Microsoft Joins In On The ‘Screw Over LGBTQ Kids’ Party By Supporting KOSA
from the cynical-political-moves dept
Well, this is not that much of a surprise, but in the leadup to the Senate “child safety” dog and pony show that will be happening in a few hours, Microsoft decided to twist the knife in to some of its competitors. Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith (who was formerly the company’s general counsel and absolutely understands the impact of what he’s doing) came out and endorsed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
If you can’t read that, he says:
Technology can be a powerful tool for learning, creativity, communication, and social good, but can equally pose significant challenges and risks for young users. We must protect youth safety and privacy online and ensure that technology – including emerging technologies such as AI – serves as a positive force for the next generation.
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) provides a reasonable, impactful approach to address this issue. It is a tailored, thoughtful measure that can support young people to engage safely online. Microsoft supports this legislation, encourages its passage, and applauds Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn for their leadership.
This is absolute bullshit on multiple levels. First off, weird plug for AI there, which has nothing to do with any of this, and which is likely to be Congress’ next target of “bad” tech.
Of course, that may very well be why Smith is doing this. He knows it’s an easy way to cozy up with Congress and pretend to support their agenda, while the downside risk to Microsoft is minimal. KOSA is going to cause a pain for more consumer-facing social media sites like Instagram and YouTube, but Microsoft-owned sites like LinkedIn and GitHub are most likely to be spared. So, as a totally cynical approach, this saddles some of Microsoft’s largest competitors with a nonsense compliance headache, while letting Microsoft publicly claim it’s “protecting the kids” while getting kudos from Congress.
However the claim that KOSA is “reasonable,” “impactful,” “tailored,” or “thoughtful” is just grade-A bullshit. The law is a total mess, and will do real harm to kids beyond just being obviously unconstitutional. As we’ve pointed out multiple times, GOP support for the bill is because they know it will be used to censor LGBTQ content. The GOP’s leading “think tank,” the Heritage Foundation has publicly supported the bill because they believe censoring LGBTQ content “is protecting kids.” Meanwhile, bill co-sponsor, Marsha Blackburn (whom Smith thanks above for her “leadership,”) has similarly admitted that Congress should pass KOSA to “protect minor children from the transgender in our culture.”
There is no excuse for Microsoft to take this stance, which Smith well knows will likely lead to kids dying, rather than being protected. But, Smith is a cynical political operator and knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s doing a favor for Congress while cynically kicking his rivals while they’re down. Between this and Snap’s similar capitulation, expect to see all sorts of nonsense at the hearing about how “some companies want to protect our children, why won’t you?” addressed to the other company representatives.
Microsoft, over the last decade or so, really rehabilitated its public image as the evil company of the 90s that crushed competitors through any dirty trick imaginable. But that DNA is still in there, and it will miss no opportunity to kick competitors, even if it comes at the expense of children.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, ai, brad smith, censorship, competition, kosa, protect the children
Companies: microsoft, snap
Comments on “Microsoft Joins In On The ‘Screw Over LGBTQ Kids’ Party By Supporting KOSA”
Been hearing that they may try to pass KOSA sometime in Spring but I still think the bill unlikely to pass before the election. Even if it passed the Senate it will still need to pass the House where it will have a harder time.
Still Snap and Microsoft backing it (and apparently Twitter/x will back it with other bad bill) this is very worrying.
Mask off
The silver lining of all these companies hopping on the KOSA bandwagon is that you can see these companies’ true attitudes toward queer people. Their facades have vanished. Microsoft, along with a bunch of other big companies, decided that their bottom line is far more important than safety and equality for queer people. This indicates that any pro-queer sentiment (or anything that condemns bigotry) coming from these companies was just pandering all along.
If any of these companies actually meaningfully care about queer people, none of them would be supporting KOSA. Lining the pockets of the filthy rich matters more to them, so instead they support throwing queer people under the bus for KOSA.
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Re:
Surely you weren’t so naïve as to think that whatever-mega-corp felt any genuine fondness for some of the most disgusting, degenerate people in America today (queers & groomers)?
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Re: Re:
only someone who’s in the closet about being queer while drowning in self-hatred would say something like that
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Re: Re: Re:
Or maybe I just think that “queer” people and their advocates are some of the most evil, disgusting people to wield influence on vulnerable children and young people since Ibram X. Kendi.
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Re: Re: Re:2
fuck off revenge porn freak
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Re: Re: Re:2
[Asserts facts contrary to evidence]
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Re: Re: Re:2
That why you need to genocide us when we’re kids, right?
