Be Careful What You Wish For: TikTok Tries To Stop Bullying On Its Platforms... By Suppressing Those It Thought Might Get Bullied

from the this-shit-ain't-that-easy dept

Be careful what you wish for when you demand that internet platforms police the internet for any and all bad stuff. There was a lot of fuss and cringing when this story broke that part of TikTok's content moderation strategies included suppressing videos by disabled, queer, and fat creators.

Leaked documents reveal how TikTok hid videos of people with disabilities. Queer and fat users were also pushed out of view.

No matter how you look at it, this looks bad. And for good reasons. But, as the company itself claims, it had good intentions behind this, even if the execution was atrocious. There have been tons of reports of bullying on the platform -- and like with so many social problems that are making themselves more widely known thanks to technology, the first reaction of many is to blame the tech platform, and to demand they "fix it."

And, a la the infamous paperclip maximizer thought experiment, what's the most efficient way to stop bullying? Some figured it might be to hide the likely-to-be-bullied rather than the actual bullies:

The relevant section in the moderation rules is called "Imagery depicting a subject highly vulnerable to cyberbullying". In the explanations it says that this covers users who are "susceptible to harassment or cyberbullying based on their physical or mental condition“.

According to the memo, mobbing has negative consequences for those affected. Therefore, videos of such users should always be considered as a risk and their reach on the platform should be limited.

TikTok uses its moderation toolbox to limit the visibility of such users. Moderators were instructed to mark people with disabilities as "Risk 4". This means that a video is only visible in the country where it was uploaded.

And, yes, there is a very reasonable argument that the content moderation team at TikTok/ByteDance should have recognized that this is a horrible way to deal with bullying, you can see how those desperate to deal with "the bullying problem" might end up thinking that this is the simplest path to get people to stop screaming at them about bullying.

This is a key point that we keep trying to raise in the mad dash currently happening to put responsibility on platforms to "clean up" whatever mess politicians and the media see. There's this weird belief that the platforms can wave a magic wand and make bad stuff go away -- when the "easier" solution (if a morally questionable one) is to just figure out a way to hide the real problems or sweep them under the rug.

This is why I keep trying to argue that if we're highlighting societal problems that are manifesting themselves on social media, expecting tech platform companies to magically solve societal problems is not just going to fail, but it's going to fail in spectacular and awful ways. This TikTok "hide the people we think might get bullied" is just one example of sweeping a societal problem under the rug to avoid having to improperly answer for it.

Unfortunately, I fear most people will just blame TikTok for it instead.

Filed Under: bullies, bullying, content moderation, content moderation at scale
Companies: tiktok

Chooseco Chooses An Adventure In Bullying Indie Game Devs Over Trademark

from the pro-choice dept

Earlier this year, after Netflix released an iteration of its Black Mirror series entitled Bandersnatch, which allowed the viewer to choose their own story path through the narrative, the company behind the famed Choose Your Own Adventure books from our childhood sued. Chooseco, armed with a trademark registration for "Choose your own adventure", claimed that Bandersnatch infringed on that trademark, first because the film has a nod of homage to the literary series within the script, and second simply because many in the public compared the film with the books of their youth. Meanwhile, thanks to the renewed attention that Netflix gave CYOA books -- for FREE! -- , Chooseco inked a deal with Amazon to create CYOA style narratives for the Alexa device.

That success hasn't stopped Chooseco's bullying ways, however. Recently, itch.io's leadership has publicly warned indie game developers to stop describing their games as choose your own adventures on the site after Chooseco issued several takedowns of games that did so. In case you were concerned that the facts before the public didn't perfectly convey how absurd this all is, never fear:

Itch.io founder Leaf Corcoran told developers about the takedowns this afternoon. “Warning to any devs using the phrase ‘choose your own adventure’ to describe their games, Chooseco is issuing takedown notices,” he wrote on Twitter. Corcoran tells The Verge that the games include Purrfect Apawcalypse, an “apocalyptic dog dating choose your own adventure game”; a “choose your own dating sim text adventure” game called It’s a Date; an unofficial GameBoy game called Choose Your Own Adventure GB; and New Yorker writer Luke Burns’ A Series of Choose Your Own Adventure Stories Where No Matter What You Choose You Are Immediately Killed by a Werewolf, whose plot is self-explanatory.

