API is a formalized agreement that says "if you give me x in a certain format, I will give you y in a certain format."

    For government officials, you could explain it like this: "If Lobbyist gives you Campaign Contribution, you give Lobbyist Favorable Legislation."

    Nobody wants that copyrighted, then they couldn't do it as freely anymore.

  • On the post: Gavin McInnes Files Laughably Silly Defamation Lawsuit Against Southern Poverty Law Center

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2019 @ 09:18am

    I'm Torn

    I support freedom of speech.

    But, at the same time, I think that the way that some people are "weaponizing" allegations (and the demand for action based on said allegations) is a troubling trend.

    If somebody decided to call me a racist, bigot, sexist, whatever, my first reaction would be to wonder why they would make such a claim about me, and try to get to the bottom of it (especially considering that I am none of these things). If it was causing me difficulty getting a job (thanks, Google), then I think I would be perturbed for the impact such baseless accusations have made against my financial well-being. At what point does somebody's right to freedom of speech trump my ability to go through my life without having to deal with baseless accusations? I suppose that point is at the established defamation laws. And I suppose it would be easier for me, a non-public individual, to make a defamation case against an SPLC-like entity versus a public individual like McInnes under those laws (especially since there's "no such thing as bad publicity). Still, it's a little concerning that an allegation can be leveraged, and the court of public opinions can cast a ruling before the real judges can even hear the case. But my example's a little bit different than what's actually happened.

    I saw an article on HuffPost from 2014 (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/clay-calvert/false-accusations-of-homo_b_5597047.html) about whether calling someone homophobic could be considered defamatory. It made an interesting point that accusing someone of being gay when they were not is growing to be increasingly less defamatory, as being gay is no longer quite so stigmatized. It makes me wonder if the increasing stigma attached to certain words, such as "racist" may eventually get it to the point where a false claim of racism is defamation per se. However...

    The SPLC has documented evidence (https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys) supporting their claims of the Proud Boys as a "hate group/" So, I suppose, in a way, their labeling it as such was made in good faith, and not with blatant disregard for the truth. Whether you agree with their evidence or not, the real issue is: do they legitimately believe what they're saying is the truth. I'm inclined to say yes, they do.

    Ultimately, I think it's just an intersection of two very polarized groups: one that has association with people who discount everybody who disagrees with them as "nazis" and one that has association with people who discount everybody who disagrees with them as "commies."

    I think the best course of action is to not take up sides in an ideological argument, but instead look deeper into the underlying situation: should an entity be allowed to aggregate information about another entity and present that aggregated information with some level of interpretation to come to some unfavorable conclusion about said entity? I'm inclined to say yes. And that same entity is allowed to bring a rebuttal. But I don't think it would be defamatory if it was all done in "good faith."

    For everybody on either side of the issue, let's try this intellectual exercise: say, instead of this situation, it was the Proud Boys who labeled the SPLC as an "irresponsible public charity" with several documentations of such (here's a link that indicates as much written by the Illinois Family Institute: https://illinoisfamily.org/marriage/seven-reasons-beware-southern-poverty-law-center/ -- pretend the Proud Boys wrote it). Should the SPLC then be able to sue the Proud Boys (or, heck, in the real-life example, the IFI) for defamation? If your answer is different than your answer for the current situation, then you should definitely ask yourself why.

  • On the post: Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2018 @ 10:58am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ahh...

    Guess that rules out intelligent design...

  • On the post: Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2018 @ 05:25am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Also, Cory Doctorow, are you not Amazed?

    https://boingboing.net/2018/09/26/sosumi.html

  • On the post: Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2018 @ 11:17am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I completely agree. It makes me lose respect for Peterson every time he sues someone for defamation.

    (and, yeah, I'm one of those guys who read his book and watches his videos regularly on YouTube.)

  • On the post: Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2018 @ 11:14am

    Re: Re: Re: Ahh...

    Your evolution analogy is flawed on so many levels.