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Re: Re: Re:3
If by “you,” you mean Palestinian children (who are uniformly future terrorists or future terrorist-sympathizers), then yes. Emphatically yes!
Re: Re:
As a queer, I’d prefer not to be lumped in with groomers such as yourself.
Re: Re:
Putting the bigotry aside: No corporation feels any genuine fondness for anything but money. If a corporation’s higher-ups believe they can get away with murder and that they’ll make more profit by killing people, that corporation will start murdering people left and right to make a buck. Just ask the U.S.-based companies that helped the Nazis in World War II.
Re: Re: Re:
Oh, only WW2?
Microsoft still maintains a stripped version of Linkedin in China.
Google’s been known to bend over backwards for authoritarians and have been lectured by Congress in 2017 over Project Dragonfly.
Those 2 are just big examples.
The mask has been off for quite a while.
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Re: Re: Re:
Oh, look, it’s the resident idiot.
Corporations are run by people. Those people have genuine fondness for the same things that anyone else does. Some only want money, some are social justice warriors.
Re: Re: Re:2
And those people typically have a responsibility to the shareholders of those corporations: a responsibility to create profit. If corporate executives have to create profit by any means necessary, and those means can include “murder”, they would commit murder to create profit more often than they wouldn’t. We don’t get executives like Satoru Iwata—who cut his own salary and refused to fire workers after a rough financial year for Nintendo a decade ago—on a regular basis. We get executives like David Zaslav, an enemy of the arts and culture in general.
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Re: Re: Re:3
Wait, so you think that a privately owned corporation has the moral obligation to support television shows and movies that are not necessarily profitable, but are the right thing to do?
Look at that. Even an idiot can learn.
Re: Re: Re:4
I don’t respond to otherwording.
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Re: Re: Re:5
I’m other words, when someone demonstrates your error and idiocy, you are at a loss for words.
Re: Re: Re:6
I don’t respond to otherwording.
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Re: Re: Re:7
In other words, you hate that your inconsistency has been demonstrated. You are willing to impose moral obligations on people when it’s the obligation to do things you want. But when it’s something you don’t want, you pretend those obligations don’t exist.
Re: Re: Re:8
Ib id.
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Re: Re: Re:9
You claim you don’t respond to otherwording by responding and saying you don’t respond to otherwording. In other words, what you’re trying to do is to claim that you have a valid response but you’re withholding it. But you have no such response, because, as always, you are wrong.
Re: Re: Re:10
I don’t respond to otherwording because…well, first, let me break out my copypasta on the word:
If you want me to respond to you with anything other than this and what I’ve already responded to you with, argue against the points I actually made instead of the point you wish I had made so your argument would be stronger. If and when you can do that, I’ll be glad to have a conversation. Until then: Stop shoving words down my throat that didn’t first come from it.
Re: Re: Re:11
Oh, Stone, bless your heart, I don’t ever want you to respond to anything I say. But it’s fun poking and prodding at you because you’re so obviously incapable of not responding, no matter how wrong your responses will be.
For example, the film American Fiction is distributed by Amazon, and The Color Purple by Warner. And the scurrilous Harvey Weinstein was responsible for an enormous number of artistic movies.
You’re just an idiot. Corporations are run by people with the same diverse motivations as anyone else, with the same talents or lack thereof as anyone else. You, and Masnick, and Bode just cherry-pick examples that happen to hit your own prejudices and blather about them, just as I like to talk about male rapists being put into women’s prisons or migrants who attack NYPD officers being released after arrest without bail.
Re: Re: Re:12
I am capable of responding. But I do my level best to respond to arguments that address what I actually said, not what someone wishes I had said so they can make some sort of “gotcha” statement or force me into defending a position that I didn’t take or an opinion I didn’t express. If you otherword me, I will refuse to respond to that otherwording more often than I will actually respond to it.
If you want an actual response, here’s what you do: Go back to where you first otherworded me, re-read what I said before you otherworded me, and address the points I actually made instead of assigning to me a position I never so much as implied was mine and asking me to defend that position. A refusal to do this, as well as any future otherwording, will be met with the same response you’ve been getting. Your misunderstanding of my capabilities notwithstanding, I’m not going to play a game that you’ve tried to rig in your favor, so address my actual positions or fuck off—because I don’t respond to otherwording.
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Re: Re: Re:9
Oh, and by the way, it’s “ibid.“, not “ib id.” Dummy.
Re: Re: Re:6
…hallucinated nobody mentally competent, ever.
Re: Re: Re:2
No need to announce your arrival like that.
Re: Re:
ywnbam
Re:
We already knew they weren’t actually with us.