Clearly, these indie games with mere descriptions in their summaries and/or game titles are a grave threat to the Chooseco empire. After all, what member of the public could possibly stave off confusion over a video game being accurately described as involving a choice in adventure without naturally assuming that this must be from the same company as the books of their childhood?

This is all stupid on many levels. Chooseco's trademark is at least partially descriptive. I know that's true, because some of the games that have been the victim's of this bullying have only used the trademark in their games'...you know...descriptions. That feels about as open and shut an answer as these questions tend to have. Add to that the fact that literature and Amazon Alexa narratives aren't the same as video games and I would question whether these are even in the same market as Chooseco products. Finally, I would also question whether there is a single iota of potential public confusion to consider here.

And, to be clear, the end result of this bullying thus far is part mockery by other publishers and part simply ignoring Chooseco entirely.

Mainstream publishers have found clever ways to get around the trademark. A Gravity Falls branching-choice book, for example, is billed as a “Select Your Own Choose-Venture” novel. And you can’t officially tag a game as “choose your own adventure” on Itch.io; it’s automatically converted to “interactive fiction.”

Even so, an Itch.io search for “choose your own adventure” still turns up a lot of results. (The common abbreviation “CYOA” also apparently hasn’t triggered any notices.) It’s a widely accepted informal genre name, and Itch.io is a platform that favors offbeat, often free-of-charge games from independent developers.

Your bullying has resulted in mere mockery and dismissive waves. Turn to page 26 if you'd like to go to your room and think about what you've done, or turn to page 77 if instead you want to continue to make the world hate you with your bullying.

Filed Under: choose, choose your own adventure, indie games, trademark
Companies: chooseco, itch.io

Marvin Gaye Family Not Done With Pharrell Just Yet: Bring Him Back To Court Claiming Perjury

from the oh-come-on dept

The Blurred Lines lawsuit is the case that just keeps on giving... if the gift you're looking for is legal shenanigans and ridiculous situations. As you'll recall, that was the case in which Marvin Gaye's family suggested that because the Pharrell/Robin Thicke song "Blurred Lines" paid homage to Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" with a similar groove, that it was infringing on Gaye's copyright. The whole thing was crazy -- and somehow the court bought it. Despite there not being any actual copying of any copyright-protected content, just the mere similarity of feeling in the song is enough to infringe.

This has created quite a frenzy of nonsense, with artists now afraid to even mention their inspirations, lest they get sued, and sued again for every song they release. The situation has gotten so insane that even the RIAA has stepped in to say that perhaps copyright has gone too far in protecting works. Yes, the RIAA said that copyright may be protecting too much. This is pigs flying, snow in hell, cats and dogs living together, madness.

And, believe it or not, the original case apparently is not fully over yet. During the original case, Pharrell gave a deposition claiming that he didn't intend to copy Marvin Gaye:

"I did not go in the studio with the intention of making anything feel like, or to sound like, Marvin Gaye."

But... in a recent GQ published video interview between Pharrell and famed music producer Rick Rubin, Pharrell made an off-hand comment about this same issue. Throughout the interview, he talks about "channeling" other artists when he's in the studio.

Then somewhere along the line he mentions the Blurred Lines mess, by saying (around 28 minutes into the interview):

Pharrell: But I think for the most part, what we always try to do was reverse engineer the songs that did something to us emotionally and figure out where the mechanism is in there, and as I said to you before, try to figure out if we can build a building that doesn't look the same but makes you feel the same way. I did that in Blurred Lines and got myself in trouble.

Rubin: Ridiculously.

Pharrell: Stevie Wonder told me, he said, 'you gotta get the right musicologists in there because juries don't understand -- it's very technical what you've done.'

Rubin: Because the song is nothing like the song

Pharrell: Nope, but the feeling was.

Rubin: But the feeling is not something you can copyright.

Pharrell: No, you can't copyright a feeling. All salsa songs sound pretty much the same.

Rubin: Yes. And reggae songs. Any genre.

Pharrell: 100 percent.

Rubin: Trap music sounds relatively similar.

