Marco Rubio Jumps To The Head Of The Line Of Ignorant Fools Pushing Dumb Social Media Regulation Bills
from the sit-down-marco dept
It seems like we can’t have even a peaceful week go by without yet another grandstanding fool in Congress introducing yet another terrible bill to destroy the internet. The latest comes from Senator Marco Rubio, who, last week, excitedly released a ridiculous bill that he claims will “crackdown on big tech algorithms and protect free speech.” Of course, cracking down on algorithms is, itself, an attack on free speech. And the rest of his bill is nothing but an attack on free speech.
The actual bill is a clusterfuck of bad ideas. It’s called the “Disincentivizing Internet Service Censorship of Online Users and Restrictions on Speech and Expression” or “DISCOURSE” Act, and the only thing clever about it is the name.
So what does the bill do? It says big internet companies can no longer moderate “viewpoints.” Specifically, it says you no longer get Section 230 protections if you’re a firm with a “dominant market share” who…
… engages in a content moderation activity that reasonably appears to express, promote, or suppress a discernible viewpoint for a reason not protected from liability under subsection (c)(2), including reducing or eliminating the ability of an information content provider to earn revenue…
In other words, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are no longer allowed to kick Nazis off their platform or even to demonetize them. This is basically “the Marco Rubio wants to make sure Nazis get free services Act.”
And from there it gets worse. It says you don’t get 230 protections for anything an algorithm recommends. You lose 230 if your firm with a dominant market share…
… amplifies information provided by an information content provider by using an algorithm or other automated computer process to target the information directly to users without the request of a sending or receiving user…
So, Facebook or Twitter trying to make your feed more relevant means they have to take on liability for everything in your feed.
For all the talk of how this is protecting “free speech,” it’s the opposite. It’s an out and out attack on the free speech of these companies to recommend to their users what they think is most relevant to them and not to be associated with assholes, trolls, Nazis and the like.
Believe it or not, the bill gets even worse and becomes an even bigger attack on free speech. It also says that if you comment upon some other content, you lose 230 protections over that content. I mean, that’s just a blatant violation of the 1st Amendment, as the entire purpose is to disincentivize companies from adding their own commentary, fact checking, and the like. The bill says you lose 230 protections if a market dominant firm…
… solicits, comments upon, funds, or affirmatively and substantively contributes to, modifies, or alters information provided by an information content provider…
Got that? Fact checking now makes you liable for the underlying thing you fact checked. That’s… both unconstitutional and ridiculous at the same time.
And it gets worse. It would only exempt a very narrow class of content, by limiting it to a revised version of (c)(2)’s classifications — taking away the subjective ability of a platform to decide what is objectionable on their platform and limiting it to:
any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user has an objectively reasonable belief is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, promoting terrorism or violent extremism, harassing, promoting self-harm, or unlawful, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected
The wider net of “otherwise objectionable” is removed, and a few new categories are added (“promoting terrorism or violent extremism, promoting self-harm, or unlawful”). Of course, locking it to just these categories is problematic. Unless you consider Nazism to be “promoting violent extremism” then you probably can’t ban Nazis. Spam… totally allowed under this bill. Being an asshole, as long as it’s not “objectively” deemed to be harassing… must be allowed.
The bill also has a transparency clause whose only real purpose is to allow Nazis and trolls to insist they were treated unfairly, by insisting that their harassment of someone was nothing of the sort, and that they were treated unfairly.
Finally, it makes a huge additional change by saying that Section 230 is no longer an immunity, but rather “an affirmative defense.” This may not sound like much, but it gets rid of the main procedural benefit of Section 230 as an immunity. As an immunity, it means you get cases dismissed much faster. As an affirmative defense, in many cases you don’t get to assert that until much later in the case, after you’ve gone through expensive discovery. So this takes away the most useful part of Section 230 and makes it an expensive burden.
It’s hellishly weird to see someone like Marco Rubio, who pretends to be a traditional “conservative,” pushing a bill that will be a massive boon to tort lawyers, and will clog up the courts with vexatious lawsuits. But, hey, it seems that Marco has realized the only way for him to stay relevant these days is to culture war with the best of them, and thus he has to pretend that social media really is out to get conservatives (it is not) and that he has to pass an unconstitutional law to attack the 1st Amendment rights of websites. It’s a pitiful move by an increasingly pitiful politician.
Filed Under: bias, content moderation, marco rubio, section 230, social media, transparency
Comments on “Marco Rubio Jumps To The Head Of The Line Of Ignorant Fools Pushing Dumb Social Media Regulation Bills”
Congress/Senate: “How many times do we have to teach the same lesson, old man?!”
Section 230: “I do love the young people.”
Judge a person not by their words but by their deeds
It’s hellishly weird to see someone like Marco Rubio, who pretends to be a traditional "conservative," pushing a bill that will be a massive boon to tort lawyers, and will clog up the courts with vexatious lawsuits.
Less weird and more telling I’d say, words are cheap what really tells you about a person are their actions, and by his actions I’d say Rubio has made clear his contempt for the first amendment and that he’s either bought into the ‘conservative persecution’ myth or is merely dishonestly playing to the gullible fools who have.
Re: Judge a person not by their words but by their deeds
Just goes to show that republicans are little bitches too.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Conservatives and Libertarians are not the same thing
There is a big difference between a conservative and a capital L Libertarian. A conservative wants to conserve our country and traditions. Libertarian are dogmatic religious zealots. Conserving the country and traditions includes from private aggression. A fundamental disconnect between a Lockean limited government conservative and a near total anarchist Libertarian is the understanding that the fundamental purpose of government is to protect the rights of the people from private aggression.
Re: Re: “Oh, you know the ones…”
Which specific traditions do conservatives want to preserve, again?
Re: Re: Re: “Oh, you know the ones…”
Good heavens! Is that a woman’s account? Is she posting … to (gasp) men!… without her husband or guardian’s permission? That’s lewd! Filthy! And … and… and is that a picture a lady’s ANKLES?
Re: words are cheap
why get excited about just more of the blather constantly streaming from our beloved denizens in Congress?
Rubio’s ignorance, hypocrisy, and malice are standard features of elected politicians.
Several thousand proposed Bills and Resolutions are normally presented in a Congressional Session, but only about 7% evolve into law.
P.S./trivia/: average Congress enacts about 5 Million words into new Federal law every 2 years.
That’s 375 Million words of new law since WWII — but you all knew that, since ‘Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse’.
Re: Re: words are cheap
Because unless you call out such ignorance, hypocrisy and/or unconstitutional behavior you risk it becoming normalized, the fact that it might be expected from certain people/groups does not in any way make it any less deserving of condemnation.
Re: Re: words are cheap
"why get excited about just more of the blather constantly streaming from our beloved denizens in Congress?"
Why wouldn’t you get excited when the people who supposedly represent you and create laws that control your lives are lying about the very basis of their actions?
"Several thousand proposed Bills and Resolutions are normally presented in a Congressional Session, but only about 7% evolve into law"
I dare say that’s because people get "excited" enough to care about what’s being passed to stop most of them from happening, or at least inspire debate rather than a rubber stamp.
As usual, Republicans’ accusations of "fascist censorship" have always been 100% projection.
Uh what?
When a law literally contains phrases like that, it is hard to see how this is anything but political grandstanding that is designed to get thrown out by courts eventually in order to allow for a bunch of posturing about how the judicative is under control of the radical left Democrats or something like that.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Thats What!
"whether or not such material is constitutionally protected"
And that is the fundamental constitutional problem with section 230. It was done expressly to incentivize private actors to take down constitutionally protected speech. This is also a fundamental problem the courts have never really addressed. They have addressed section 230 on a case by case basis. In some many cases the courts have found section 230 applies in others like the recent Malware bytes case they have found it does not but this is a case by case basis. They have never even looked at the fundamental constitutionality of the section itself.
When the author of the bill Chis Cox states that the intent of the bill was to incentivize private "moderation" aka censorship even of constitutionally protected material that crosses the line of state action.
If I’m a red state senator and I don’t like abortions’ I just cant pass a bill called ‘The Reprocuctive Decency Act’ with a section 230 that grants immunity both civil and criminal to anyone who blocks access to an abolition clinic. I cant take an overt action, the granting of immunity, to incentive private action that the government cannot constitutionally take because it infringes upon the rights of the citizens.
Re: Re:
Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host? Remember that racial slurs, anti-queer propaganda, and anything praising Tommy Wiseau as an avant-garde filmmaker despite all evidence to the contrary is considered legally protected speech.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host? Remember that racial slurs, anti-queer propaganda, and anything praising Tommy Wiseau as an avant-garde filmmaker despite all evidence to the contrary is considered legally protected speech."
Yes, but let’s ask the question without the slant:
"Do you believe internet companies should be treated as common carriers like the telephone and postal service, who do not have the right to ban speech they don’t like?"
