Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the all-anon dept
It’s a big week for anonymous commenters. We start out with our first place winner on the insightful side, an anonymous reply to an irrelevant comment:
Speaking of bad actors, will you stop acting like your pet issue justifies spamming unrelated comments?
In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about those who pledge to protect free speech and “fight wokeness”:
Well, which is it? Protect free speech, or fight wokeness? Wokeness is entirely expressed by protected free speech, right? Wouldn’t want to discriminate against a viewpoint, would we?
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with another anonymous comment along the same lines:
If you keep suing people and they keep citing the First Amendment against you, you aren’t a free speech supporter.
Next, it’s yet another anonymous comment, this time about the Florida police department that is ending its predictive policing program:
There are two big wins here:
First, the admission that the program violated constitutional rights. In so very many settlements, the defendant admits no guilt. This is not that. There’s no walking that admission back.
Second, no NDA. The settlement is public. Everyone gets to see it.
Ultimately, this means that if the Sheriff tries to do something like this again, when they get to court the second time, it’ll be discussion of damages, not whether it’s legal.
And because it’s all public, if someone else tries this particular brainfart, there’s the public settlement to point to.
Over on the funny side, the anonymous streak continues. In first place, it’s a comment about the pathetic attempts to connect the shooting of the United Health CEO to violent video games:
Just wait until someone realizes that Luigi has ALSO played… CLUE!
Just think… Colonel Mustard could actually have killed Brian Thompson in the Kitchen with the revolver… and you, Mr. Green, COULD BE THE NEXT VICTIM!
Don’t get me started on Monopoly… Mr. Moneybags’ days are numbered!
In second place, it’s a general response to incoming FTC chair Andrew Ferguson’s plans:
With all due respect to Norm McDonald, this guy right here is the real Turd Ferguson.
For editor’s choice on the funny side, the fact is there was quite a dearth of funny comments this week, and not much to choose from! Plus, it’d be nice to finish out the streak and make this week’s winners all anonymous. So to that end, we’ll limit ourselves to just one editor’s choice, with one more anonymous comment about the NBC segment on violent video games:
They forgot to blame “a lack of ‘traditional morality'(shorthand for Christianity)” and the Church of Satan for this?
Come on NBC, your pearl clutching stories used to have crazy insane drugs and blood sacrifices!
Slipping.
That’s all for this week folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
Congrats to all the nameless winners—long may you be remembered! 🙃
Re:
I don’t always sign in, but when I forget to, I get voted most insightful…
Re: Re:
… most insightful while holding a bottle of Dos Equis
FTFY
Re: Re: Re:
Well, yeah. I’m always at my most insightful when holding a bottle of Dos Equis.
Re: Re:
Don’t lie. You know that I made all of those comments.
Re: Re: Re:
Oh, geez, now I’m commenting to myself. How much DID I have to drink last night?
It obviously wasn’t enough.
Re: Re: Re:
Is Techdirt using AI for the Post Comment button now?
Re: Re: Re:2
No, AC. AI is a different animal.
You need a “funniest troll comments” tag so you can put those here too!
Re:
No. Bad enough people fill the comment sections with replies falling for their bait, they absolutely don’t need even more attention by having their own weekly ‘awards’ section.
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Re: Re:
Shut up, tranny.
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Re: Re: Re:
Your replacement therapy will come soon. All in due time. You cannot march against progress.
Re: Re: Re:2
Herman it’s really unseemly to fight with yourself like this.
I don’t have a horse in that particular race, but tbh there’s nothing wrong with public pressure. Especially since there isn’t really a place for related comments.
Re:
Except that there are literally multiple places for related comments. Bluesky has reporting features. Techdirt (while still not the appropriate venue) has a contact form. It’s bad enough we have to deal with trolls. We don’t need well-meaning people to shit all over the comment section as well.
Re: Re:
They need to complain where we can ignore them.
Re: Re: Re:
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have mod privileges on Bluesky. They need to talk to the people who do.