Pharrell: But here's the difference. What we failed-- And it hurt my feelings. 'Cause I would never take anything from anyone. And that really set me back.... But I was really hurt, because what I realized all too late was that what he was trying to tell me was that I needed to do was use my gift to make music, to reverse engineer the disparity between the truth and the jury's uneducated opinions. And I say that, because rayon and silk feel the same, but we understand that there's a clear difference. And that was what happened.

Rubin: Yeah.

Pharrell: Like, I really made it feel so much like it, that people were like, oh, I hear the same thing.

And, so, in a new filing by the Gaye Estate (first noted by THREsq), they're claiming that Pharrell perjured himself in his deposition by saying that he had no intention to channel Gaye:

In the November 4, 2019 Interview, among other things, Williams admits the following:

(1) in creating a new song, he often tries to “reverse engineer” an older song that did “something to us emotionally,” so that he can “figure out where the mechanism is in [the original song],” and “build a building that doesn’t look the same but makes us feel the same way,” and that he “did that in ‘Blurred Lines’ and I got myself in trouble;” and

(2) he actually did too good of a job in this reverse engineering when it came to “Got To” and “Blurred”: “I really made it [‘Blurred’] feel so much like it [‘Got To’], that people were like, oh, I hear the same thing.”

As discussed further below, these admissions are irreconcilable with Williams’s repeated, sworn testimony in this action that: neither “Got To” nor Marvin Gaye ever entered his mind while creating “Blurred,” that he did not try to make “Blurred” feel like “Got To” or sound like Marvin Gaye, and that when creating music Williams looks “into oblivion. We look into that which does not exist.”

Hilariously, the filing tries to make sure that the court does not pay attention to other parts of the interview -- notably, the long section about how it's ridiculous to argue that you can copyright a "feeling."

As a matter of introduction and clarity, and to avoid all doubt so there is no misunderstanding about what this Motion is not about: this Motion is not about whether Williams and Robin Thicke (“Thicke”) committed copyright infringement with respect to “Got To.” This Motion is also not about Williams’s very public pronouncements in this Court, in the media, in the November 4, 2019 Interview, and elsewhere that one cannot copyright a feeling, that all music within a genre supposedly sounds the same, and his belief that “Blurred” and “Got To” are not compositionally the same (one supposedly being “rayon” and one being “silk” according to Williams). The jury, this Court, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have all spoken on those issues.

The whole case is a mess, but this part of the dispute, including this silly claim of perjury, is just an attempt to get even more money out of Pharrell, this time in seeking attorneys' fees for the Gaye family's lawyers.

And, of course, all it will really do is remind musicians to never credit their sources, to never talk about their process, and to hinder future musicians for years, if not decades. All for an extra buck.

Filed Under: blurred lines, copyright, feelings, groove, inspiration, marvin gaye, perjury, pharrell, pharrell williams, rick rubin

DOJ Headed By William Barr Asked To Explain Warrantless Bulk Data Collection William Barr Authorized 27 Years Ago When He Was The Head Of The DOJ

from the DOJ's-timeline-has-become-a-flat-circle dept

More than a quarter-century ago, then-Attorney General William Barr gave the DEA something it shouldn't have had and something it certainly hadn't earned. The War on Drugs was a forever war and it demanded an expansion of the government's powers. AG Barr OK'ed it: the warrantless bulk collection of multiple third party records, including call records, banking information, and the tracking of purchases.

Twenty-seven years after the fact, the DOJ's Inspector General released its review of these programs, finding they had been crafted and deployed with no underlying legal basis. Some of these programs are defunct. Others have been codified into quasi-legitimacy by War on Terror-related government power expansions.

Twenty-seven years later, William Barr is Attorney General once again. And he's likely just as interested in expanding law enforcement surveillance programs (without worrying too much about how legal they are) as he was three decades ago. He has shown no love for the public nor their rights since he took office, making it crystal clear that neither the administration he works for nor the law enforcement agencies he oversees should be questioned by other branches of the government, much less the public they're supposed to be serving.

More questions are on the way, though. Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Pat Leahy want some answers from the DOJ about Barr's past legal misadventures and what he's doing now to address the findings of the long-delayed Inspector General's report.