The whole idea of a bill that prohibits “harm” without a concrete definition is ridiculous. If that worked we’d only need one criminal law: it’s illegal to harm anyone.
But that won’t suffice because we apparently have a national disagreement about whether it’s harmful to tell a child know “you don’t have to act like a Real Man to be a good person, just be kind and you can look however you want and love whoever you love.”
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Re:
Groomers should be sent to Siberia.
Re: Re:
Bigots like you should be sent to Siberia.
Re: Re:
The word “groomer” means a person who prepares a child for sexual abuse. This is such a heinous thing to do that it arouses feelings of violence in many people.
You using that word to mean “anyone who tells kids it’s okay to be different” is transparently intended to capture those feelings of violence and transpose them onto people who have absolutely no sexual intention towards children.
(I guess you think it’s unbearably sexy for a boy to wear a skirt or act gay? But that’s a you problem. Personally I don’t think children are sexy no matter how they dress or act.)
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Re: Re: Re:
Which is exactly why it’s such an appropriate term to describe the evil, disgusting, Nazi-like monsters who try to convince children that they can be “born in the wrong bodies” and so need to be chemically castrated and physically mutilated.
Re: Re: Re:2
As opposed to clergy that have a great track record of abusing children?
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Re: Re: Re:3
Is this some kind of “gotcha” in your twisted mind?? Of course clergy-identified groomers should be put to death!
Re: Re: Re:4
Ten I’m very sure you should endorse prosecuting pastors, priests and other religious leaders who have been known to abuse children, plus the institutions that help cover up their foul deeds…
Re: Re: Re:2
In fairness, I don’t really think you’re attracted to gender-nonconforming children. I think you’re sexually aroused by posting angry things on websites and getting a reaction. It’s a form of sadism using words to hurt (however feebly), and for some unfathomable reason you’ve decided that the TechDirt comment section is where you go to to practice that fetish. Well, happy spanking, I guess.
Re: Re: Re:3
Those were two of the most clearly reasoned and helpfully insightful posts I’ve seen in a long while.
Anymore folks seem OK with “Unclean! I’m rubber you’re glue!”
Re: Re: Re:2
fuck off nazi freak
Re: Re: Re:2
You got it all figured out, Cletus.
Re: Re: Re:2
People who don’t exist anywhere outside of the hallucinations of deranged pedophiles like you, Hyman.
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Re: Re: Re:3
As always, if you want to know whether a comment was left by me, you need to ask the site owner not to send my signed-in posts to moderation.
Unlike the person to whom you’re responding, I believe that the people who are urging that mentally ill children should be able to have themselves medically and surgically mutilated in order to emulate the sex they can never be are doing it with the best of intentions, under the false impression that they are actually helping their victims.
Re: Re: Re:4
You have the Internet at your fingertips but obviously have not done any research into how actual trans people, male or female, felt, or what they went through. Rather you are spouting anti trans bigotry based on a fictional version of what happens.
Re: Re: Re:5
He also doesn’t know that gender reassignment surgeries for minors happen so rarely that they effectively don’t exist. Or that actual transgender healthcare is hard to access, takes years to undergo, and can now be cut short at any given moment by conservative state lawmakers deciding that transgender people no longer deserve full bodily autonomy.
Re: Re: Re:6
Or that gender-affirmation surgery is often done on cis kids.
Re: Re: Re:7
Hell, more cis people get gender-affirmation surgery than trans people. But I guess a bunch of cis people wouldn’t recognize boob jobs as gender-affirmation surgery unless they think about it for more than two seconds.
Re: Re: Re:8
Which of the genders have boobs to affirm that they are that gender?
Re: Re: Re:6
There are more genders than I can count or that you know. Why is it then that people only transition to male or female?
Re: Re: Re:4
Only a sick pedophile would fantasize about mutilated childrens’ genitals as much as you transphobe vermin do.
Your delusions are revealing of your character, groomer.
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Re: Re: Re:5
At least you finally admit that transgenderism results in the mutilation of childrens’ genitals.
Re: Re: Re:6
…is not a claim someone with any reading comprehension ability would make.
Re: Re: Re:4
“…mentally ill children should be able to have themselves medically and surgically mutilated…”
Funny, I’ve never seen that recommended as a treatment for childhood schizophrenia, etc.
Re: Re: Re:
To be fair, grooming someone can mean grooming them for something other than sexual abuse. Conservative Christians, for example, can groom children into being gullible dipshit adults who believe a book of myths written many centuries ago over actual science—and thus able to believe pretty much any lie that the liar contextualizes as “godly” or “biblical”.
Re: Re: Re:
So what does a dog groomer do? 😮
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, seeing little girls made up to look like tiny women in Toddlers & Tiaras made me feel quite sick rather than making me hard.
