This Week In Techdirt History: May 5th – 11th
from the as-'twas dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2019, there was a legal fight over whether it’s protected speech to flash your headlights to warn of hidden cops. We looked at how little the FCC had done to police wireless location data scandals, and how it was doubling down on bogus claims about broadband availability, as well as hiding details about fake net neutrality comments, and ignoring phone companies ripping people off. Apple was engaging in some more silly trademark aggression, this time over a bicycle path in Germany, while a motorcycle rally was continuing to assert trademarks that had been invalidated. And a broad coalition of people were calling on Congress to bring back to Office of Technology Assessment.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2014, what was Congress voting against? Well… bringing back the Office of Technology Assessment. Meanwhile, we looked at the ways broadband companies were killing net neutrality without actually violating it and trying to make the internet more like the old, broken phone system. Congress was also looking at competing NSA reform bills, the better of which had already been watered down, and the two sides eventually reached a compromise. And we wrote about how easy it is to casually violate copyright and how the world of copyright policymaking seems allergic to facts (as quickly demonstrated by an industry report on the dangers of pirate sites that didn’t include any data).
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2009, we discussed what (if anything) the Wolverine leak cost the movie at the box office. A popular video was demonstrating the beauty of remixes, while 20th Century Fox was taking down entries in its own mashup contest. California was considering a troubling photo removal law for social media, the UK was looking to wildly increase the fines for copyright infringement, Italy was taking a troubling view of the internet, and there were legal questions about Facebook blocking links to The Pirate Bay. This was also the week when the LA Times dug up and spread the funny little story of why SMS text messages are limited to 160 characters.
Comments on “This Week In Techdirt History: May 5th – 11th”
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It’s a shame that Britain waged war against Germany, a nation that never intended it harm.
Remember, it was the United Kingdom that declared war on Germany–not the other way around! Es lebe das heilige Deutschland!
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Is that the smell of burnt toast?
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The British Empire’s decision to join both world wars had a cataclysmic effect globally. While German efforts to revise Versailles treaty were both moral and just, Hitler still didn’t want war with the British.
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Definitely burnt toast.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Weimar-era German leaders like Gustav Stresemann, Heinrich Brüning, and Friedrich Ebert were all responsible German statesmen, and were working to revise Versailles in a manner that would not threaten the peace of Europe.
But they were undermined by the inability and unwillingness of Britain and France to cooperate. In fact, one could reasonably argue that Britain, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia all indirectly assisted Hitler’s rise to power in 1933.
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He ignored the first postulate of global war: Fuck Around, Find Out.
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Re: Re: Re:2
The irony being that British decolonization directly resulted from their participation in a war of choice against Germany.
From Empire to third-rate island hovel, massively-indebted to the U.S…FAFO, indeed!!
Re: Re: Re:3
Germany? I think you’re describing Germany.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Shut up, Sambo.
Re: Re: Re:5
I was hoping you were a Kaiserboo because at least that’d be hilarious.
Turens out, you’re a fucking NeoNazi.
Re: Re: Re:6
I doubt they’re actually as racist as they claim to be. Their trolling is a mix of right-wing lunacy and what they imagine “extreme” left-wingers sound like because they keep doing the same schtick with the same writing style over and over without expecting anyone to connect the dots between their “I’m so fascist that I got a swatsika tattooed on my forehead” act and their “I’m such an extreme left-winger that I think everyone should undergo forced gender transitions” act. They’re after attention because they’re so unloved in their actual life that the only dopamine rush they can get nowadays is to troll a tech blog with extremist rhetoric and pray someone actually replies to their bullshit instead of just hiding it outright.
And yes, I’m guilty of replying to their bullshit and giving them the attention they so desperately deserve. I’m not saying I’m perfect. But at least I wear my anti-conservative bias on my sleeve, as opposed to the jackass who thinks he can get away with being a Neo-Nazi and a “left-wing fascist” in the same comments section without anyone being the wiser to his schtick because he posts anonymously.
Re: Re: Re:7
I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing magic markers.
Re: Re: Re:7
Doesn’t matter, the Rule of Goats in in place.