“Mr. Barr’s authorization of this sweeping surveillance program without requiring, at minimum, an appropriate legal analysis, was not consistent with his oath to support and defend the Constitution and it likely amounted to professional misconduct,” Wyden and Leahy wrote. “Attorney General Barr knew, or should have known, that neither statutory law nor federal case law permitted the DEA to sweep up, in bulk, billions of records of Americans’ telephone communications. We write to ask that you open an investigation into the authorization of this recently-disclosed illegal, bulk surveillance program that collected billions of records of Americans’ telephone calls without conducting any legal analysis of the program.”

The program Barr authorized ran for more than 20 years, finally being mothballed in 2013 following the Snowden leak exposing the NSA's bulk phone records collection. The collection continued past that point, but was modified significantly, at least according to the DOJ's public statements. The Senators want specifics. Their letter [PDF] asks for details about the long-running program Barr summoned into existence for President Bush the First.

1. During the two decades in which the DEA operated Program A, did any telecommunications companies ever raise questions about its legality, refuse to comply with a DEA subpoena for bulk data, or seek judicial review?

2. According to the OIG report, the DEA transitioned in 2013 from collecting bulk records under Program A to requesting records about specific targets. What legal analysis, if any, did DOJ and DEA engage in before beginning this reconfigured surveillance program? If no legal analysis was conducted, why not?

3. Under target-specific data collection operations, DEA officials must now provide "reasonable articulable suspicion" that the target is involved in drug activity.

a. What safeguards are in place to ensure the target is actually involved in drug activity?

b. What constitutes involvement in drug activity?

c. If someone is targeted under this program, and it is later revealed there was no nexus to drug activity, what happens to the data that the DEA collected, and is the person ever notified that data about them was obtained by the government?

d. What actions will be taken to ensure this program will not be abused in a similar manner to the programs discussed in the OIG report?

The Senators also want to know what the DOJ is doing to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. They're also asking the DOJ if it's following through with the recommended overhaul of its parallel construction practices as well as the internal legal process authorizing new bulk records collection programs.

Considering Barr's running the place again, it seems unlikely answers are forthcoming, and -- if and when answers do eventually arrive -- they will be forthcoming. The new AG has made it clear the administration doesn't need to answer to anyone, not even other branches of the government that are supposed to ensure one branch doesn't grab too much power for itself.

The DOJ doesn't like talking about its screw-ups or its secrets or its ridiculous belief that Drug Wars are good and easy to win. AG Barr's position at the head of the department only buttresses these positions. I wish Wyden and Leahy all the luck in the world, but something tells me the clock will run out on this administration before the DOJ's willing to talk about a twenty-seven-year-old, potentially illegal surveillance program.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, bulk data collection, dea, doj, surveillance, warrantless surveillance, william barr

Defense Department To Congress: 'No, Wait, Encryption Is Actually Good; Don't Break It'

from the seems-important dept

As Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham has continued his latest quest to undermine encryption with a hearing whose sole purpose seemed to be to misleadingly argue that encryption represents a "risk to public safety." The Defense Department has weighed in to say that's ridiculous. As you may recall, the DOJ and the FBI have been working overtime to demonize encryption and pretend -- against nearly all evidence -- that widespread, strong encryption somehow undermines its ability to stop criminals.

However, it appears that other parts of the government are a bit more up to date on these things. Representative Ro Khanna has forwarded a letter to Senator Graham that he received earlier this year from the Defense Department's CIO Dana Deasy, explaining just how important encryption actually is. The letter highlights how DoD employees rely on the kind of strong encryption found on mobile devices and in VPN services to protect the data of their employees, both at rest (on the devices) and in transit (across the network).

All DoD issued unclassified mobile devices are required to be password protected using strong passwords. The Department also requires that data-in-transit, on DoD issued mobile devices, be encrypted (e.g. VPN) to protect DoD information and resources. The importance of strong encryption and VPNs for our mobile workforce is imperative. Last October, the Department outlined its layered cybersecurity approachto protect DoD information and resources, including service men and women, when using mobile communications capabilities.

[....]