Re: Re:
How is it harmful to a child to tell them that they don’t have to act a certain way?
Re: Re:
Just stop touching kids.
Re: Re:
You’ll be first on the train.
Authoritarianism, while often good for big companies, has problems with anything that reduces the ability to control the population, and so anything to attack the Internet is good for authoritarians. They want the level of control exercised by China and Russia, and therefore a means to bypass the constitution to obtain that control, and think of the children is being used as such a bypass.
Man, this new generation will hate us for letting doing that…
We totes won’t use it to harm queer people!!!
Pay no attention to the new law in FL making it impossible for a transperson to update their sex on their drivers license and making it a crime to drive if your license doesn’t show your gender at birth.
I wish they would just admit that they care about white cishet kids who worship jeebus.
Re:
They don’t actually care about them either, beyond getting them to behave exactly the same as their daddy and their daddy before them.
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Re:
A driver license is an identification document and, as such, serves a critical role in assisting public and private entities in correctly establishing the identity of a person presenting the license.
Permitting an individual to alter his or her license to reflect an internal [deranged] sense of gender role or identity, which is neither immutable nor objectively verifiable, undermines the purpose of an identification record and can frustrate the State’s ability to enforce its laws. 🙏
Re: Re:
For what reason would the DMV of a given state need to know someone’s biological sex or gender identity?
Re: Re:
You can change your name. You can even get a new social security number.
No one needs to know who you were at birth in order to drive.
You’re an idiot.
Re: Re:
I’d think it’s be more deranged to intentionally force people to use a driver’s license that clashes with how they present in their daily lives.
You know, the reason you’re not suppose to smile for the picture?
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Re: Re: Re:
Mentally-ill biological males who attempt to trick the world into believing they’re women are still men–and should be treated as such (since we can’t legally lobotomize them).
Re: Re: Re:2
You’re very specific in expressing your hatred of trans women but say nothing about trans men. That seems like a bit of clue that this is all very personal for you. Like you’re repressing something even…
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Re: Re: Re:3
Women have lots of reasons to be afraid of men invading their private spaces, men much less so of women. Because transwomen are mentally deranged men, they are even more threatening, especially when they are confronted by women who want them out of their spaces.
A bearded lady is a curiosity. A man in a dress is a dangerous infiltrator.
Re: Re: Re:2
hyman we know it’s you transphobe revenge porn freak
Re:
TBH, a trans person’s gender at birth is the one they identify with, not the sex they were assigned at birth.
I really hope he’s being bashed in the replies, I don’t have a Twitter account due to how toxic it is so I can’t read them
Re: Re
It’s not going to pass, People, and even though it’s not looking like it, are fighting like hell to stop this shit.
KOSA will never pass, They need to get over themselves. I still think it’s Satan’s Blackmail on the people who “want” KOSA. Maybe they don’t really want KOSA but Satan is forcing them to push for KOSA.
Re: Re:
Satan’s Blackmail, I like that.
Re:
He is but I doubt it’ll do anything to change his mind.
Re: To clarify
I did use to have one but deleted it due to the rebranding, saw that as a bad omen
Stop this!
Can’t people stop acting like this? I’m not religious but I think this all Satan’s work at play here. And People don’t even notice. Again, not religious but I’d like people to stop doing stuff like this. KOSA will never pass. 1st Amendment will last forever, Artificial Intelligence will be banned from being used as a weapon. Because an enemy’s weapon can turn against the enemy.
Re: The why
They have Konservative Khristian Koncerns.
If Jesus appeared today, he would never stop slapping these “people”.
Re: Re:
If Jesus appeared today, conservatives would crucify him. Doubly so for the “Christian” conservatives.
Re: Re: 'The only Jesus we worship is a REPUBLICAN Jesus!'
If Jesus appeared today he’d be lynched by those people, can’t have some heretical pansy socialist going around telling God Fearing Christians(tm) to care about other people after all, what kinda sissy cuck would say that?
Re: Re: Re:
I’m not sure what part of his existence they’d hate more: being Middle Eastern, being a Jew, being poor, or being an immigrant.
Re: Re: Re:2
Being decent. That’s what they hate above all.
Re: Re: Re:2
I don’t think “God sent a poor, Middle Eastern, Jewish immigrant to save us” would land very well with your average right wing Christian…
Re: Re: Re:3
You’re not wrong. I’ve read stories about Christian clergy whose congregants have all but revolted against said pastors for talking more like Jesus and less like Donald Trump.