I’d rather a company be forced to host speech it doesn’t like than to be able to ban it arbitrarily, particularly when it relates to politics or an issue of public concern. Even if a company can censor (moderate) content, it can’t then claim the discussions are anything but edited propaganda which may be deliberately excluding dissenting voices.
Re: Re: Re:2
I didn’t say “companies”. I said “interactive web services”. So let’s try this with a more specific example.
Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel a privately owned Mastodon instance such as queer.party into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host? Please keep in mind that queer.party’s rules explicitly prohibit the posting of “[r]acism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and any other discriminatory conduct which attacks any individual or group of individuals based on what they are or what they believe in”, and that covers a shitload of legally protected speech that you apparently believe should be forced upon that service out of some twisted desire to enforce a Fairness Doctrine for bigotry.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Lying that internet playforms even resemble common carriers and that deliberate lies are mere "dissenting voices" are bright red flags for that troll’s bad faith.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
[Translated frm tha AC’s trollspeak]
Re: Re: Thats What!
And that is the fundamental constitutional problem with section 230. It was done expressly to incentivize private actors to take down constitutionally protected speech.
Just going to copy/past my comment from another article for this one to address the ‘constitutionally protected speech’ line…
‘As a reminder racism is constitutionally protected speech.
Sexism is constitutionally protected speech.
Arguing in favor of torturing gays until they ‘give up their sinful ways’, constitutionally protected speech.
Claiming that the nazis had the right idea and it’s a shame they were stopped before they could really do something about those shifty jews, constitutionally protected speech.
Saying that vaccines not only don’t work they actively make things worse? You guessed it, constitutionally protected speech.
Anyone who tries to argue that platforms should limit themselves to only excluding unconstitutional speech is arguing that all of the above and more should be exempt from moderation.’
There is no ‘constitutional problem’ with 230, all it does is make it so that platform owners can afford to exercise their first amendment rights, moderating as they wish without having to face ruinous lawsuits because of it with the owners the ones who decide what content they do and do not want on their platform, that being the important detail which is what makes it different from your actually unconstitutional ‘you get immunity if you remove this specific content‘ hypothetical.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re: Thats What!
And the government has no business granting immunity to encourage private actors to take down this offensive speech.
Re: Re: Re:2
Yes or no, Chozen: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host?
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:3 We Already Do
We already do. This is asked and answered law.
The FCC requires an cable provider to carry channels that do not otherwise violate federal law. And the supreme court has long ago ruled that these rules do not violate the cable providers free speech.
Your legal arguments always seem to be ‘I don’t like the present law!!!’
Cry me a river.
Re: Re: Re:4
Cable isn’t an “interactive web service”. Try again.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Why Does that Matter
Cable and internet are both regulated under the broad power of the Commutations Act, this gives the government the authority to regulate all wireless and wired communication.
Big Tech sits under the dame regulatory framework as all other communications.
Re: Re: Re:6 Why Does that Matter
Well, you might to take that up with SCOTUS and explain that they are wrong and you are right with your half-assed understanding about the law.
Re: Re: Re:6 Why Does that Matter
"Big Tech sits under the dame regulatory framework as all other communications."
Not when by "Big Tech" you don’t mean the ISP’s and cable providers. Road builders are under infrastructure regulations, General Motors and MacDonalds are not.
Facebook, Google and Amazon aren’t infrastructure. They’re users of infrastructure.
And if that’s beyond your ability to grok then this is a topic where you don’t belong until you’ve done enough reading and thinking to actually know what you’re talking about.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:7 Why Does that Matter
Again you are making up law.
"Not when by "Big Tech" you don’t mean the ISP’s and cable providers. Road builders are under infrastructure regulations, General Motors and MacDonald’s are not.
Facebook, Google and Amazon aren’t infrastructure. They’re users of infrastructure."
If I’m a private road contractor I’m under DOT regulation. If work for GM I’m also under DOT regulation.
I know you think for the sake of your argument that this is the way the is but its not.
At this stage you are making it up. Do some research before you post for god’s sake.
Re: Re: Re:8
The phrase “every accusation, a confession” comes to mind.
Re: Re: Re:8 Why Does that Matter
[Projects facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:8 Why Does that Matter
"If I’m a private road contractor I’m under DOT regulation. If work for GM I’m also under DOT regulation. "
Because it’s the fact that the road is infrastructure which matters.
Once again for the truly slow then; A road is infrastructure. GM is not – whether it concerns their physical address or their automobiles.
"At this stage you are making it up. Do some research before you post for god’s sake."
To do what, counter your made-up falsehoods? A road is infrastructure. Cabling is infrastructure. The network backbone is infrastructure. These are all regulated as infrastructure.
Social platforms, restaurants and bars are not.
I realize you have a problem understanding these very basic concepts given that you seem to think tossing someone out of a bar needs the same paperwork as evicting a tenant, but it really isn’t so.
I’d say you were just trolling at this point – except that this is the exact broken logic the alt-right keeps pursuing. The only thing you keep proving to everyone around here is that you’re a moron.
So by all means keep it up. Keep showing every reader why the sensible person should never allow trolling alt-right fsckwits into their social spaces.
Re: Re: Re:6 Why Does that Matter
"Big Tech"
My experience is that when someone uses "big tech" to describe a small subset of tech companies that doesn’t include entire tech industries, they’re not arguing in good faith.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:7 Why Does that Matter
"My experience is that when someone uses "big tech" to describe a small subset of tech companies that doesn’t include entire tech industries, they’re not arguing in good faith."
Its very much an argument in good faith. The law recognizes market power relative to the duty of the business. Such as the duty of a cable provider to proved lease channels is relative to their size.
Taking size and market share into account is not odd is a regulatory sense.
Re: Re: Re:8 Why Does that Matter
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:4 We Already Do
"The FCC requires an cable provider to carry channels that do not otherwise violate federal law."
And the platforms talked about aren’t the cables. No more so than a bar should be treated the same way the street outside should be.
"Your legal arguments always seem to be ‘I don’t like the present law!!!’"
The present law is just fine. Your lies about it and what it means is what we take offense to.
"Cry me a river."
…Says the shitwit who feels so butthurt over other people refusing him entry in their private property he has to lie about what the law says to feel better.
Re: Re: Re:4 We Already Do
[Projects facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:2 Thats What!
As I and others have noted 230 isn’t what allows someone to choose what speech they will and will not host on their property that’s the first amendment, all 230 does is make it so a platform is less likely to be sued into the ground for exercising that right and prevent them from being sued for the speech of others, so if you really want to keep arguing by all means have at it but keep in mind you’re arguing against the first amendment, not 230.
Re: Re: Thats What!
"And that is the fundamental constitutional problem with section 230. It was done expressly to incentivize private actors to take down constitutionally protected speech."
You mean speech constitutionally protected from government action. Private companies are not beholden to 1A. Did you not learn that in school?
Re: Re: Thats What!
FTFY
Re: Re: Thats What!
“It was done expressly to incentivize private actors to take down constitutionally protected speech”
Do you want to know how I know you don’t understand the first thing about the first amendment?
Re: Re: Thats What!
Why is it that people who are the most "concerned" about constitutionally protected speech never know what those constitutional protections actually are?
"They have never even looked at the fundamental constitutionality of the section itself."
The section says, essentially "if someone says something bad, you have to sue the person who said it, not the owner of the property they stood on at the time". If there’s any constitutional problem with that, please inform us of what it is. But it has fuck all to do with the first amendment if that’s what you’re getting at.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re: Thats What!
That could have been done without section 230s "good samaritan" clause. The purpose of the "good samaritan" was to give a government incentive for private actors censor speech.
Currently if a highly credentialed Doctor A disagrees with Dr. Fauci on an issue like say the origin of COVID-19 YouTube will libel Doctor saying that the Doctor is engaging in misinformation an incredibly damaging accusation to make to a professional and then YouTube can run and hide behind section 230 free from any reprisal for blatant libel.
Re: Re: Re:2
If moderation were censorship, you might have a point. But it isn’t. So you don’t.
Re: Re: Re:2 Thats What!
You say "if". Do you have an example of this actually happening, or is this just a story you made up? I’d like specifics if it’s a true story, starting with details of that the "highly credentialed doctor" has his expertise in. If it’s not virology and pathology, his opinion might mean as much as mine, and I wouldn’t trust me to have a handle on all the facts compared to actual experts.
Although, I don’t see why the origin of the virus matters in the slightest. Usually, it’s presented as part of an attempt to spread conspiracy theories that convince people not to do things that halt the spread of a global pandemic, so I understand why platforms might side with actual experts on the subject.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:3 Thats What!
Dr. Knut Wittkowski one of the most renowned epidemiologists in the world has a video taken down as misinformation because he disagreed on the effectiveness of lockdowns. That is a libelous accusation and he should be able to sue YouTube but he cant because, Section 230.
These examples are endless. You are just sealion! All you ever say is cite evidence or ‘presents facts not in evidence.’