As the use of mobile devices continues to expand, it is imperative that innovative security techniques, such as advanced encryption algorithms, are constantly maintained and improved to protect DoD information and resources. The Department believes maintaining a domestic climate for state of the art security and encryption is critical to the protection of our national security.

So, there you have it. The Defense Department believes that strong, unbroken encryption is critical to national security, as opposed to the DOJ which appears to think (incorrectly) that it undermines national security. At the very least, this should mean that politicians should stop uncritically claiming that encryption is some sort of "debate" between privacy and national security. It is not. Encryption protects both of those things. Breaking encryption harms both privacy and national security... in the hopes that it might make law enforcement's job marginally easier.

Filed Under: backdoors, dana deasy, defense department, dod, encryption, lindsey graham, ro khanna

Daily Deal: Apple iMac 21.5" Intel i3-2100 Dual Core 3.1GHz 250GB (Certified-Refurbished)

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

An all-in-one solution to your computing needs, this certified refurbished Apple iMac brings a wallop of processing power packed inside a 21.5" HD LED display. It sports an Intel Core i3-2100 Dual-Core 3.1GHz CPU with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM for next-level multitasking, and a 250 GB SATA hard drive for storing all of your important files and media. It's on sale for $349 and use the code MerrySave15 for an additional 15% off.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

As Trial Begins, Evidence Shows Sprint, T-Mobile Know Merger Will Raise Prices

from the history-keeps-repeating-itself dept

With the DOJ (run by former Verizon lawyer William Barr) and the FCC (run by former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai) eager to rubber stamp Sprint's $26 billion, competition-eroding merger with T-Mobile, a lawsuit from a bipartisan coalition of states is now all that stands in the way in the deal.

That lawsuit began Monday, with state AGs making it very clear that every meaningful economic metric indicates the deal will erode competition, raise rates, and result in thousands of layoffs as redundant employees are inevitably eliminated. While Sprint and T-Mobile (and the army of consultants, lobbyists, think tankers, and government officials paid to love them) insist the deal will be wonderful for America, financially independent economists paint a decidedly different picture. One in which ongoing consolidation in the space only drives up wireless data pricing for American consumers who already pay some of the highest prices in the world for what's routinely ranked as mediocre service (whether we're talking about speeds or overall video quality).

But underneath the deal's marketing veneer, industry giants know very well the reduction in competition will let them charge higher rates. You'll notice that AT&T and Verizon haven't lifted a finger to thwart the deal, suggesting they're perfectly fine with its impact (something that wouldn't be happening if they actually thought the end result would be a more competitive sector). And at the trial this week, AG lawyers highlighted that Sprint executive emails make it perfectly clear they know the deal will raise rates:

"Roger Sole, Sprint’s chief marketing officer, said in a text message in 2017 to Marcelo Claure, the carrier’s chief executive officer at the time, that the deal could mean an increase of $5 a month in average revenue per subscriber. Industry leaders AT&T and Verizon Communications would also benefit with fewer players in the market, he said.

“And they DO NOT pay anything for this,” Sole wrote to Claure. “The benefit of a consolidated market.”

The goal of the deal is less competition, providing a green light for even higher prices, which is effectively the same outcome we've seen from every major telecom union over the last 30 years. Three decades of data also makes it abundantly clear that pre-merger promises are worthless. But if the state AGs lose this case, the federal government is going to ignore that data -- and history -- and rubber stamp the deal anyway. You know, just because.

Filed Under: competition, consumer harms, merger, mobile, prices, wireless
Companies: at&t, sprint, t-mobile, verizon

Twitter Makes A Bet On Protocols Over Platforms

from the well-this-is-nice dept

It looks like Twitter is making a bet on protocols over platforms for its future.

Nearly five years ago, I first wrote about the idea of why protocols are a better approach than platforms for various internet platforms struggling with content moderation issues. In that first post discussing it, I talked about two companies that I thought might benefit most from such an approach: Twitter and Reddit. Over the intervening years, I've been thinking, talking, and writing on this subject quite a bit, including the big paper I released with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech. That details a variety of different ideas regarding how we might move to a world dominated by protocols, rather than just centralized, proprietary, siloed platforms.