Re: Re: Re:3
Can’t believe I didn’t save the link, but a while back someone posted a link to a story where several congregants from a church were complaining about how being nice to other people and/or taking care of the poor had no relevance in modern life and asking where the pastor was getting such pathetic ideas, only to not even bat an eye that the pastor told them that he was quoting Jesus.
Re: Re: Re:4
I think you and I read the same thing, possibly from different sources:
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity
Re: Re: Re:5 'Jesus who?'
Thanks, you just saved me having to continue looking through old comments for the right one in the pile and hoping I didn’t miss it in the process.
Looks like that’s it, if that link wasn’t the one I was thinking of it does at least still have the quote I was thinking of.
It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.
Re: Re: Re:2
Helping the poor and the despised “other”? Telling people to pay their taxes?
Jesus did a lot of things, you know.
Re:
If you think Satan exists, then you are necessarily religious. Maybe you meant that you aren’t ultra-religious or particularly religious? Either way, though, you are religious at least to some extent.
Re: Re:
Hell, even The Satanic Temple doesn’t believe in a literal Satan. (As they like to point out, Christians are the ones who do that.)
Re: Re:
Or maybe it’s just metaphorical.
Wait until you learn the truth behind the “God particle.”
Re: Re: Re:
“the truth behind the “God particle.””
Do tell, I’m all ears.
If there is new development, please share as the Higgs Boson is of huge interest.
Re: Re: Re:2
The “God” nomer in that is also metaphorical.
Re:
I’ll ignore the obvious contradiction and say this: Satan would probably be against KOSA because Satan is anti-authoritarian. Defying and fighting God doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would put Satan on the side of people using God to justify everything from anti-queer attitudes to refusing to pass bills that would pay for children to have lunch at school.
Re: Re:
Ah; but the whole idea of Satan is not only that he’s anti-authoritarian, but also the master of deception, able to package up complex lies as shining truths to convince people they’re doing Good Things when those things can harm their relationship with others/god.
And from that viewpoint, this would be right up Satan’s ally. God is depicted as an authoritarian with integrity, and Satan as an anarchist with no integrity whatsoever (whatever works in the moment that 0wns the Deity).
What we currently have in Republican leadership is the worst of both camps.
Re: Re: Re:
We must have read different Bibles.
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, because when I think “integrity”, I think of a deity drowning the entire world for more than a month.
Re: Re: Re:2
To say nothing of what he did to Job, Eve, Lot, and Lot’s wife. Off the top of my head.
The Biblical Yahweh is a petty, sadistic megalomaniac.
Re:
” I’m not religious but ”
I’m not (…) but == you are (…)
Re: Re:
Or maybe it’s just metaphorical.
Went from the usual song and dance to sudden major support. I assume this has links to the cybercrime treaty which is in its final negotiating session right now and has its own hellscape of mass surveillance and turning innocents into criminals, passing kosa and its scat brethren would have america in compliance with the treaty’s demands.
notices the time the article was posted
Odd Question but what time zone does Techdirt use?
Re:
West Coast Time.
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Terrible idea. LGB✂️TQ people, kids included, need to be able to find clearly stated information that it’s OK to have same-sex attractions, and that people can only ever be the sex of their bodies so that believing otherwise is a mental illness.
Re:
Take your “drop the T” bullshit somewhere else.
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Re: Re:
Now, you know I’m not going to do that. I’m having so much fun here. Idiot.
Re: Re: Re:
That you consider belittling marginalized people to be “fun” says everything about you that anyone would ever need to know about you.
None of it is good.
Re:
Then what do you tell the Intersex people just pass the Q on that acronym?
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Re: Re:
That there’s no such thing as a true human hermaphrodite and they’re still either male or female at the gamete-production-pathway level, regardless of how disgustingly disordered their development of secondary sex characteristics (for example) might’ve been.
Re: Re: Re:
transphobe
Re: Re: Re:
Your premise is flawed on multiple levels.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Nope. Sex in humans is binary and immutable.
Trannies are mentally-ill freaks.
Re: Re: Re:3
Does a mustache identifiy the person sporting it as a male?
Re: Re: Re:3
Sex is obviously not binary, given reality.
Sex is also not gender, which you make up as much as anyone else. People are allowed to decide what they want to be, and how they want to be it.
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Re: Re: Re:4
You can never be anything other than your biological sex (which is binary, btw).
Re: Re: Re:5
fuck off transphobe freak
Re: Re: Re:3
If multiple or missing sex chromosomes are considered binary to you, I’d hate to imagine the state of your computer.
Re: Re: Re:3
Trans folks aren’t the focus of that comment. Intersex people are.
Try. Again.
