Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the listen-up dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment about Silicon Valley VCs lining up to back Trump and our supposition that it’s because they cynically welcome chaos:
‘Look, we put BBQ sauce on our faces and everything, so no snacking alright?’
Either that or in the hopes that if they publicly swear fealty to the Party of Leopards Eating Peoples’ Faces their faces will be off the menu, because grovelling and appeasement has been working great for them so far.
In second place, it’s Stephen T. Stone with a couple quotes about GOP hypocrisy:
Quoting A.R. Moxon twice here:
Hypocrisy is a virtue to fascists. It’s a clear demonstration that the rules they enforce upon others won’t apply to[ ]them. The more blatant the hypocrisy, the greater the virtue.
It’s important to remember, when you hear a fascist talking about “free speech,” that hypocrisy is a virtue to fascists, and that fascists do not have principles, they only have intentions.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from GHB about Meta’s attack on Section 230 protections for third-party apps:
It remidns me of MediaFire’s attack against SkipScreen
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/its-my-browser-and-ill-auto-click-if-i-want
In summary, MF wanted to ban an extension that just autoclicks a download button, so they went out of their way to demand firefox to remove SkipScreen because it violates its ToS.
The claim that it violates its ToS is false. ToS only applies to users agree to the terms, users who come to the site to download requires mutual assent, and the tool does not eat up additional bandwidth (it just automates something that a human being would do).
This is one of the earliest attacks on the open internet, when websites want to have control on the user experience on their webpages.
This is the same site that have intrusive ads on their site. If you want to download a file off their site, you must allow them to open a random site on your browser (as a separate browser window or tab), which is potentially dangerous (I’ve experienced tech support scam pages being opened). Thankfully this can be bypassed by right-clicking and “save link as”. News sites have ads and don’t need the user to risk their browser and PC just to use their content.
Next, it’s an anonymous comment about Elon Musk’s DSA debacle:
But i thought Elon was all aboard for maximum free speech – as long as it complies with local law. Well, here’s some local law. Is it because the EU isn’t Bharat or another of the more censorial countries? Does he think majority white nations deserve more free speech? Or is it just the mood that suddenly grabbed him? Roll 2d20, baby.
Over on the funny side, out first place winner is tanj with a comment on the years-long battle that eventually prevented a cop from suing an activist for the actions of others:
Given TD’s coverage of this and section 230
It’s like TD doesn’t want people held accountable for the actions of unrelated third parties.
In second place, it’s jpmeyer with another comment about Elon Musk’s hypocrisy:
Consistency is…
the hobgoblin of non-billionaire minds.
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the sample library company that issued a copyright strike to a YouTuber and lawyer who showed their terms of service:
Ah, to be a fly on that wall, what could have gone through the minds of the Splice legal team? “So here’s the plan, guys. This woman’s a copyright attorney, negotiates all her music deals, has been doing this for quite some time. So we’ll lull her into a false sense of security, end the call with a positive note… and completely sidewind her with a copyright strike, she’ll never see it coming! Who but a copyright attorney would be able to appreciate the beauty of a copyright strike, she’ll never contest that. Copyright lawyers don’t eat their own!”
Finally, it’s an anonymous response to our assertion that even Musk’s fiercest advocates can’t overlook some of his latest failures:
Mike, have you read the comments section to one of your posts about Elon?
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
good work Stephen with the second place
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gOOD WORK WITH ZEROETH AGAIN
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I, too, feel stimulated whenever Stephen T Stone is profiled for yet another week.
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Yes, the LGBT community has wisdom beyond the ken of mere heterosexuals that must be profiled, lest we forget.
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I’m born this way. I make no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby!
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Good work deleting all the comments yesterday pointing out the irony of it being X-Twitter where someone with access to President Joe Biden’s account announced that the sitting President was being forced out of his own re-election campaign.
Far too controversial to discuss how a site that is regularly maligned here as a worthless “Nazi bar” was where one of the coup plotters attacking American Democracy decided to announce their success!
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Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
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Throwing shit at the wall. It’s all they’ve got.
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Present some evidence for your conspiracy, or shut the fuck up.
And no, Biden saying that he is dropping out of the race is not evidence.
The same release was posted on Facebook as well. This is not the “gotcha” moment you would like it to be.
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To play devil’s advocate, Biden could be backing out of the election in favor of Kamala Harris because he feels that he’s been forced out by the constant, unprovable allegations that he has dementia of some kind.
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Your kind is going to be systematically weeded out of the gene pool.
The privilege you have enjoyed through centuries of injustice is coming to an end.
Enjoy the fleeting tyranny you have while you can before fingers start closing in around your neck.
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Don’t forget your clitty cage bruh
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What makes you think I’ve forgotten it?
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BNWO.
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A neoliberal continuing to use a large scale communications platform even after it’s turned into a Nazi bar isn’t “irony.” It’s not even hypocrisy; the neoliberals as far as I’m aware haven’t really made any kind of comment on Musk’s Nazi bar.
The Democrats aren’t perfect. We already knew that. You’re not actually making a point.
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The comments deleted were bad-faith sealioning. Much like you’re doing now.
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Once again, we have an illustration of the absurd tribalism so loved by far-winger extremists.
Here is the quote, altered to show how vacuous it is. The altered quote is exactly as true as the unaltered quote. The quote is exposed as service to tribal thinking rather than an actual insight.
Hypocrisy is a virtue to progressives. It’s a clear demonstration that the rules they enforce upon others won’t apply to[ ]them. The more blatant the hypocrisy, the greater the virtue.
It’s important to remember, when you hear a progressive talking about “free speech,” that hypocrisy is a virtue to progressives, and that progressives do not have principles, they only have intentions.
Or, as kids say, FTFY.
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The horseshoe theory of politics—in which the two extremes, left and right, are closer to one another than they’d like to believe—does have some merit. But the difference between progressives and fascists is that progressives aren’t fascists. Even if progressives do see hypocrisy as a virtue (which is possible), they’re not being hypocrites in service of an authoritarian takeover of the government. Fascists are.
(And before you ask: Yes, I will explicitly call the GOP a fascist party. It was already headed in that direction before Trump drove the party off that particular cliff.)
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Hear, hear! Anyone who claims the far left exists is only putting up a lie, trying to distract everyone from the very real threat that Republicans pose. But our minority voices will not be silenced.
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It is obvious to anyone that the far left does not exist; if it seems to exist, it is just a Republican rightoid trying to make us look dumb. I know, I heard the wise voices of Samuel Abram and Stephen Stone saying so. They are the authority to be trusted on this matter.
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It’s more that the “far left” is a small fringe that barely votes and has been ground down by decades of hypercapitalism, union busting, and right wing police forces.
Meanwhile, the far right has taken over the mainstream GOP.
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If by “far left” you mean “Marxists”, there’s only one academic I know of that seemingly fits the description, and he’s got less power than, let’s see here…
His “rival” Alain Dershowitz, for one.
And Murdoch’s News Corp.
And Trump.
And the Kochs.
All four are fascist scumbags either responsible for or are willing tools of a fascist party pretending to not be treasonous Russian agents.
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Exactly, the far left is the far right. They must all be eliminated, or else they will come for our gay marriage.