Re: Re: Re:4
No, it’s an opinion. Some other site might think the video is 100% factual even if it’s all a bunch of lies and bullshit. Opinions generally aren’t defamatory.
Re: Re: Re:4 Thats What!
"That is a libelous accusation"
Only if you don’t know what libel is. Saying "we would prefer our platform not to be used to contradict public healthcare advice during a global pandemic" is not libel, even if you personally believe that the official advice is faulty.
"That is a libelous accusation and he should be able to sue YouTube but he cant because, Section 230."
No, they can’t because of the First Amendment. Section 230 would shield them for things that other people did on their platform, it’s irrelevant to anything they do themselves.
In the situation you describe, it’s not relevant because YouTube made the decision themselves, and since the objection is that free speech and free association were exercised on their private property, there’s no way they can be sued for that unless you can prove actual libel.
"All you ever say is cite evidence or ‘presents facts not in evidence.’"
Which is usually met with silence or misdirection. I thank you for being one of the rare people who have bothered to answer with an example that’s not hilariously wrong, but your conclusions are not supported by this case.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Thats What!
"No, they can’t because of the First Amendment. Section 230 would shield them for things that other people did on their platform, it’s irrelevant to anything they do themselves."
When YouTube removes a video from a doctor and says that they removed the doctor for posting medical misinformation that is libel. It isn’t a third party accusing the doctor of misinformation. That is YouTube itself making a severely defamatory accusation in the context of a medical professional.
Section 230 should not immunize YouTube or any other big tech from defaming others.
Re: Re: Re:6 Thats What!
Are you perhaps a doctor? It seems to track with your arguments anyway….
Re: Re: Re:6 Thats What!
"When YouTube removes a video from a doctor and says that they removed the doctor for posting medical misinformation that is libel"
What was their reasoning for removing his videos? Post their exact words, not what you think they meant. Because what they actually said is very important here.
"Section 230 should not immunize YouTube or any other big tech from defaming others."
Good news! It expressly does not do that. It shields them from liability from the actions for their users, not their own actions.
Re: Re: Re:6
No, that is moderation. To prove that it’s defamatory would require a lawsuit, which wouldn’t be successful in this case because calling what he said “misinformation” is the expression of an opinion.
It doesn’t. But a court would still need to rule that YouTube’s speech is defamatory and the chances of that happening are about as good as the chances of a decade’s worth of global climate change being reversed in the next 24 hours.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
"To prove that it’s defamatory would require a lawsuit"
Actual defamation requires a lawsuit. But, the claim that it might be defamation can be easily examined by looking at YouTube’s reasoning. If their objection was something like "this opposes current WHO guidelines", it’s not defamatory because it’s a statement of fact. No court case required there. If the claim is more like "we have removed this video for explicitly spreading false information", maybe they have a case, but that’s for the courts to decide.
There’s a nuance there that might be beyond a person who thinks that a rental contract for your main residence is the same as the agreement you make when you enter a bar, but it’s there.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Thats What!
"Which is usually met with silence or misdirection."
Its met that way because its is a response intended to shutdown debate and not worthy of a response. People are not going to reward your bad behavior with a response child.
Re: Re: Re:6
No, insults like “go back to your mother’s basement” are intended to shut down debate. A plea for a citation of fact is an invitation to continue a discussion so long as you can provide actual facts instead of defaulting ot what your feelings say is true.
Re: Re: Re:6 Thats What!
"Its met that way because its is a response intended to shutdown debate and not worthy of a response"
No, you just imagine it’s intended that way because you don’t want a real conversation.
I’ve spent many years talking to people online, and one of the major red flags that someone is dishonest is when they argue in vague claims but refuse to provide specific (or say "Google it", as if everyone used the same terms to search and they return the same thing every time).
So, in order to not waste time, I ask for specifics. Let’s put it this way – if you made a comment about sexual predators getting away with stuff, you could mean anyone at any time. If I’m aware of Cosby’s release this week it’s obvious what’s discussed, but if I don’t know I might assume you’re talking about Weinstein or maybe you’re talking about some local politician I haven’t heard of. Asking for specifics helps avoid arguing about the wrong thing.
So again, I appreciate you didn’t use that tactic here, but be aware that many do, and there’s no problem with me asking to ensure we’re on the same page. The fact that you reacted to this simple request the way you did, however…
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:3 Thats What!
"Although, I don’t see why the origin of the virus matters in the slightest. Usually, it’s presented as part of an attempt to spread conspiracy theories that convince people not to do things that halt the spread of a global pandemic, so I understand why platforms might side with actual experts on the subject."
This is why you or Big Tech shouldn’t be making such decisions and such decisions shouldn’t be made at all.
As former CDC director Redfield stated when interviewed stated that the CDC and the governemtn as a while was operating under hte assumptoin that this was a SARS-Like virus when it was not that at all.
"By calling it SARS-like, we mounted a public health response that was mirrored off SARS. The problem is, COVID is nothing like SARS,’ Redfield said, adding that response was ‘flawed’."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/robert-redfield-covid-leaked-from-lab-after-being-examined/ar-AAL4C5m
Had Fauci and his people not kept the secret to themselves we may have known just how contagious this virus was a lot sooner.
Of course Dr. Daszak, Facui’s buddy knew. He was boasting in 2016 about his colleagues in China creating ‘real killer’ coronaviruses that are engineered to target human cells.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?404875-1/pandemics
Now its odd that those on the left are all about precautionary principle so why doesn’t that apply to this?
If we knew, or at least Fauci knew, as early as January 2020, that there was a real probability that was an engineered virus specifically manipulated to target human cells, shouldn’t he have shared that? Shouldn’t that have been or operating principle?
Re: Re: Re:4 Thats What!
"He was boasting in 2016 about his colleagues in China creating ‘real killer’ coronaviruses that are engineered to target human cells."
Hint: most people aren’t going to waste their time watching random videos. If you have a point to make, point to a transcript or reliable reporting on the story, not a random video of unspecified length.
"Had Fauci and his people not kept the secret to themselves we may have known just how contagious this virus was a lot sooner."
Yet, I can list many other countries that had access to the same amount of information, yet they were not as vastly disproportionately affected as the US was. Maybe Fauci is not the main problem here? It seems weird that many nations managed to get the virus under control so quickly, yet here you are a year later arguing over whether those same measures can be effective in the US. Is there a regional variant you haven’t told others about yet?
"If we knew, or at least Fauci knew, as early as January 2020, that there was a real probability that was an engineered virus specifically manipulated to target human cells, shouldn’t he have shared that?"
I’ll wait for the results of the investigation that proves this happened and follow whatever advice comes out of it. Until then, nobody achieves anything by attacking the official public health policy at the time where we are actually managing to get the pandemic under control and return to some semblance of normality. Right now, all you’re going to achieve is people refusing vaccines and deliberately doing things to further its spread.
Sorry Koby, that makes you #2.
Re:
What, like that wasn’t the case already?
Re: Re: Re:
His arguments were always #2
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nah, they’re always been #1. As in a bottle of piss that’s been left in the sun quality of beverage.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Once you’ve boiled down a pot of piss enough, it does start to turn brown.
Though this little digression manages to severely overstate the value of Koby’s deliberate disinformation.
Manure and urea, in contrast, actually provide positive value to the world.
Which one of Rubio’s staffers fell down on the job and let him near the internet again?
Beyond?
beyond the use of a can of hair spray and a lighter, remind me again how one "Regulates" a swarm of Gnats,…?
Can someone read these BACK to the idiots
First you come out and demand that everyone can say anything they want, All over your site, and you get no recourse.
Then you give this long list of Stuff, thats already fairly controlled, add a few more and you have Dropped everything that you wanted in the first place, but you take away sec. 230.
Is this a way to Backdoor Fosta?
The THING they should be looking at is a reporting structure, IF the sites find something important. Having them Help and assist the police agencies.
Allot of sites Dumped Tons of data, because they got Scared. Data the police were USING to watch over things. Without which NOW cops/FBI/CIA/DEA/others have to work harder.
And now you are saying we can post anything, the Site is responsible, And anything illegal is supposed to be removed?
Lets get an egg beater into his head and see if that can unscramble this.
Hmmm currently we have "objectively reasonable" reason to believe any content the user uploads is copyrighted (thanks copyright maximalists), and since the user probably didn’t upload a license with their content, displaying it is "unlawful" which means anything can be "reasonably" taken down.
Why have one flavor of insanity when you can have two.
Those look like make the running of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter impossible, and so destroy those businesses. Too many lawsuits while losing a lot of users will destroy, or forceably downsize the big players, and ensure no one grows to replace them. The politicians gain from this, as a divided society of small groups is much easier to rule, and removing foreign contacts makes foreign adventures easier to justify without contradiction.
My Two Cents
As an owner of multiple websites I think poor Marco needs to tape a rather large dildo to a pogo stick and ride that thang like the gold-digging bitch he is.