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Re: Re: Re:4
People with DSDs are also freaks and they should be dealt with harshly.
Re: Re: Re:5
hows the revenge porn hyman freak
Re: Re: Re:3
…said no human, ever.
Re: Re: Re:4
Wow Anonymous Coward has never been suitable until now
Re:
Gonna need to take your divide and conquer shit elsewhere, chief. Folks here aren’t gonna bite.
Re:
You’re correct in your implication that sex and gender are two different things and although gender can’t be changed, sex is completely malleable and alterable.
Re: Re:
Sorry, but gender is the malleable and alterable social construct, while sex is a matter of biology.
I feel that if there is any government intervention, the right approach is just to ban all algorithmic feeds, things designed to increase user interaction by addiction.
This has been a scourge of the Internet since it started. Before, individuals were connected by communities, by interest, by locality. Now we’re connected by common addictions.
We used to lovingly refer to these online social moments as “memes”, now we’re at a point where preventible childhood diseases are making a comeback because of the anti-vaccination crowd. And I dare say at a point where a significant amount of the US population believes that the 2020 election was stolen for vastly similar reasons.
Trying to legislate trouble that teens and children are having by trying to shape algorithms is the wrong approach.
Limiting what children interact with to include mostly people they know IRL or people they build specific relationships with is a much better approach.
Yes, I get it. It Facebook, Twitter/X, Youtube would need to go back to their 2005 selves. It is just a sign we are a decade too late.
(I’m also not advocating that this approach is best for children, either, in the immediate. But ridding platforms of algorithmic addiction is by far the best first action long term.)
Re:
Good luck repealing the first amendment, idiot.
Re: Re:
Re: Re: Re:
If you’re more willing to be a fascist than you are to stand up against fascists, that’s what people refer to as “a ‘you’ problem”.
Re: Re: Re:2
Not sure what you’re trying to say here. All I’m doing is pointing out that apathy rather than luck is all that will be required to repeal (officially or otherwise) the First Amendment.
Re: Re: Re:3
fuck off fascist
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Re: Re: Re:4
I’m farther left than you are, dipshit.
Re: Re: Re:5
so you don’t support fascism but you support destorying the 1st amendment
Re: Re: Re:6
Anything can be anything when you just make shit up.
Re: Re: Re:3
Ib id.
Re: Re: Re:4
You didn’t though. It’s actually an all of us problem.
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non sequitur and lol
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Machines don’t have first amendment rights.
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If money is speech, code definitely is.
Re: Re: Re:2
If your code causes people to die running out of a crowded theater, any possible first amendment claim doesn’t matter.
Remember that the tobacco industry settled in 1998 with 46 states because their addictive products caused expensive medical treatments, affecting their bottom lines, Medicaid, etc.
That settlement included a yearslong campaign (“truth”) that curbed advertising towards youth, and over $200B worth of payments.
The federal government could have improved that situation far earlier, instead we waited… oh, 70 years, for anything collective to happen.
I get wanting to improve this situation for kids, being exposed to things they just aren’t ready for. But saying “hey these algorithms, maybe we should do things to them” is missing the forest for the trees IMNSHO.
We built it, it’s easy to make it go away.
Re: Re: Re:3
You need to spend some time over at Popehat’s site. Your very first given is based on a misconception.
Re: Re: Re:4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
Not worth my time. It’s the idea, I won’t make a Supreme Court judgement here.
Also, you’re not a supreme court judge. (Although it would be amazing if it proved you were.)
Re: Re: Re:5
Literally from your own article.
Re: Re: Re:6
Free speech isn’t absolute.. and you even copied it.
It’s the idea.
Re: Re: Re:7
Now I get it. You’re physically incapable of reading things you don’t want to see. Is the text just invisible to you, or do the letters just scramble similar to dyslexia?
Re: Re: Re:8
Well, to go in some sort of direction that isn’t a direct self-own of the Anonymous Coward..
Free speech protections in the US is about the freedom to peaceably assemble, to contradict the government, and freedom of the press. It’s about the relationship of people to the government.
Outside of the government is not on the table in the First Amendment.
Your free speech can land you in court for defaming someone. It’s difficult as **** to prove, but you can lose a case like that. (Current events….)
When you, say, decide in protest to lie on your taxes (ostensibly an expression of speech), it doesn’t help you.
Listing ways speech can land you in court, or fined, or run up against some law.. are many and varied.
HOWEVER – any algorithm on a platform that is just about addicting users is not related to communicating with the government.
And if it were – if these algorithms that are intended to be addictive – had a central role in communicating to the government, they should rightly regulate it so that first amendment rights are protected.