In the paper I talk about whether or not it makes sense for a larger company to adopt a protocol approach and to move away from a platform-based world. I've been talking this over with a variety of folks in and out of the tech world for years, and kept getting told that there was no way any company would voluntarily move in such a direction. And, after watching Facebook's weird approach with Libra (which is already looking like a flop), it only seemed to confirm that many of these companies are simply too entrenched in the platform model.

And yet... just a little while ago, Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that Twitter is going to start experimenting with protocols as a different approach to how the company might architect its business (and, yes, he cites my paper in his announcement). This is not, by any means, them jumping off the high dive into the world of protocols, but more a toe in the water. Basically, Twitter is going to seed fund an outside team, called BlueSky, that will be charged with creating an open and decentralized protocol standard for social media which Twitter might eventually use for its own system.

There are a lot of challenges here -- and many reasons why this project could fail. There are a bunch of existing teams trying to build their own protocol approaches for this as well. But, I think it is notable that Twitter, specifically (the same company I first wrote about regarding this approach five years ago) has decided to take a serious look at moving in this direction. I appreciate that Twitter is not shying away from the challenges and potential pitfalls to this approach, but going in with eyes wide open, suggesting that this is an experiment worth exploring.

If you're worried about the dominance of certain social media platforms, or if you're concerned about privacy online, or if you're uncomfortable with leaving the decisions for how content moderation works in the hands of a few internet company bosses -- this is big news and something you should be paying attention to. It won't change the way the web works overnight. Indeed, it might never have that big of an impact. But it certainly has the potential to be one of the most significant directional shifts for the mainstream internet in decades. Keep watching.

Filed Under: distributed, jack dorsey, platforms, protocols, social media
Companies: bluesky, twitter

Judge Orders Man Who Violated Recording Ban To Publish An Essay About Respecting The Court AND To Delete All Negative Comments From Readers

from the you-weren't-doing-anything-with-your-free-speech-rights-anyway dept

Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy highlights a very unusual court order that seems to think the First Amendment is only for people who haven't pissed off judges.

The background of the case is this: Davin Eldridge frequently attended proceedings at the Macon County Courthouse. Despite signs stating that recording devices were prohibited in the court, Eldridge brought in recording devices and recorded proceedings.

He was caught on more than one occasion, with Eldridge's latest attempt at not-all-that-much-subterfuge-tbh interrupted by the presiding judge. From the court order [PDF]:

While in the courtroom, defendant was observed sitting on the second row with a cell phone, holding it "shoulder-chest level" towards the front of the courtroom. The officer went over to defendant and instructed him to put his phone away. Defendant replied, "I'm not doing anything." The Honorable William H. Coward, Superior Court Judge of Macon County, was presiding over a criminal matter at that time. Judge Coward was informed that a live posting of the hearing in session was streaming from a Facebook page. Based on that information, Judge Coward interrupted the hearing to issue a reminder that recordings of courtroom proceedings were prohibited by law. At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Coward viewed the Facebook postings by defendant, which included footage of the inside of the courtroom and the prosecutor presenting his closing argument.

Eldridge was ordered to return to the court later that day to be spoken at by Judge Coward. Eldridge did not do this.

Four days later, the court ordered Eldridge to show why he should not be held in contempt of court for his recordings and his failure to return to the court on November 28. Eldridge responded by trying to have Judge Coward recused. This was denied and Eldridge was given a 30-day jail sentence.

Eldridge appealed this finding of contempt and the denial of his recusal request. The North Carolina Appeals Court affirmed everything Judge Coward's court had handed down (including Judge Coward's non-recusal). Unfortunately, this means the state Appeals Court saw nothing wrong with the punishment handed down by Judge Coward -- one that looks like a whole lot of imposition on Eldridge's First Amendment rights and the introduction of some unjustified (and likely impossible) moderation demands.