[Too graphic? I’ll understand if you take it down]
Re: My Two Cents
Your punishment shall be to be voted funny by me.
Re: My Two Cents
Got another vote for Funny Of The Week from me, as well!
Someone please show the bodycount caused by social media moderation decisions
Now show the bodycount caused by Congress refusing to admit covid was a thing
Now someone bitchslap this shitstain into next week.
People are dying, cities are crumbling, tap water can kill people…
And this asshole wants to whine about social media while doing fuck all else to actually make this hellscape he participated in making better.
What chaps my ass the most is this: No one sees that as soon as they (yes, the magic They) get something like this to stick, it won’t stop with just killing off the internet, all other news media (which are social media in disguise (letters to the editor, anyone?)) will be the next on the chopping block. Next think you know, handbills on power/phone polls will be the only way politicians can beg for your vote.
And that will be just fine with them, trust me.
Re: Re:
The bottom line is that these people believe in "free speech" (they can say anything they want without consequences from private or public actors) for them. "Free speech" (you’re allowed to voice your opinion) for others, not so much…
I think most reasonable people would in fact say nazis qualify as violent extremists.
At least, real nazis, not like some people use the word to mean anyone they don’t like.
Re: Re:
"At least, real nazis, not like some people use the word to mean anyone they don’t like."
Ever since the last republican CPAC when the speakers reinterpreted Herr Hitler’s old message of Blood and Soil from on top of a speaker’s stage shaped like the old SS odal rune insignia for racial purity (and coincidentally the current symbol of the american nazi party) the difference between the official GOP and the nazis has grown very thin indeed. Even Godwin, origin of Godwin’s Law, declared his law invalid today. It’s become that bad.
You might argue, with some success, that the reason you shouldn’t refer to the brigade of whiny entitled snowflakes in the US nazi party as "nazis" is because it’d dilute the trademark.
After all, if you asked any of the members of that party in 1935 or so what they thought of racism they wouldn’t shrink, shirk, cower or melt away like their lackwit and weakspined successors always do – but beat their chests and proclaim allegiance to the concept.
Re: Re:
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
Ahhhh FUCK!!!
Great job Mike, now there is going to be another comment section filled with idiots who agree with "Florida Man #2" (or is it #3, hard to say with Gaetz and DeSantis in there too) and think there is an anti-conservative bias in social media, but can never articulate a single example of somebody being banned / censored / moderated from social media merely for being conservative.
Re:
They never cite exactly what speech caused those conservatives to get the boot, either. Says a lot when they say nothing about what someone said to get banned.
Re: Re: Re:
It’s like the people touting the amazing and rock-solid evidence of election fraud(not surprising given the overlap between the two groups), they always had the evidence right there not five seconds before you asked but as soon as you do it up and disappears and all they’ve got left is vague assurances that they most certainly have something and it’s super-duper convincing so they really shouldn’t need to present the evidence itself for you to double-check or anything.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"…they always had the evidence right there not five seconds before you asked but as soon as you do it up and disappears…"
Oh, be fair. They did manage to produce that anonymous post-it note they found in that one polling place which insisted the democrats were meddling with the election. A shame the republican election monitors didn’t catch the widespread cheating taking place right underneath their eyes.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:
Conservative feminists have been banned from Twitter for saying that transgender women should not get equal treatment or even be recognized as "women."
Exactly who wouldn’t wind up abusing censorship power?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
People like you come in here all the time and make these kinds of statements, but there has been exactly ZERO instances where concrete proof has been shown that backs up the statement that somebody was banned for being "conservative." The prevailing reason is that said person was banned for being just a run-of-the-mill online asshole.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Conservative feminists have been banned from Twitter for saying that transgender women should not get equal treatment or even be recognized as "women.""
Have they, though? My guess is that they were banned for being abusive to people on there, and they fell back on the old "I should be allowed to abuse people or it’s a violation of my free speech" canard when the platforms decided to step in and protect some of their customers from abuse. But, these vague claims always seem to lack the specificity required to confirm the claims for some reason.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"Have they, though?"
Probably. Which means they ran a bigoted screed about trans people against which the Twitter Terms of Service have very clear rules.
Every time some alt-right shitwit actually tries to produce a case of "conservatives" being thrown off a social platform, lo and behold, it turns out to be a bigot being thrown off that social platform for violating the ToS saying you don’t get to be a bigot or racist on that platform.
As it turns out every alt-right dipshit with a complaint is conflating "conservative values" with "racism and bigotry". Against that monumentally flawed premise, no wonder they think they have a point.
Someone really needs to tell them that civilized people no longer condone racism and bigotry. It’s no longer a value. It’s a deplorable character flaw.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
How did they express that idea, politely and calmly like you have, or aggressively and abusively while targetting a trans woman? Those details matter as one of those approaches, used repeatedly is justification for a ban.
Re: Re: Re:
Twitter doesn’t have to host speech expressing a hateful anti-trans ideology. You can’t explain how or why the government should have the right to make Twitter host that speech.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"…for saying that transgender women should not get equal treatment or even be recognized as "women."…"
So your one alleged example is people having been banned for being openly bigoted and you make the claim that "no, it’s because they were conservative"?
In the same vein all the guys tossed out of twitter for using the N-word were really being banned because of their "conservative" values?
I think it’s high time the alt-right shitwits finally get a clue and realize that bigotry and racism are not conservative values.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
One of the bots’ talking points was that Katie Herzog was a "very left member of the LGBTQ+ community" who was "cancelled."
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:
Of course you wouldn’t see the citation, since as the video of me typing this shows, this site bans intelligent dissent. Some had actually thought this was a "free speech" site.
Re: Re: Re:
The right of free speech only promises you the right to speak freely. It doesn’t guarantee you a platform, an audience, or respect for your speech. Don’t like the moderation on this site? Go start your own so you’ll be free of the tyranny of being told “we don’t do that here”.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"…since as the video of me typing this shows, this site bans intelligent dissent."
Oh, there’s some intelligent dissent – but most of it just turns out to be alt-right shitwits trying to conflate "conservative values" and "racism" so they can say their "conservative" friends got thrown of Facebook for arguing about "conservative" values – which somehow always turn out to be racist bullshit, bigotry, conspiracy nonsense or some combination of the above.
"Some had actually thought this was a "free speech" site."
It is. You get to make a comment without checking your name at the door and the people on this site who read your comments are free to hang signs saying that in their opinion your argument was useless, misleading, outright false or and/or offensive.
So tell me why we should be compelled to read your garbage? If you are free to speak we are free to listen or not, as we choose.
Your argument basically means that if you climb a soapbox no bypasser will be allowed to not listen or tell their friends you are a nut. Pretty clear who is really against free speech here.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[Hallucinates facts not in evidence, amd disproven by this very thread]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"as the video of me typing this shows, this site bans intelligent dissent"
Why would a video show anything other than the moronic drivel you typed here? Why would you having something not posted here affect how people react to what you did post here?
"Some had actually thought this was a "free speech" site."
Nobody’s affected your free speech, it’s just that others have the right to respond and people like you don’t like that.
Re: Re: Re:
"They never cite exactly what speech caused those conservatives to get the boot, either"
In my experience, when they’re convinced to provide concrete details instead of talking in vague generalisations, the people who got banned were banned for very good reasons that had nothing to do with their political views. They may also be obnoxious abusive assholes on top of being "conservative", but the latter is not usually what got them to boot.
Re: Re:
i thought Florida Man was a species (homo floridensis) anyway.
Google Needs to be Reigned in
Content creators need protections on YouTube but not for the reason these self-important jerks are pushing.
Google wants you to quit your day job to create content but be able to shut you down with no explanation which is basically asking for unscrupulous assholes to abuse the system. Google takes their sweet time unless it’s a big record label that is unfaily targeted. For everyone else they can wait for google to get around to it, or basically flush their hard work down the toilet.
As far as these politicians are concerned I think they are about to be on the receiving end of some very entertaining unintended consequences. And I am pretty sure they’ll know it in 3, 2, 1 after it passes.
Re: Google Needs to be Reigned in
"Google wants you to quit your day job to create content"
They can want whatever they wish. If you’re a creator who bases your entire business on a single supplier, though, you’re beholden to their rules. That’s on you, doubly so if you were aware of the rules going in and they didn’t change them to affect you.
"For everyone else they can wait for google to get around to it, or basically flush their hard work down the toilet."
You can stop whining and use their competitors instead, or find other ways to be paid rather than demanding that Google do all the work supplying ads to your viewers for you.
I understand the frustrations, but damn if there’s no whinier toddler than a YouTuber who got a taste of free money then had it taken away.
Re: Re: Google Needs to be Reigned in
I’m not a YouTuber. It’s jut my opinion about the way Google’s system works. I’ve seen Nasa’s own footage removed because viacom claimed the video. That’s a copyright strike for Nasa on their own video.