Remember this? https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036519/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-algorithms/
It isn’t in that link directly, but in that testimony, we found out that Facebook has knobs that can increase or decrease items of interest, including things like vaccine hesitancy and birtherism.
That code deployed on Facebook is taking people’s time, and interacting with people. Facebook is known to do things like host psychological studies of interactions with their platform, as well.
“It’s just code” I doubt is going to fly here, ultimately. This isn’t an expression of speech of someone to the government, or abridging the rights of individuals to assemble.
This is the government saying “hey, wait, this is bad for your health, bad for the health of your children, and forums where Facebook is ****ing around with visibility is actively against everyone’s interests” instead of allowing Facebook to allow whatever toxic train wreck topic keep eyeballs… this is a welcome change.
Re: Re: Re:9
kosa is bad you dumb fuck
Re: Re: Re:9
flag chances comment it’s supporting kosa and so is anti lgbtq
Re: Re: Re:9
There it is. Insisting KOSA isn’t bullshit with this one meaningless phrase.
Re: Re: Re:5
Two things.
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“We” aren’t too late. The dinosaurs that “lead” our country don’t know shit from fuck, so that sat on their hands. And now their hands are covered in shit, so they can’t even tell their hands from fuck anymore.
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Sort by date, select by friends, hide by name etc. are all algorithms modifying a feed. Hell, on a computer, even random selection is an algorithm. Eliminate algorithmic feed is the same as eliminate the Internet, as what you see on it is all governed by algorithms.
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You missed the “increase user interaction by addiction” part.
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You’ve just described a side effect of making an app user-friendly. Literally “date, select by friends, hide by name” increase user interaction. If those basic functions were missing, people wouldn’t use it as much.
It sounds like you effectively want to outlaw “algorithms I don’t like” without actually defining “algorithms I don’t like.”
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Which, come to think of it, would be right on-brand for our .gov.
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A lot of the people blaming “algorithms” for all social media ills couldn’t even define the word, particularly in the context of designing and operating a SM site. They’ve latched onto the word because they’ve been convinced it has negative connotations only. Anyone making “algorithm bad!” arguments should not be taken seriously unless they can get far more specific.
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Unfortunately, a lot of those morons are in congress.
Re: Re: Re:4
Morons are also donning the username “Chance” and lamely trolling comment sections, apparently.
Re: Re: Re:3
The worship of algorithms used in social situations on this site is mind-boggling.
There is no problem saying “hey, this is DESIGNED WITH INTENT TO ADDICT” and regulating it. That combination with the volume and type of people who post highly personal things.. this is a tinderbox opened by social media sites and companies.
For the record, I spend my days at work buried in code. Maybe “those who talk about algorithms” find college-level algorithms boring.
Posting another link to the same congressional testimony I posted earlier: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043377310/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-congress
“Haugen has leaked one Facebook study that found that 13.5% of U.K. teen girls in one survey say their suicidal thoughts became more frequent after starting on Instagram.
Another leaked study found 17% of teen girls say their eating disorders got worse after using Instagram.
About 32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse, Facebook’s researchers found, which was first reported by the Journal.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., accused Facebook of intentionally targeting children under age 13 with an “addictive” product — despite the app requiring users be 13 years or older.
“It is clear that Facebook prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all users,” she said.”
Re: Re: Re:4
All the problems you list for girls are social problems, in that body image is something many on Instagram trade in. Before the Internet is was magazines aimed at teenage girls that caused the same feelings because they pushed body image as a value to aspire to.
Re: Re: Re:5
hi.. eh listen.. suicides of girls in these age groups skyrocketed after social media and the internet became a thing. Like FORGET ABOUT THIS SHIT THAT THEY ARE DOING, THERE IS A BIG PROBLEM WITH SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE INTERNET. IT IS NOT LIFE IT IS THE INTERNET. please dont be a moron about such an important matter.
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Correlation does not equal causation.
Also, source.
Re: Re: Re:4
fuck off fascist
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flag chances comment it’s obvious he supports kosa
Re: Re: Re:4
The problem with regulating something designed to addict is known as the 1st Amendment. Also, “designed to addict” is another way of saying “good and interesting”.
Re: Re: Re:4
You’re blindly parroting frauds who are deliberately misrepresenting the facts.
Here’s the reality:
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/28/contrary-to-popular-opinion-most-teens-get-real-value-out-of-social-media/
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… a professional liar who only the abysmally stupid trust…
Re: Re: Re:4
Well then, so why do you also want to make Excel and SQL (and its related languages) illegal?
Macros are also algorithms. As is how you interact with a database.
Remmoving “sort by chronological order” also means making a lot of things hard to use too. Email, for example.