    1. You cannot have a "belief" in something that has sufficient empirical evidence to prove or disprove its existence. That would be like saying "I believe that 2 + 2 = 5" or "I believe that 2 + 2 = 4". Either it's true, or it isn't. As with metaphysical things, these are inherently unprovable, and thus, can be believed: unicorns, fairies, Odin, etc.

    2. Assuming for the sake of argument that evolution is an empirically provable fact (your quotes indicate that you may not agree with this statement otherwise), then it's likely that humans have also been selecting for compassion for as long as we've been living in groups. Therefore, a human who believes that survival of the fittest is desirable, and also believes that everybody should be afforded health care, may be unable to act on the former, and choose the latter, because compassion.

    3. Further, the ideas of evolution are about the propagation of a species (or, perhaps a gene, if you believe what Dawkins has to say), and therefore, it's perfectly reasonable that someone who considers the evolutionary ramifications of things will also appreciate keeping other members of their species alive.

    4. One could also argue that advances in medical science are an evolutionary step in humanity. Therefore, where do we draw the line between what is human evolution and what is just being silly and helping people otherwise live?

    5. You're also not considering the fact that most people don't actually care enough about evolution enough to hold the tenants of survival of the fittest to be a major guiding principle of their lives.

    Don't you find it to be silly that the people who don't believe in evolution also don't believe in universal healthcare? If evolution is false, then it's on us (and decreed by many of our gods) to help other people, especially those that aren't good contributors to the gene pool.

  • On the post: Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2018 @ 10:54am

    Re: Re:

    Thank you for the response.

    While I may have a fairly decent understanding of defamation law in the US and my own state (a lawyer once threatened me with a defamation counter suit while I was suing his clients for real estate fraud... which he never followed through on, as it was a baseless claim to begin with), it seems that Canadian defamation law is a little less free.

    After taking a brief crash course in Canadian defamation law, it seems that this could potentially be construed as libel. However, it all depends on the interpretation of "fair comment" wrt Manne, and "responsible communication on matters of public importance" wrt Vox.

    It also depends on how the courts would interpret that statement, and whether it was "calculated to disparage the plaintiff in any office, profession, calling, trade or business held or carried on by the plaintiff at the time of the publication."

    According to my research, Canada has the most plaintiff-friendly defamation law in the English-speaking world. So, it's anybody's guess how it will turn out. Though, thanks to the SPEECH act, it's unlikely that if Peterson does win this case, any Americans will be harmed in the making of this lawsuit.

  • On the post: Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2018 @ 10:16am

    I'm generally in agreement with you, Mike. I think that Peterson going after these people for defamation would be like me going after a toddler for calling me a doody-head.

    However, Item (f) does seem legitimately defamatory. It suggests that he inappropriately manipulates his clinical patients, something that could, potentially affect his career as a clinical psychologist.

    Of course, I'm all open to explanations as to why this isn't a legit claim.

  • On the post: That Time Telco Lobbyists Sent Me All Their Talking Points About Trying To Shift The Blame To Internet Companies

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2018 @ 12:31pm

    Re: Proof

    He is even part of their inner circle!
    Or at least, their address book...

  • On the post: Supposed 'Free Speech' Warrior Jordan Peterson Sues University Because Silly Professor Said Some Mean Things About Him

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2018 @ 01:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Wilfrid Laurier

    I'm wondering if the legal strategy involves Howard Levitt's bank account. (Just kidding, Howard! That's a joke, and not meant as a defamatory statement!)

  • On the post: Supposed 'Free Speech' Warrior Jordan Peterson Sues University Because Silly Professor Said Some Mean Things About Him

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2018 @ 01:01pm

    Re:

    ^ forgot to log in.

  • On the post: Top German Publisher Says: 'You Wouldn't Steal A Pound Of Butter… So We Need A Snippet Tax'

    aethercowboy ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2018 @ 12:18pm

    If you could magically materialize butter by copying a snippet of text on the internet, my cat would totally know how to use a computer by now.

Next >>