Re: Re: Re: Google Needs to be Reigned in
"viacom claimed the video"
While YouTube’s ContentID system can be improved, it’s hardly their fault if a copyright owner makes a false claim. That YouTube has to react immediately and correct mistakes later is also largely Viacom’s doing (they sued YouTube but the videos in evidence were mainly videos that Viacom had uploaded themselves). The main reason why YouTube still exists is because they convinced courts they were doing what they could to avoid infringement, so they weathered cases that killed early competitors.
I’m sympathetic to anyone who gets caught up in this sort of stuff, but if your only income is from a single supplier, you don’t have a robust business model and that’s not YouTube’s fault.
Re: Re: Re: Google Needs to be Reigned in
" It’s jut my opinion about the way Google’s system works."
Thank the DMCA for that. Google was faced with two bad options, one of which would seriously undermine their services and one of which would expose them to a hundred thousand lawsuits.
They had to opt for the one where they castrated their own business model, implementing ContentID and setting it to triggers high enough that no court in the world could claim Google hadn’t done their damndest best.
Now if copyright law applied the same burden of proof normal jurisprudens demands, then you wouldn’t be able to drown a site in ten thousand automatically generated takedown-claim botmails and see the work blocked by default. A claimant would have to prove their rights and ownership to what they demanded taken down before the company would move.
But the DMCA reverses that burden of proof, in practice, leaving the honer on the platform to assume all liability for leaving up what was claimed infringing, even if no proof of infringement existed beyond a baseless boilerplate auto-filled template.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Dumb
What he’s pushing may be dumb, but it’s at least something.
What are you pushing for a long past due change to this censorship anti-American madness?
Complain about Rubio less, be constructive more.
Re: Dumb
Suggestion: Take less meth or more yhorazone, and maybe you’ll stop seeing such hallucinations. Problem solved.
Re: Dumb
Kicking a customer out of your private business for acting like an asshole has been around since the first public house opened in this country.
How is getting the boot from Twitter any different?
Alex Jones has been kicked off social media but still manages to be heard, tell me how he is censored.
Re: Re: Dumb
"Alex Jones has been kicked off social media but still manages to be heard, tell me how he is censored."
Alex is always the funniest example when people bring him up. Not only has he not been "silenced", he owns and operates a platform that predates social media. He wasn’t "deplatformed", he was told to stop co-opting other peoples’ property with propaganda that was leading directly to real life harm. He just whines about it because he realises that there’s no way his little fiefdom will ever be as popular (and therefore financially lucrative) as mainstream platforms.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Very Dumb, example of Dumb
You clearly have no clue on "public housing." Yes I may be ultimately able to kick out an unruly tenant but there is a litany of local, state, and federal regulatory hoops I must jump through.
What’s amazing with Big Tech is despite their economic power how little regulation they fall under.
Re: Re: Re: Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"Yes I may be ultimately able to kick out an unruly tenant but there is a litany of local, state, and federal regulatory hoops I must jump through."
Yes, there’s reasons for that. Maybe you should mull over the differences between physical accommodation and websites before you continue on this idiotic road.
Although, I would ask whether the AC you responded to means accommodation or if he meant "public house" as in "pub". If the latter, I don’t think there’s a great deal of paperwork to jump through if you’re kicking a patron out of a bar for being a disruptive presence unless you’re being explicitly racist about it.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"Yes, there’s reasons for that. Maybe you should mull over the differences between physical accommodation and websites before you continue on this idiotic road."
You are the morons who used the physical example. Don’t cry when its turned back on you because you had no idea how hard it is to actually kick someone off your physical property.
No go ask your mom for a hot-pocket.
Re: Re: Re:3 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
That you can’t differentiate between tenants renting from a landlord and a guest on private property is more of you-problem.
Re: Re: Re:3 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"You are the morons who used the physical example. Don’t cry when its turned back on you because you had no idea how hard it is to actually kick someone off your physical property. "
You doubling down on being a moron proves nothing bad about us.
There’s a difference between being a guest on someone else’s property and renting property. You are literally trying to equate a bar patron with a paying leaseholder.
And the bar owner has no issues at all kicking someone off their property either.
Now if that’s the example you want to use then by all means; go lease server space on AWS. Sign a contract, pay good money in exchange. Now tally how much you have to misbehave before you get booted off the network. It will be roughly similar to the difficulty of evicting a tenant.
The bar owner or the social platform, otoh, have no problems at all showing you the door instantly.
You being this much of a moron is unlikely so let’s just put it down to you being a troll arguing in bad faith.
Re: Re: Re:4 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"Now if that’s the example you want to use then by all means; go lease server space on AWS. Sign a contract, pay good money in exchange. Now tally how much you have to misbehave before you get booted off the network. It will be roughly similar to the difficulty of evicting a tenant."
I’m not exactly sure about this. In the case of Parler, I believe that the situation was that while they put up with months of refusal to comply with terms and unpaid bills, they could have kicked them off at any point beore the Jan 6th incident convinced them to act.
But, it’s not exactly a great analogy as there’s a huge level of difference between renting virtual property for business purposes and renting the home in which you live first time. So, there are different legal protections.
Ironically in the scheme of the current situation, those rules exist expressly due to bad landlords turning up unannounced demanding to come in at all hours, evicting people with little notice or reason, etc. The rules he’s complaining about exist because of people like him.
Re: Re: Re:3 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"You are the morons who used the physical example"
We used the example of a bar or restaurant kicking out a disruptive customer. You’re the idiot who thinks that having a drink is the same as renting a home.
"No go ask your mom for a hot-pocket."
I bet you’re stupid enough to think this is a valid and funny comeback. Whatever works to let you avoid dealing with facts, i suppose.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"We used the example of a bar or restaurant kicking out a disruptive customer. You’re the idiot who thinks that having a drink is the same as renting a home."
I’m amazed that you think a restaurant can just ‘kick out a disruptive customer.’ Have you ever owned such a business or worked such a job? The fact that you think its true doesn’t make it true. I suggest you do some research. Again we are talking about pages upon pages of regulation.
For starters you just cant hire bouncers who put the customer in a hammer lock and throw the customer out the door. The real world is not Roadhouse you child. Roadhouse is a movie. Granted a great classic 80s movie but is still a movie.
In the real world if I’m a restaurant owner and I ever want to be able to ‘kick out a disruptive customers’ I can’t do that myself. I have to hire private security company that has all the required licensing and permits where the security personal have all the required training and permits. The security company assures that their personnel follow all regulations and their permits and their state issued permits alone give them the authority to remove ‘kick out a disruptive customers.’
The authority to ‘kick out a disruptive customers’ does not come from private property rights. It comes from the state issuing permits to trained security personnel to remove people.
Again this all comes back to the same point that none of the sycophants here want to address. Every other industry has to follow pages upon pages of regulation on how their private property is used.
In every example you try and use the fact is that in the real world there is actually a lot of regulation. You may not know it is there but its there.
Why is Big Tech exempt from such common place regulation?
Re: Re: Re:5
I’ve seen disruptive customers led out of businesses before. Nobody has ever had to wait five weeks and fill out a hundred forms in triplicate before they could tell someone to leave a convenience store.
You can’t physically pick someone up by the neck and drag them out of the store, sure. But you can still ask them to leave and usher them towards the door.
No, it does. Nobody is owed a spot on private property they don’t own, and they can be asked to leave by the owner of that property (or a legally recognized representative thereof).
Because the government shouldn’t have the right to force any interactive web service of any size into hosting racial slurs and anti-queer speech despite your best efforts to defend the idea without saying you’re defending the idea.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
"You can’t physically pick someone up by the neck and drag them out of the store, sure. But you can still ask them to leave and usher them towards the door."
Actually, "Chozen" is wrong even there. In most US states landed property abides by the same rules of self-defense as physical housing. Pot odds are the owner can evict the unruly patron at gunpoint if need be. Or, should they prove belligerent, gun them down like a dog and walk free under stand your ground legislation.
Honestly, by now I’m seriously wondering if we haven’t seen this joker before. Bobmail used to try to steamroll people using flawed premises and doubling down by breaking logic even further back on Torrentfreak. All the damn time and just as persistently.
I guess when Baghdad Bob opts to finally get himself a few new nicknames he starts feeling it’s worth casting his turds into walls again…
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
"In most US states landed property abides by the same rules of self-defense as physical housing"
Basically, as soon as you’ve asked someone to leave, they’re trespassing on your property if you refuse to leave. I’m not sure what hoops someone has to jump through to pretend that people should not be allowed to eject trespassers, but I’ll hazard a guess that they’re the same people who insist that trespassers can be shot on sight in gun threads.
Obviously, the way you deal with a trespasser differs between when someone rescinds a temporary invitation as a guest and when you’re trying to deal with someone who’s been living in a place as their primary residence for some time, but that’s a distinction for a thread where the argument is being presented honestly.
Re: Re: Re:5 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
What a load of bullshit.
What state and what law are you referencing that a business owner can not kick somebody off of their premises?