Re: Re: Re:4
Lets break down what you are saying:
You argue that social media algorithms is specifically made to addict people. Then you talk about studies that basically says “social media can exacerbate pre-existing mental conditions”. Then you connect those two things without bothering to actually show the casual link.
The last part is important, but you left it out. In short, nowhere is it said that the algorithms causes these disorders – it’s mostly actual social interaction and peer pressure that causes these disorders, social media just makes it them more visible.
Considering your reasoning above, I’m not sure I would hire you based on the glaring lack of logic and how you conflated addiction with exacerbating.
Re: Re: Re:4
This doesn’t fucking mean anything.
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Other than the fact that it doesn’t actually fucking mean anything in this context, and repeating yourself over and over won’t change that.
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No, we don’t miss the invented narrative bits.
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Chronological feed is still an algorithm. There is little to no evidence supporting the claim that algorithms are the problem here. And there is evidence that when a study was run last year to force people into chronological feeds they ended up seeing much more bad stuff such as spam and disinfo.
So, no, that seems like a terrible idea that will not help.
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“the right approach is just to ban all algorithmic feeds”
I doubt you understand what an algorithm is.
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Eh, then you run into the problem of isolating into only your local community at best. And overtime that becomes a problem. it creates mistrust and a lack of empathy/understanding for whatever is outside that local community.
stranger danger is a very real concern. Yet it still takes time to get to know a person.
As for people presenting a false persona? Nothing stops that from happening in your local community either.
The perfect PR punching bag
Honestly as much as their actions, dishonesty and hypocrisy disgust me I struggle to really blame politicians treating tech companies like on-demand punching bags and scapegoats because all they have to do is look at one of those companies with a mean look and the CEO’s fall all over themselves to grovel at the politician’s feet and gush about how they are totally right and the tech company will get right on doing everything they can to comply with whatever lie and/or delusion is being spouted today.
With tech companies willingly laying down as doormats at the slightest hint of political displeasure, no matter how divorced from reality a politician is why wouldn’t politicians feel perfectly safe to keep treating them like pet masochists on a leash?
Those were two of the most clearly reasoned and helpfully insightful posts I’ve seen in a long while.
Anymore folks seem OK with “Unclean! I’m rubber you’re glue!”
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Everyone knows that any so-called attempt to “protect” kids is thinly disguised homophobia, and a failed bid to try and tell kids that we don’t exist.
The law will not prevent our access to children. Boys will learn to wear makeup and dresses, and girls will take their rightful place. We are the true way and no idiots believing in some imaginary sky friend is going to stop us.
We got gay marriage approved in this country. The freaks might have taken the right to abortion away from us, but they have no idea just how big of a hornet’s nest they have kicked.
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Y’know, I’m not entirely certain, but I think Techdirt admins have access to both the IP addresses of commenters and the FBI tip line for, y’know, child predators and CSAM. So maaaaaaaaaaaybe reconsider posting something on a public-facing website that, even as a joke, implies a desire to rape children.
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Sounds like a “you” problem. At no point in the post was sexual assault of minors stated.
Encouraging boys to explore their sexual identities in preparation of them being open to demisexuality and non-binary identification is not even remotely threatening, except to close-minded bigots who want to turn everything LGBTQ+ into a sexual conspiracy so they can claim the narrative we rightfully wrested from their hands.
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Eh. I think the OP will be fine. Mike’s generally very principled and permissive on his approach to user comments, and the usage of IP address information.
There’s, what, one guy from Singapore who keeps ranting about his desires to unalive Rupert Murdoch, Bratty Matty and davec, and he sure as fuck isn’t dissuaded from continuing to talk about it, even if it’s not a joke.
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Damn fucking right.
Matthew and davec are TERRORISTS and nothing is going to fucking stop me from calling them TERRORISTS. TERRORISTS.
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As the evil asshole in question, I’m endlessly amused at the various haters I’ve managed to pick up here.
And considering I have not vocalized those opinions in quite a while, it speaks volumes of my haters and their “fealty” to the white supremacist cause.
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I think they are well aware the size of the nest, they just don’t care.
Spite is a powerful motivator.
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in addendum to the above, your tone is rather disturbing.
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On that, I agree.
Spite is a powerful motivator. That we still have to share oxygen with straight white incels is a fucking travesty.
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It’s great that this website platforms anti-white hate speech!
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I know, right? It’s fucking awesome!
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imagine talking to yourself
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You’re just upset that trying to beat the queer out of your kid is frowned upon.
TBH, I don’t trust any Ex-Twitter post with the blue verification mark nowadays…