Re: Re: Re:
I hate to break this to you, but they can be ignored here, too.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Like you support for the Supreme Court’s attack on the rights of minorities? And yes, I’m fully expecting this comment to be flagged into invisibility by others who pretend to support minorities just because it doesn’t espouse the apparent groupthink here that “Free speech has far greater importance than human rights!”*
*Even if you don’t hypocritically accuse me of not giving a fuck about the rights of minorities (despite my being a member of several) to discourage others from engaging with my comment, never mind clicking on the link to the University of Colorado Law Review Forum paper it leads to.
Re: Re: Re:3
You got anything other than the right-wing weaponization of inclusive speech/ideals, or is this the extent of your schtick? Also: You may want to seek professional help for your parasocial obsession with some dude you’ve never even met¹.
¹ — Hi, it’s me, I’m the dude you’ve never met.
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Re: Re: Re:4
So, you’re exactly like Elon Musk. You are not only a free speech absolutist, you also engage in personal attacks on others and assign positions to them that they have made clear aren’t theirs just because they say something you disagree with. Thanks for showing you’re a MAGAt.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Every accusation a confession, as others here like to say. After all, this is only the third time I’ve engaged with you, which hardly rises to the level of obsession, parasocial or otherwise, in online discourse.
Re: Re: Re:4
For the record, falsely accusing people that clearly don’t think like you do, that’s exactly what the rest of us are getting on you about. I suggest, politely, that you allow a person to say what they wish, and withhold your judgment until a solid body of evidence as to their viewpoint becomes quite clear, and then engage them. In polite discourse rather than Musk’s methods, of course.
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Re: Re: Re:4
And here you are again, engaging in personal attacks to get other commenters flagged because you have no substantive argument to make against the point they raised. It’s not for no reason I’ve previously compared you unfavorably to Elon Musk.
Re: Re: Re:5
It’s kind of hilarious that your obsession with me made you reply to my comment four times with varying degrees of difference in each comment. And if you don’t want to have your comments mistaken for someone else’s thanks to the Gravatar system being busted? Feel free to make an account here. Then again, you are an Anonymous Coward—emphasis on “coward”—so I don’t suppose you’ll be doing that.
Re: Re: Re:6
Let me guess, this will be the fifth time I’ve replied to you even though this is the first time I’ve been here this week and thus have had no chance to comment on this post previously. Free clue: “Anonymous Coward” is a common tag for everyone who’s not signed in: its use doesn’t indicate the same individual, unlike yours.
Re: Re: Re:7
“I’ve never commented here before! I just decided to find a deep thread that I had to click open several flagged comments to get to and then comment vitriol at someone I haven’t been talking to after the conversation died down.”
Keep up the schtick. It never gets old.
Re: Re: Re:3
I fail to see any relevance even if I was to grant there was any truth to what you said.
Re: Re: Re:3
You were actually hyperventilating while you wrote that weren’t you.
JFC man get ahold of yourself and breathe into a paper bag until you see stars.
Re: Re: Re:4
TIL; Breathing regularly counts as hyperventilating.
Re: Re: Re:3
First, free speech is a human right, so those aren’t mutually exclusive. You’re creating a false dilemma by portraying it that way.
Second, multiple people flagging your obvious trolling isn’t the same as groupthink. Some people agreed with Stephen, some people didn’t. Not everyone got nasty about the disagreement. Not everyone started stalking Stephen to spam unrelated accusations at him.
Stephen is a member of at least two minorities also, so by your logic, you’re admitting that you’re a bigot.
You discourage people from engaging with your comments by being a troll. Don’t shoot the messenger for describing your problematic behavior.
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Re: Re: Re:4
TIL: A large group of individuals working together to silence a member of multiple minorities isn’t evidence of groupthink.