Re: Re: Re:5
Someone is an unhappy cuck. Just tell her you’re not happy. Get out of the relationship. Find someone who values you.
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Shadow the Hedgehog is edgier than you.
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Stone, it’s undeniable that 1) Hitler did not want a war with Britain, and 2) Britain should not have declared war in 1939 on an Anglophile Hitler who wanted to ally the Reich with the United Kingdom against their common enemy the Soviet Union.
Given how Russia meddled in recent Western elections, and how they’re trying to kill/enslave every last democracy-loving Ukraine person, it clearly would’ve been better for free people everywhere if Stalin had been defeated and Germany allowed to liquidate all Bolsheviks and their supporters.
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Who cares if he wanted it or not? He took actions that caused it. He knew those consequences were likely. Sure, he probably would have liked more nations to continue appeasing him rather than him having to focus military resources on Britain. That doesn’t mean Britain would have been better off allying with him or appeasing him more than it already did. And it doesn’t mean the rest of Europe would have been better off for it either.
Hitler knew who Britain was allied with. He knew what would happen when he invaded Poland. You’re saying Britain should not have upheld its diplomatic obligations to defend a sovereign nation from imperialist, genocidal invasion (more on this in a moment). You’d have been better off arguing that Hitler shouldn’t have invaded Poland or the Sudatenland or remilitarized the Rhineland or even come to power in the first place!
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact would like a word with your history lessons.
Are you talking about 1930s Soviet Russia or current day Russia? Current day Russia has more in common with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia.
Yeah, you don’t get to carry water for the poster child for systematic genocide and then pretend you’re opposed to similar atrocities conducted by someone else.
Free people like Jewish people, gay people, socialists in Europe?
Not just a call for genocide, but a likely antisemitic dog whistle too! That’s a tightly packed bundle of evil you’re handing out.
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Re: Re: Re:2
They literally lost their EMPIRE as a result of WW2. Of course they would’ve been better off allying with Hitler against Soviet scum!
Re: Re: Re:3
Losing their empire was a good thing, both for them and for the people who were freed from their colonizing.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Found the neo-Marxist. Kill yourself.
Re: Re: Re:5
Found the person who thinks anyone who opposes authoritarian imperialism is a Marxist. Educate yourself. Or actually, have someone else educate you. I don’t trust you doing your own research.
Re: Re: Re:5
As someone wo lives in a former British colony, I’d like you to deepthroat a shotgun.
Imperialism bad no matter what form it takes, be it American, British, French, Belgian, Indian or Chinese.
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Re: Re: Re:2
They said “people,” not sub-human animals.
Why Are Some Republican Lawmakers Hellbent on Preserving Child Marriage?
GOP lawmakers across the U.S. have opposed raising the marriage age, with some arguing child marriage bans would encourage abortion
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/republican-lawmakers-child-marriage-abortion-1235018777/
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GOP = Gaslighting Old Pedophiles
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Assume that anyone who believes in an imaginary sky friend is a child molester. Find these individuals in your community, and submit their personal details to child protection services. Where possible, ask that they be given to homosexual couples seeking to have children but are not capable of doing so. You’d be doing the world a favor.
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Assume that anyone who believes men can have babies is a child molester. Find these individuals in your community, and submit their personal details to child protection services. Where possible, ask that they be given to homosexual couples seeking to have children but are not capable of doing so. You’d be doing the world a favor.
Re: Re: Re:2
Given the lack of reports about significant numbers of transgender people (and their allies) molesting children, the prior suggestion about reporting people who believe in God as potential child molesters—ridiculous and overreaching and narrow-minded as it is—makes far more sense than yours.
This isn’t to say trans people/their allies can’t be child molesters. But if you want someone to believe people from those two groups are molesting children at rates that are comparable to, say, religious clergy? You must present evidence to back that claim, not basic-ass bigotry that is a mere step away from advocating for the annihilation of an entire class of people—for no reason other than “they exist”, no less!—by the kind of fascist leader who would likely kill you if you looked at him the wrong way.
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Re: Re: Re:3
Do you know why people rob banks? That is where the money is.