My wife owned a restaurant for over 15 years, and although they were few and far between, there were several occasions where she had to ask somebody to leave after consuming too much alcohol or generally acting like an asshole, drunk or not.
There was no trained security personnel, no state issued permits to give her the right to remove people.
It was her business, she owned it, and as is common in most public houses (which you so stupidly confused with public housing earlier), there was a sign that stated "We reserve the right to refuse service."
To think that it required trained security personal and a state issued permit is something a child would say talking about how his dad can beat up your dad and will sue you if you step onto their property. Who is the childish one here you dumb fucking idiot.
Re: Re: Re:6
I’m pretty sure Chozen is referencing the idea of literally kicking someone out of a business—i.e., using physical force to remove someone from the premises.
They’re still probably full of shit in that regard. But, y’know, may as well be accurate about what they’re bullshitting about.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Possibly, but I have also been to enough dive bars in my life where I have seen a bartender jump over the bar to stop a fight and literally drag somebody out of said bar.
No specially trained security personal, no state issued permits. Just a bartender getting rid of an unruly asshole.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
"Possibly, but I have also been to enough dive bars in my life where I have seen a bartender jump over the bar to stop a fight and literally drag somebody out of said bar."
Anyone in the bar has a right to a fight and drag somebody out of said bar. Just as anyone on the street has that right, well maybe not in deep blue states but generally.
That has nothing to do with property rights.
But again we started with kicking out someone who is being obnoxious to breaking up a physical assault. That goal posts have moved. The examples extend more and more to the extreme as previous more applicable examples are shot down.
Re: Re: Re:5 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"I’m amazed that you think a restaurant can just ‘kick out a disruptive customer.’ Have you ever owned such a business or worked such a job? "
Yeah, I’ve seen violent or abusive customers been kicked out, or dragged out by police if they refuse to leave when asked. Where are you going where abuse doesn’t get you shown the door? Probably not somewhere very popular with non-abusive customers.
"In the real world if I’m a restaurant owner and I ever want to be able to ‘kick out a disruptive customers’ I can’t do that myself. I have to hire private security company that has all the required licensing and permits where the security personal have all the required training and permits."
Where is your "real world", because it sounds like a right shit hole. In my experience, a bar owner can kick out a drunken asshole without filling in paperwork, and I’ve seen this happen in at least 6 different countries. No cops or private security involved unless they refuse to leave when asked.
"Why is Big Tech exempt from such common place regulation?"
Because regulation that deals with personal physical safety doesn’t apply to site where nobody can physically touch you? You seem to still be struggling with the difference between the place where you physically need to reside to survive and you choosing to go to one of billions of websites within a browser.
Re: Re: Re:6 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"Where is your "real world", because it sounds like a right shit hole. In my experience, a bar owner can kick out a drunken asshole without filling in paperwork, and I’ve seen this happen in at least 6 different countries. No cops or private security involved unless they refuse to leave when asked."
I saw lots of people speeding and getting away with it this morning. Witnessing someone getting away with battery doesn’t make it legal.
Re: Re: Re:7 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"I saw lots of people speeding and getting away with it this morning."
Erm, OK. What does that have to do with private property rights?
"Witnessing someone getting away with battery doesn’t make it legal."
Yes, and most people would rather the establishment eject those people before it happens, whereas you seem to think it requires months of waiting for paperwork. Again, thankfully the real world is different from the idiotic strawmen you’re ejecting to pretend that people can’t kick guests out of their property.
Re: Re: Re:8 Very Dumb, example of Du
"Yes, and most people would rather the establishment eject those people before it happens, whereas you seem to think it requires months of waiting for paperwork. Again, thankfully the real world is different from the idiotic strawmen you’re ejecting to pretend that people can’t kick guests out of their property."
No you are a smart business owner and you plan ahead. You make sure your security is permitted. Or you call the cops and have the cops remove the person. You cant do it yourself.
Re: Re: Re:5 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
They’re not.
In the real world, Section 230 makes sure online spaces are treated no differently than offline.
Re: Re: Re:5 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"I’m amazed that you think a restaurant can just ‘kick out a disruptive customer.’"
There’s literally thousands of cases of this happening every day. So yes. They can. Restaurant owners can evict you for any reason at all and failing all else call the cops and state "This person refuses to leave" and see them carted off in handcuffs instead if they persist.
The only exceptions are when you can demonstrably prove that the only reason for the eviction was racism or bigotry. And even that’s thin.
"In the real world if I’m a restaurant owner and I ever want to be able to ‘kick out a disruptive customers’ I can’t do that myself."
You certainly can. Every state in the US allows this exact method. most restaurant owners instead choose to call the cops or properly trained security. And the latter mainly as a safeguard against possible civil liability.
"The authority to ‘kick out a disruptive customers’ does not come from private property rights. It comes from the state issuing permits to trained security personnel to remove people. "
You just keep right on lying, don’t you? And digging deeper all the time. There’s nothing magical about a security license. It’s what guards a property owner from liability. But the right to say "You are no longer welcome" comes 100% from property rights.
"Every other industry has to follow pages upon pages of regulation on how their private property is used. "
When failure to abide by such standards jeopardizes the physical health or property of others, yes, otherwise not. The restaurant owner needs to abide by HSSE specifications or they can’t serve food. They need a liquor license to serve alcohol. They have no regulations about not being able to point at the door and inviting people to leave.
"Why is Big Tech exempt from such common place regulation?"
It’s not, except in your delusions, Baghdad Bob. But do go on. Keep writing wordwalls discrediting the alt-right further and demonstrating that the only way to make an argument against section 230 is to start out by lying through your teeth.
Re: Re: Re:6 Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"You are no longer welcome" comes 100% from property rights."
But the right to kick them out does not. They can continue to be as obnoxious as they want. Until someone shows up who has the legal authority to kick them out they don’t’ have to leave. And that someone is not the property own. Its either a cop or permitted security.
That is that law!
Re: Re: Re:7
By your logic, a homeowner has no legal right to kick someone out of their home because the homeowner lacks “the legal authority to kick [someone] out”. Is that an argument you want to stand by?
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
That seems to be his argument, because he’s falsely conflating a tenant with a guest.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
Put your hands on a guest who engaged in no force against you or a another if that person is a lawyer or someone with means you will be the one going to jail.
"Thats why we keep seeing the dive bar anecdote."
Yeah battery is common in dive bars. You dont see high end establishments doing that @#%^ because you never know who you are screwing with. They hire permitted security.
Re: Re: Re: Very Dumb, example of Dumb
"You clearly have no clue on "public housing."
More than you do, given that "public house" refers to pubs you benighted lackwit. He’s talking about bars.
And the "publich housing" you think you referred to is owned and operated by the state or government. So doesn’t apply at all.
Social platforms are private property. Not government. They and they alone make the rules as to who they allow entry and who they see fit to evict.
And the only ones ever having much of an issue with that are the entitled snowflakes of the alt-right who can’t stand noit being allowed to mingle with everyone else.
Fuck your feelings, Proud Boy.
Re: Re: Re: Very Dumb, example of Dumb
You clearly have no clue on how to read. Where in my post did I say "housing?" Ummm, fucking nowhere. I said public house and let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about it:
I added the emphasis there to make a point about how you seem to be one of the idiots who confuse "public house" with "public housing".
So, considering you don’t understand the simple difference between "public house" with "public housing", why shouldn’t we all just dismiss what you have to say and flag as trolling as you seem to be just a garden variety idiot.
Re: Dumb
What sort of constructive behavior have you ever demonstrated?
Re:
Remember folks, just flag restless the turd-dropper and move on.
Re: Dumb
"What are you pushing for a long past due change to this censorship anti-American madness? "
Facebook and Twitter are private property. Their house, their rules. This is what you call anti-american, you entitled whiny dipshit?
Meanwhile here you sit, advocating for laws to nationalize private property if it’s sufficiently popular. And you don’t even get which playbook that idea comes from, comrade?
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Dumb
"Facebook and Twitter are private property. Their house, their rules. This is what you call anti-American, you entitled whiny dipshit?"
I wish that applied to my landlord tenant relations. I cant even enter my own property without giving my tenant 24 hours notice.
In my state the .gov listed procedure for evicting a tenant is over 30 pages long and we are a relatively lightly regulated state.
Jesus you are ignorant. You clearly have no life so you don’t understand at all the rules the rest of us live under.
You live in your parents basement don’t you?
Re: Re: Re:
Pot, kettle, black.
Re: Re: Re: Dumb
"I wish that applied to my landlord tenant relations. I cant even enter my own property without giving my tenant 24 hours notice."
Yeah, abusive landlords with a long history of violating rights of their tenants has made it so that those situations are avoided.
I don’t see what that has to do with the equivalent of McDonalds kicking out a guy shouting racial abuse at other customers, though.
Re: Re: Re:2 Dumb
"I don’t see what that has to do with the equivalent of McDonalds kicking out a guy shouting racial abuse at other customers, though."