Along with a suspended sentence and fines and fees, the court ordered Eldridge to do this:

[D]raft a 2,000-3,000 word essay on the following subject: “Respect for the Court System is Essential to the Fair Administration of Justice,” forward the essay to Judge Coward for approval, and following approval, post the essay on all social media or internet accounts that defendant owns or controls or acquires hereafter during his period of probation and attributed to defendant, without negative comment or other negative criticism by defendant or others, during said period of probation…

Compelled speech is fine, says the Appeals Court. Actually, it doesn't say exactly that because Eldridge never bothered to raise a First Amendment argument. But that's the end result of this opinion, which upholds the sentence handed down by Judge Coward, including the compelling of speech by Eldridge and -- even more questionably -- demands he police his post for any negative comments from third parties and remove them. But the court condones this imposition on Eldridge, which implicates not only his First Amendment rights but those of readers of his posts.

Such conditions are reasonably related to the necessity of preventing further disruptions of the court by defendant’s conduct, and the need to provide accountability without unduly infringing on his rights.

I doubt that. The other punishments might be reasonable and not "unduly infringing" but Coward's court isn't going to end up any more respected by Eldridge just because it forced him to write an essay about respecting the court. It may deter him from blowing off the "No Recordings Allowed" signs in the future but it won't change anyone's minds about Judge Coward's apparent lack of respect for Constitutional rights.

This is pointed out by the dissenting opinion, which says this part of Eldridge's sentence is just completely wrong.

The probation condition imposed by the trial court requiring Defendant to write and publish an essay about respect for the courtroom on his social media and internet accounts and to delete any negative comments made by third-parties on this essay bears no reasonable relationship to Defendant's rehabilitation or to his crime and raises serious First Amendment concerns.

The dissent is okay with the compelled speech -- the writing of the essay. This "bears a reasonable relationship" to the contemptuous recordings Eldridge engaged in, says the dissent. Policing comment threads? Not so much.

It holds Defendant responsible for what is essentially the behavior of others; and while there is some truth to the adage that we are only as good as the company we keep, the relevant community in this context is incredibly diffuse, extending through cyberspace. The lack of reasonable relationship between Defendant’s crime and his rehabilitation to the requirement that he monitor comments made on the essay and delete any critical comments violates the statutory requirement contained in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1343(b1)(10). My vote therefore is to vacate this condition of his probation.

Good call, although the compelled production of an essay on respecting the courts seems just as troubling as the requirement to monitor it for negative comments. Either way, it doesn't matter. The dissent has weighed in but it's the majority's opinion that matters. The First Amendment is no match for an angry county judge.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, compelled speech, content moderation, court order, davin eldridge, free speech, respect, william coward

Trolling The Trademark Troll: Lemonade CEO Releases Chrome Extension To Remove Magenta From Websites

from the pink-out dept

You will recall that last month we discussed the latest iteration of T-Mobile's ongoing war to defend its trademark on the color magenta, as well as close variants of that color. While there are instances in which a particularly unique color or shade of color can be trademarked by a company, this case involved T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, bullying insurance company Lemonade out of using the color magenta in its branding. Given that the insurance and mobile phone industries are quite disparate, this never should have been a dispute, regardless of how ridiculous it is for a company to have exclusive rights to a color like magenta.

The folks at Lemonade appear to agree. While the company complied with Telekom's C&D, it also launched a PR blitz to highlight how insane this all is. First, Lemonade launched its #FreeThePink campaign to raised public awareness, and is taking its case to EUIPO to try and invalidate the trademark. But that wasn't all. The staff of Lemonade has now released a Chrome browser extension that, ahem, helps enact T-Mobile's vision of being the only purveyor of pink out there.

Pending the decision of European IP authorities, a Lemonade employee, Itamar Kestenbaum, wrote a Chrome extension called Pink-Out.

In fact, it's fair to say that Kestenbaum primarily wanted to showcase Deutsche Telekom's appalling behavior.

What the extension – essentially designed to troll the troll – does is strip all webpages, except those belonging to the German company itself, of “questionable shades.”

The app itself claims it helps those browsing the internet to be "pink-compliant", chiefly as a way to highlight the absurdity of all of this. In addition, the extension's page says that with a click of a button all pink is removed from the depiction of public websites, except those owned by T-Mobile. The page concludes with:

This extension is free -- like the color pink should be.

I'll give the company this: they're certainly making Lemonade out of the magenta-hued lemons T-Mobile has handed them.

Filed Under: chrome extension, magenta, troll. trademark
Companies: lemonade, t-mobile