Do you think some people aspire to positions where they are in contact with children on purpose(Teachers, clergy, scout leaders)?
Are trans people on the rise? Are they wanting access to children? The answer to both questions is yes.
I stick by my assertion.
But I appreciate your respectful tone
Re: Re: Re:4
Three things.
I respect you as much as I respect any rank-ass bigot: not one damn bit.
Re: Re: Re:4
More millennials and GenZs identify as trans and nonbinary. Why wouldn’t they? There exists no more promise in the cisgender, conservative, nuclear family unit for them. If anything, your team fucked things up for your children. Now they eschew your aspirations, they mock your empires, they scream at you in the face, “No, fuck YOU, dad!” Righteous comeuppance for your cruelty and abuse, masquerading as “tough love” and “discipline” and “character building”.
We got gay marriage approved in this country. You tried to render us extinct, but I tell you the truth, you will not prevent our access to the younger generations. They will weed your poison out of this earth. They will dismantle your bastions of hate, your fortresses of bigotry. Women today realize that when they get lost in the woods, between a man or a bear, they’d rather take chances with the bear. At least the bear isn’t going to rape them and get uppity about reputational damage. Rightly so. Your kind have pushed the heterosexual family unit on society at the expense of everyone else.
You will not stop us. You managed to stack the deck to get Roe vs. Wade repealed. I promise you, we won’t be making that sort of tolerant mistake again. In order to be tolerant, we must not tolerate intolerance. I know for a fact that other esteemed named users here have cited Popper’s Paradox multiple times.
Re: Re: Re:5
You’re still not convincing anyone that you’re anything but a right-wing troll who thinks all queer people are extremists (violent or otherwise) who act like right-wing extremists but for left-wing causes.
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“Surely they will fall for it this time”
You’re like the Lucy side of the Charlie Brown Lucy skit if all Charlie Brown did was dunk Lucy every time she grabbed the football.
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Re: Re: Re:3
If I remember correctly, both you and TAC are gay men?
How would you feel today if someone had told you as a child that you weren’t gay but really a woman and convinced you to chop off body parts and take hormone blockers and whatnot? Assuming you are still alive ten years + later.
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Re: Re: Re:4
I fully support GAC because it’s likely to lead to the mutilation and sterilization of all those sick fuck gay men and autistic women, hastening the removal of their defective DNA from the gene pool.
In fact, I’ve never been more pro-gender than now, especially since GAC’s been irrefutably proven not to reduce suicidality.
Re: Re: Re:5
Congrats on outing yourself as an ableist bigot, jackwagon.
Re: Re: Re:5
Anti-trans bigots have exactly two jokes: the “attack helicopter” joke and the pronouns joke. They’re never funny, they’re always the same punchline, and they’re the only anti-trans jokes those assholes ever tell because conservative-minded assholes are rarely as creative as the far, far, far better artists that said assholes try to copy.
And despite that, every time they tell those same two jokes, they’re still edgier than you.
Re: Re: Re:4
I am bisexual, but that isn’t really relevant.
I can’t know that because (1) I didn’t figure out I was bi until early adulthood and (2) I have never had any gender dysphoria. Speculation of this kind is meaningless besides.
If someone is trying to “convince” children that they’re transgender when those children aren’t, that someone is an asshole. But by and large, such “convincing” is largely the realm of bigoted fantasies where the bigot who imagines such things going on personally enacts a righteous (and most likely violent) form of “justice” against a Repugnant Cultural Other.
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Re: Re: Re:5
“I respect you as much as I respect any rank-ass bigot: not one damn bit.”
No problem, I can reciprocate.
“I am bisexual, but that isn’t really relevant.”
It shows a clear bias to trannies as you can get 2 4 1.
Re: Re: Re:6
Queer cisgender people can be bigoted towards trans people. I’m not. That’s partly because of my own queerness and partly because I believe trans people deserve the same rights and freedoms—including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—as cisgender people. Why wouldn’t they? Trans people are people regardless of whether you accept that fact.
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Re: Re: Re:7
Transwomen are women. Transwomen qualify for women’s sports, except for that annoying percentage of foolish scientists and women who think that we’re encroaching on their “rights”, the same rights that they once so valiantly fought for us. A triviality that will be dealt with.