Because like every other alt-right fuckwit to weigh in on the topic he seriously doesn’t understand the difference between the bar owner tossing out a belligerent asshat and a tenant negotiating the terms of rent and paying for the privilege of renting a property?
Judging by the arguments of the alt-right trolls these days the extreme right in the US has completely ceased to understand how private property works.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:3 Dumb
" tenant negotiating the terms of rent and paying for the privilege of renting a property?"
The state procedure for evicting a tenant has nothing to do with the terms of the lease. Its the law you child. Any reflection of the legal procedure in the lease is just that a reflection of the existing law. A lease that didn’t comply with the 30+ pages of regulation in my state would not be a legal lease.
God damn you are an ignorant child.
Re: Re: Re:4 Dumb
It’s funny that couldn’t rebut what he said, instead you went for the fuck-wit defense of misdirection.
Re: Re: Re:4 Dumb
"The state procedure for evicting a tenant has nothing to do with the terms of the lease."
And yet here you are, trying to equate that 30-page´+ lease contract with visiting a god damn bar or social platform.
"God damn you are an ignorant child."
Said by the moron who just doubled down on the logic that a bar owner can’t evict patrons for the same reason landlords can’t evict tenants.
Wanna guess, of the two of us, at whom everyone here is pointing and laughing, clown? ????
Re: Re: Re: Dumb
"I wish that applied to my landlord tenant relations. I cant even enter my own property without giving my tenant 24 hours notice."
That’s the contract terms you signed to, so if you have a beef with it I suggest you get a lawyer to draft you something beyond the default terms of rent.
But hey, you want to make yourself look like a complete idiot again why don’t you just keep confusing renting a property for the purpose of living in it under strict contract terms, against remuneration with a forum allowing people to leave comments for free, under loose but definitive Tos*. Oh wait. You did.
"Jesus you are ignorant. You clearly have no life so you don’t understand at all the rules the rest of us live under. "
I understand the rules, yes. You don’t and I guess that’s a real burden on some alt-right shitwit who doesn’t read english well enough to understand them. When you rent someone a place to live in you get to make demands; You can demand a credit check, detail their desired income, follow their public history and deny them their lease based on just about anything.
But once you and they sign to the lease and they pay you good money, both of you have to abide by the agreed-upon contract. You seriously don’t get something this basic?
"You live in your parents basement don’t you?"
No, I live on my own and in my current job I do contracts for a living. This is why I can tell you’re full of shit, by the way – I know how to read those rules you find so terribly burdensome.
And when you sit your ass down with Facebook negotiating the right to lease server space and a web portal in exchange for money then their task of tossing you out becomes just as hard as it is for you to evict a tenant. Your account on their forums though? You agreed to their ToS when you signed up and those ToS say they can toss you out on the spot whenever they feel the desire to do so, without grievance.
Don’t bring your clown shoes to a gun fight, moron. You being a stupid is all on you, and you proving consistently that your arguments are full of shit is also all on you. And here’s some news you might need; being an asshole about being wrong also doesn’t help your case. It just means we all get to put a nice frame around your trainwreck logic, flag your ass as irrelevant and wrong, then move on.
And if you find that…upsetting…then I suggest you move right back to whatever echo chamber had you convinced that factual reality, constitutional rights and business agreements don’t exist.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Dumb
"That’s the contract terms you signed to"
Its not the contract terms. The only reason it states that in the contract is because that is what the law requires. Its state law genius. I know you live with your parents basement but come on.
" You agreed to their ToS when you signed up and those ToS say they can toss you out on the spot whenever they feel the desire to do so, without grievance."
But as a landlord I cant write that into my contract can I? My contract has to conform to the 30+ pages of procedural regulations on evicting a tenant. Other industries just cant make up their own rules. Other industries have layers upon layers of regulation that their contract has to conform to. Why is BigTech exempt?
Get a life before you spout off about the real world you adult-child.
Re: Re: Re:3 Dumb
Are you really suggesting that no rental agreement can have clauses for early termination that’s not mentioned in state law, as long as they conform with the former?
Your wit is lacking, don’t you have any better and wittier insults?
Most industries have regulations and laws they have to follow because it has been proven that they otherwise prey or cause harm, physical and monetary, on people. Being evicted in the middle of the night for some spurious reason has far more ramifications than having a video taken down. That you don’t understand this is mindboggling.
Btw, there is no exemptions. You think there are because you don’t understand context and have no understanding that different types of industries have different regulations that reflects that particular industry.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Dumb
"Most industries have regulations and laws they have to follow because it has been proven that they otherwise prey or cause harm"
No that is not why. Is because its in the "public interest" that is the Munn standard. That is all the Munn standard says. You are moving the goal posts.
Re: Re: Re:5 Dumb
"No that is not why. Is because its in the "public interest" that is the Munn standard."
You mean the Munn standard established in "Munn vs Illinois" which was then reversed in Wabash vs Illinois"?
It takes a special brand of village idiot to go as far as to quote a precedent which was reversed in 1886.
The "public good" is not a catch-all term which enables an override of private and personal property as soon as a case can be made that a lot of people would benefit. And the only legislation you can point to is so moldy the case was overturned more than a century ago.
Damn, Baghdad Bob, at risk of paraphrasing Masnick, there are dumb motherfuckers, and then there are motherfuckers like you, for which merely "dumb" won’t suffice.
It’s a crying shame dunning-kruger never was established as a valid symptom or you could at least count on government subsidy to compensate you for your compulsion to make an ass out of yourself online.
Re: Re: Re:6 Dumb
"You mean the Munn standard established in "Munn vs Illinois" which was then reversed in Wabash vs Illinois"?"
You read too much Wikipedia. The standard for regulation in Munn vs. Illinois wasn’t reversed. The law regulation itself was ruled unconstitutional because it infringed on interstate commerce. States and the federal government still have every right to regulate things in the public interest which are within their sphere.
Re: Re: Re:3 Dumb
"But as a landlord I cant write that into my contract can I? My contract has to conform to the 30+ pages of procedural regulations on evicting a tenant. "
Bingo. A leaseholding tenant is not the equivalent of a bar patron or a mall visitor.
Your logic makes the the case that before you can visit the local publican for a pint of draft you need to sign to a 30-pager worth of regulations as to how the publican can evict you should you violate their terms. Same for the visitor to a shopping mall.
Because those are the real-world analogues of being on a social platform.
"Get a life before you spout off about the real world you adult-child."
I’m not the one insisting that a social platform needs 30 pages of state regulation before passing netizens should be allowed to post a comment. Or that the bar owner needs to have patrons sign a tenant lease before allowing them entry.
If that’s your logic then of the two of us, I’m not the one going to have a problem with the real world. And the way everyone keeps flagging your posts as irrelevant garbage seems to have my back in this assertion.
But please. Feel free to double down yet again. Prove to everyone once more how basic logic and common sense keeps escaping your grasp. Fling some more feces and scream to the disbelieving laughing public. It’s really no skin off my nose if you are here only to drag your nickname through the mud.????
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Dumb Examples
Keep seeing this example of I can kick anyone I want off my property.
lol
TechDirt is based in California.
You can go here and start the process to ‘just kick anyone you want off of your property’
https://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-eviction.htm
Its about a 15 step process with over 100 pages of regulation.
God the regulars here have no life.
Re:
There is a vast difference between a tenant/landlord relationship and a bar owner kicking some drunken jackass out of their bar for talking shit about [local sports team]. Social media bans are more like the second situation than the first.
Re: Dumb Examples
You’re really determined to push a situation that bears zero relation to the issue at hand, aren’t you?
Re: Re: Dumb Examples
Even better. I thought I recognized his tells and then recalled the only one who keeps quoting Munn vs Illinois as the standard precedent as to why corporations need to abide by the common good. "Chozen" is none other than our very own Baghdad Bob.
The reason no one else tries to quote Munn is because that ruling was overturned in 1886 in Wabash vs Illinois as even a quick wiki tour will show.
Baghdad Bob is just that sole clown who keeps trying to push a legal precedent which was overturned a century ago to fit his aims, proving him the "legal expert" (who is apparently also a legal eagle landlord now in addition to his prior claims of expertise in every topic).
Re: Re: Re: Dumb Examples
Chozen (Chosen)
Portent
Sounds like Blob’s added a messiah complex to his other dementias. He’s here to "save" us from the evils of true facts and literate readings of the law.
Re: Re: Re:2 Dumb Examples
Chosen, Portent, Bobmail…a few dozen other nicknames. Always with the same utterly deranged logic based on free fantasies and his fevered imagination.
He’s always had delusions of grandeur – claiming to be an expert in law, IT, history, psychology, medical expertise, etc.
And he’s always a successful entrepreneur, millionaire, business owner or, in this case, a landlord. Which i guess is at least more reasonable than past assertions of schemes which would have gained him millions if it weren’t for meddlesome reality interfering.