Re: Re: Re:5
How large do you think this secret cabal of censors is? You are right about one thing, but it ironically contradicts your narrative. It’s individuals individually deciding to flag your spam. There’s not working together here. There’s no alternate website where people get together and crowdsource a decision to flag spammy content. That’s just normal behavior when it’s an option to flag obviously disingenuous, trollish comments such as yours.
You’re spamming comments pretending to be different people. You’re hardly silent. Every time you post that you’re being silenced, you’re proving yourself wrong.
Is this your first day on the internet? Unless you’re identifying yourself, we don’t know who you are or what your demographic details are. We can’t discriminate against you based on those categorizations because we don’t even know what’s true about you. You could be lying when you tell us stuff about yourself without proof. And honestly, we don’t care and don’t need to know. Whether you’re a member of minority is irrelevant to whether you’re a troll spamming disingenuous comments and attacking people obsessively.
No, even if you were correct that this was happening, which it isn’t, that still isn’t evidence of groupthink. Even if we interpreted your claims in the most generous light, you’re still wrong.
Re: Re: Re:6
FYI, a group of just 15 people can be large if the other group comprises just 4. Also, I believe it takes more than the amount of the larger group above to flag a comment before it gets hidden. Don’t berate AC just because you don’t understand basic concepts.
Re: Re: Re:7
Nope. The AC troll gets dinged for completely misunderstanding how flagging works. Nobody is working together here. It’s just that a lot of people independently think the AC is an asshole. There’s no conspiracy required.
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Re: Re: Re:4
I wasn’t aware that posting once in response to a single comment to point out problematic content in it meets the definition of stalking someone to spam unrelated accusations, but I guess you’d know more about that than me.
FYI, several is more than two, which would make Stephen more of a bigot than me by that twisted logic, which is obviously yours rather than mine (every accusation a confession, no?). Also, defending myself against false accusations of not giving a fuck about the minority my sister’s a member of no more makes me a bigot than stating the Scottsboro boys were unjustly convicted makes me a member of the KKK.
Re: Re: Re:5
You might think you have people fooled with this because the Gravatar system is busted. But pattern recognition—such as, say, recognizing a writing style by word usage/tone and who is regularly targeted by comments that display such a style—kind of helps give away your game.
Re: Re: Re:5
As Stephen said, you’re not fooling anyone.
I didn’t say Stephen was a member of several. I said he was a member of at least two. And there’s no outranking for being a minority because there is no hierarchy and no special privileges to use the language of inclusion as a weapon. Even members of minorities can be assholes. Being a member of a minority doesn’t mean you are, and often times it means you have compassion and empathy based on your own experience being less privileged than others, but being a member of a minority, whether you actually are or aren’t, isn’t a magical power that makes you immune to criticism for being an asshole and a troll.
It makes you an asshole for using your sister’s membership as a weapon. Usually people who use minorities for their own gain are bigots.
Re: Re: Re:6
FYI: Everybody who masturbates is committing incest because they are their siblings.
Re: Re: Re:7
How can you possibly be so inept as to not understand that that’s not claiming the person is their own sister? I’ll rephrase it since you’re flailing so much.
They (probably you) are using their sister’s membership for their own gain, hence “people who use minorities for their own gain.”
You’re an angle that is greater than 90°.
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I was assuming that they were trying to raise public awareness/pressure, not just let them know (could be wrong, though). To the extent that the goal is to pressure based on publicity/awareness (and not just inform them that it is is happening), those aren’t interchangeable.
They’re doing the equivalent of picketing someone’s front yard/booing them in line at the coffee shop. At least, that’s what I assumed.
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Yes, that was apparent. It’s still obnoxious. They didn’t just post it once. They spammed it across multiple articles. One of the principles of social change and activist movements is that you shouldn’t inconvenience the people who you want on your side. You inconvenience the people who have the power to change the situation. You boycott to deprive the business owner of profit. You stage a strike to deprive the business owner of employees and production. You don’t scream in the faces of powerless people.
freedom of speech
I do not mind the ideal.
What I mind is Self serving, Personal Agenda, Malicious and/or foul Intent.