Re: Re: Re:8
Y’know, if it weren’t for the intentionally sinister undertones of that last sentence, you wouldn’t have given yourself away as the flip-flopping “I’m gonna pretend both sides have violent fascist extremists” troll.
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Re: Re: Re:9
I said they’d be dealt with. If you decided that had violent suggestions, I think that’s an observation on your end, not mine. We can continue being fabulous.
Re: Re: Re:10
The term “dealt with”, per the context in which you used it, has far more violent implications than non-violent ones.
Go back to being a right-wing troll. Your attempts to sound like a queer person are embarassing for everyone (but especially for you).
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Re: Re: Re:11
That is not possible. Queer people are never embarrassing.
The shame we experience is from straight normies holding us down and trying to make us look dumb. If anything, straight people are at fault. Not me.
Re: Re: Re:12
You’re trying so hard to make everyone think you’re an ultra-leftist queer and you’re failing so badly that even I, a noted dumbass, can see through your bullshit. For the record: Using all-or-nothing binary logic (e.g., “queer people are never embarrassing”, “if anything, straight people are at fault”) doesn’t do you any favors.
Re: Re: Re:12
Your forgot your catchphrase “clitty cage” bro.
Re: Re: Re:8
You tell on yourself single time Herman.
Re: Re: Re:7
bias and bigot have different meanings
Re: Re: Re:8
Ever see a Venn-diagram where bias and bigot overlaps? Didn’t think so.
Re: Re: Re:9
Ever see an instance where they didn’t?
I thought so.
Re: Re: Re:2
Welp, there goes Danny Devito and Ahnuld then.
I mean, Hollywood made at least one movie about that…
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Re: Re: Re:2
Male pregnancy is an evolutionary inevitability. Gay men will want to have children of their own and more and more Gen Z women are realizing that they want nothing to do with men.
You cannot stop progress. Why do you think we evolved the prostrate which feels really really good when a thick cock slams into it? You tried to wipe us out, and generation after generation, you continue to fail to do so.
Your time is coming, Hyman. All you boomer trash will have to die sometime.
Re: Re: Re:3
No, it isn’t. Now go back to being the right-wing extremist; your attempts to paint queer people as radically violent left-wing extremists won’t work here.
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Re: Re: Re:4
There’s nothing violent about male pregnancy. If the demand didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be the content for it. The idea that we are violent is a lie propagated by foolish straight men clinging to an outdated tyrannical edict by their imaginary sky friend.
Re: Re: Re:5
Even if a demand for male pregnancy beyond the fetishistic nature of the idea actually exists, cisgender men can’t get pregnant.
Two things.
Again: Go back to being the right-wing extremist; your attempts to paint queer people as radically violent left-wing extremists won’t work here.
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Re: Re: Re:6
Well, not with that sort of defeatist attitude.
So blame the straight people. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Either way someone straight gets the blame. Hyman, preferably, though Matthew Bennett comes at a very close second.
Nobody believes queer people are violent, left-wing extremists. What I’m saying is therefore neither violent nor extreme. And if it’s not working, realistically, you have nothing to fear.
Re: Re: Re:7
And that’s pretty much exactly how I know you’re a right-wing shitheel who is trying to post as an ultra-left-wing queer person: You think every queer person blames all straight people for any problems faced by any given queer person on an individual level and by queer people as a demographic, then post according to that delusional belief.
And yet, you keep trying to imply that they are by posting about the forced “queering” of cishet people (and the murder of cishet people who refuse to comply with non-consensual sex and/or forced gender reassignment surgery). You give away the game every time you act like you’re the queer version of a MAGA shithead because you can’t imagine a world in which queer people simply coëxist with cishet people without trying to dominate cishet people as “revenge” for the way queer people have been treated for decades (if not centuries). If I can see through your bullshit clear as day, what makes you think no one else can?
Re: Re: Re:7
Come back when you can sart weaving Marxist theory into your feeble arguments, asshole.
Re: Re: Re:3
Herman it’s just sad and pathetic