So far the only expertise I’ve found him to have is his unique talent in constructing comments where his later arguments always shoot his first argument right in the dick, and the fact that every argument he makes is based on outright false premise.
Re: Re: Re: Dumb Examples
I’ll just note what I’ve noted in the past – can you imagine what could be achieved if the amount of time and effort he puts into whining about spam filters and trying to "fool" the community here was put into something productive?
If there’s one positive thing I can say about the handful of regular trolls and fools we have parading here, none of them are lazy – they put a lot of effort into being wrong. If only they could find something better to do.
Re: Dumb Examples
Thank you for clearly labeling your dumb examples as such.
Re: Dumb Examples
"Keep seeing this example of I can kick anyone I want off my property."
If you operate a bar or social platform where the parties you want to kick off are there only on your sufferance, sure.
But you telling us that ought to mean you can kick people out who have signed a contract and are paying rent and thus have been handed, by you, the agreed-upon right to assume partial property ownership pro tem willy-nilly…that’s not a point for your side. That’s just a point of evidence that you’re a moron who can’t read and doesn’t understand basic property law.
"God the regulars here have no life."
It’s somehow ironic of you to say that right after proving that you can’t read very well. If someone negotiates a contract with, say Amazon or Google, about server space and a web portal, then they too can’t easily be gotten rid off ahead of their lease expiring.
You bring up house rent as a comparison to the publican evicting patrons from his bar and giggle at us for not thinking it’s the same thing? Right…
Re: Dumb Examples
You /are/ aware a tenant-landlord relationship involves an actual contract, right, and the consequences of kicking someone out of their domicile are a bit more extreme than a Twitter ban?
Re: Re: Dumb Examples
Apparently not. He’s spent three iterations of comments or so telling me I’m an ignorant child for not believing that the two are one and the same.
I can only say by that logic it’s likely that he has never entered a storefront in his life because of the perceived difficulty in entering premises from which he should by rights need a 24-hour advance warning before the owners are allowed to even question his presence, no matter what he does, and can’t kick him out for bad behavior without going through the full waltz required to evict an unruly tenant.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a commenter on this forum even more persistently stupid and willfully blind than Baghdad Bob, but I do believe "Chozen" comes close.
So smart lol
"Chosen, Portent, Bobmail,"
Never denied that I was Portent. When I tried to create an account it said that Portent was taken so I used another handle. Don’t know who the hell Bobmail is.
Re: So smart lol
FYI you see this kind of paranoia that the people who disagree with you are all sock puppets bots etc only on the most insane websites. People who think like that are clinical and really need to see a psychiatrist.
"That seems to be his argument, because he’s falsely conflating a tenant with a guest."
Its conflated because its all the same thing. If you try and kick someone out is battery. It doesn’t matter if its a guest, a tenant, or a patron. Its battery. Only a cop or permitted security can kick someone out. I don’t really care what you have seen in a dive bar. There is a reason dive bars employ bouncers and high class night clubs employ security. Those trust fund brats have an army of lawyers behind them and you don’t just "kick them out" or their parents lawyers will legally kick our ass.
Moving the goal posts is all you 4 do. You go from someone being obnoxious to someone committing physical battery of another. The 4 of you move the goal posts anytime you are proven wrong. And even then you are wrong. Anyone in a bar has a legal right, generally, to break up a fight and diffuse the situation. That has nothing to do with property rights. A random patron has just as much right to get involved as the owner. You only have a right to use force when force is used upon you or in defense of another whom force is being used upon.
Re:
If someone literally shits in your home and you literally throw them out, that might technically be battery, but no DA worth a good god’s damn would ever prosecute that case. Same goes for someone shooting an intruder: It might be assault, but no one is going to prosecute a homeowner for protecting their home (and anyone inside it).
Under that logic, if you ask a guest to leave and they refuse—or a robber enters your home and refuses to leave because damn your house is better than theirs—they can legally stay in your home as long as they want so long as you don’t call the cops. Do you understand how fucked up that sounds—and how fucked up you are for presenting an argument using that logic?
“Kick them out” doesn’t always mean “literally kick them out”. It’s a shortcut for referring to any act that makes an unwanted guest leave. Telling someone to leave is “kicking them out”. So is literally throwing them out. So is calling the cops to have them dragged out. And FYI: All of those are legal acts, so long as you’re the property owner.
The act someone commits to being kicked out of property they don’t own is ultimately irrelevant. They’re not the owners of that property, and so long as they’re not in a rental contract or other binding legal agreement with the owners of that property, they can be kicked out of that property for any reason. A homeowner, a bartender, and a corporate office can all make an unruly guest leave that property without running afoul of the law. They can even use force if necessary.
That you’re all but arguing that a thief should be allowed to stay in a home they broke into because the homeowner hasn’t called the cops is…well, it doesn’t say anything good about you.
Re: Re:
"If you try and kick someone out is battery"
No, if you ask someone to leave your property, most people will do so without physical confrontation. If they’re a real asshole and they start acting up, they’re now trespassing and you have the right to use reasonable means to get them to leave, which may include physical force, to a degree. You can then call the cops if the situation starts getting out of hand.
Again, I’m glad I live in the real world, where people are able to kick out disruptive guests and patrons. I’m also glad that this real world includes the ability to kick such people out of social media platforms, where such escalation to violence is impossible.
There’s obviously a reason why you keep steering the conversation toward violence even though I’ve been talking about non-violent events, but whatever it takes to deflect from your idiotic assertion that people need to fill in paperwork to ask a disruptive guest to leave, I suppose.
Re: Re: Im not the one steering the conversatoin
Im not the one steering the conversation towards violence. The bar analogy started with someone being obnoxious. When that didn’t work you 4 moved the goal posts to breaking up a fight.
You always move the goal posts. Its the only way you know how to argue.
Reduction to absurdity and extrapolation to absurdity that is entirely how you think. That is how the Florida law that just says ‘write clear and percise rules’, enforce your rules fairly, becomes
‘allowing Nazis to post porn to children’
Re: Re: Re:
I see we can add “move the goalposts” to the lists of phrases you don’t understand.
You’re the one who nudged the conversation towards violence by saying the owner of a given piece of private property needed to sign fifty forms in triplicate and wait three-to-six months before booting an unruly guest out of said property. We had to point out where, here in the real world, we’ve seen people forcefully ejected from private property—businesses and homes alike—by the owners of that property or a duly designated representative (e.g., an employee/manager) without having to do all the paperwork you say they need to do beforehand. When your argument fell flat, you kept flailing about in an attempt to find some new angle on it, only to get shut down at every turn—which is when you started accusing people of moving the goalposts. “Every accusation, a confession”, indeed.
…says the person who sincerely believes a homeowner has to file tons of paperwork before they can kick out a trespasser by either telling them to leave or literally throwing them out of the house.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"We had to point out where, here in the real world, we’ve seen people forcefully ejected from private property—businesses and homes alike—by the owners of that property or a duly designated representative (e.g., an employee/manager) without having to do all the paperwork you say they need to do beforehand."
We’ve also seen it done without violence. Simply telling a person to get the hell out actually works in a lot of cases.
Not that any of this really has anything to do with stopping a website user from using that website, but it’s telling that this particular fool has gone from claiming that you can’t eject a person without months of paperwork to whining about violence that’s impossible in the situation he’s arguing the analogy over.
Re: Re: Re: Im not the one steering the conversatoin
"The bar analogy started with someone being obnoxious. When that didn’t work you 4 moved the goal posts to breaking up a fight."
I didn’t do that. It seems you’re hallucinating in order to pretend that your idiocy is justified.
"Reduction to absurdity and extrapolation to absurdity that is entirely how you think"
No, that would be the moron who thinks he needs a contract to eject an unruly guest.
Re: Re: Re:2 Im not the one steering the conversatoin
"No, that would be the moron who thinks he needs a contract to eject an unruly guest."
I said you need permitted security or to call the cops. You have no right at all to do it yourself. That you have seen people break the law does not make it legal. I see people speeding everyday. That doesn’t mean it is legal.
This started as a dumb example by you 4 ignorant people who had no idea what the law actually was. Just admit you were ignorant.
Re: Re: Re:3 Im not the one steering the conversatoin
"I said you need permitted security or to call the cops."
Which is a lie, unless you’re trying to misrepresent the argument as something that’s not being said. I don’t need to call a single person to tell a party guest to GTFO out of my house if he’s causing trouble.
"I see people speeding everyday. That doesn’t mean it is legal."
Again, what the fuck does that have to do with anything?
Re: Re: Makikng up Law
"now trespassing and you have the right to use reasonable means to get them to leave"
No you don’t.
"which may include physical force, to a degree"
No it doesn’t, that is battery.
Re: Re: Re:
You seem to be saying that if someone trespasses on property I own, and they refuse to leave when asked, I can’t make them leave without filling out paperwork or calling the cops.
What fucking country do you live in that doesn’t let you defend your own property from intruders?