PaulT 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (29334)

• On the post: UK Restaurant Threatens Other UK Restaurant Over Trademark On ‘Taqueria’

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2022 @ 02:13am

  "Taaquerias are everywhere" Good for you. Britain has a culture of immigration from the Indian subcontinent, Europe and former Commonwealth rather than the Americas, which means the streets are lined with curry houses and kebab shops instead of Mexican food. This is fine. Instead of being a xenophobic twat, viva la difference and let's fight together against corporate ownership of words on both sides of the pond.

• On the post: UK Restaurant Threatens Other UK Restaurant Over Trademark On ‘Taqueria’

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2022 @ 02:10am

  I'm not sure we can count on common sense in this day and age, but my attitude is that if you can't trademark an English word for a purpose, then it probably shouldn't be as easy as just picking the same word in a different language. These people should be working to build the property they want protected, not just strip mining dictionaries.

• On the post: Law Firm, Families Send Texas School Districts C&D Over ‘God’ Posters

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 09 Sep, 2022 @ 07:41am

  Now, now, his mother may have raised a terrible human being, but she's not responsible for his name. He came up with that himself, his parents named him Carlos.

• On the post: Politico’s New Owner Signals He’s Doubling Down On Feckless ‘He Said, She Said’ Journalism

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 09 Sep, 2022 @ 07:26am

  "Asked about the email, Döpfner initially responded with a forceful denial. “That’s intrinsically false,” he said. “That doesn’t exist. It has never been sent and has never been even imagined.” When shown a printout of the text, Döpfner allowed a glimmer of recognition. It’s possible, he said, that he may have sent the email" So, is he actually stupid enough to think that he'd be asked the question by someone who hasn't already viewed the evidence and is able to present it on request, or does he honestly think that things don't count if you don't personally remember them? "because that’s exactly the kind of ironic, provocative thing that Döpfner, a garrulous and enthusiastic texter, likes to do" If we could just change the world in a way that stops people who haven't mentally got past the stage of early puberty from gathering all of its resources, that would be great.

• On the post: DEA Continues To Be The QAnon Of Drug Enforcement, Pretends Colorful Fentanyl Is Dealers Trying To Kill Children

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2022 @ 12:25am

  Yeah, you know the best way to make lots of money is to sell something that not only kills off the current crop of customers, but wipes out an entire generation of future customers and ensures that every law enforcement agency on the planet makes it their highest priority to take you down. Makes perfect sense...

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 03:17pm

  I'd love to hear which service provided here was "vital".

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 03:13pm

  True. It also means refusing the ability to use your private property to broadcast the speech of others if you don't wish to associate with them. You have the right to be a loud hateful idiot. I have the right to tell you to step off my property or stop using my wall to post things. It goes both ways - you wanting to speak does not mean I, or anyone else, has to listen or provide you a bullhorn.

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 03:10pm

  "I would say in some of the comments here and across the wider media in general, the site is definitely being misrepresented as a “right-wing” site dedicated to harassing transgender individuals" I will say that the categorisation I've seen is more "people too scummy for 4chan and 8kun" rather than any specific political bent, although the subjects seem to fit more neatly with one group than others. "Any cricitism is harassment, disagreement is transphobia, and who are they coming for next?" I tend to find that misrepresenting criticism before you receive it and paranoid fantasies are probably not going to win any fans (who are they coming for next? I'd assume anyone else violating the same rules, although that's not someone "coming for you"). "The sudden about-face was a surprise" Not really. The site has gained a lot of attention recently, and that makes people pay attention. They've responded to similar incidents in the same way before, so someone at KF should at least have been aware this was a possibility. That's just how this works - if you're controversial suppliers may put up with you while traffic rolls in. If the value of your business is outweighed by the business you drive away be being controversial, you no longer have a supplier and need to find a new one that accepts the current status quo. "the people who are currently crusading against Kiwi Farms have an awful lot they have said or done that would be of interest to many parties" Innuendo doesn't work on normal people. If you have evidence, present it to either us or law enforcement. Implying that you have personal information about unnamed people in the same breath as trying to say that KF didn't use data not available in the public is. not a good tactic. I'm sorry if this is a case of "we were not all bad people, we just put up with the psychos till they caused us problems", but the arguments so far have been unconvincing.

• On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 02:58pm

  Funny. You've gone from "You just need to ensure that everyone’s photos are verified manually" to "not all images need to be verified" in the face of basic logic, and even injected automation into the process you originally claimed needs to be done manually. "users can trust that you actually check the information" Users don't give a shit if you check the information. They do give a shit that you're asking for it in the first place because some government entity is trying to build a database to tie them to internet activity. This is like your useless software - you seem to have convinced yourself that users are asking for a system that blocks them from doing anything useful in the name of copyright protection, but in reality it's the last thing any of them want, and results in the opposite of a useful system anyone would ever pay for.

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 01:57pm

  "But a space exists between principled and arbitrary." When you're dealing with a large company, all that matters is profit. Whether it's Alex Jones and similar nutters being kicked off FB and YouTube, Amazon refusing to host Parler or the current CF discussion, all that matters is that they crossed a line between value and profit. If you cost them more than you pay them, you're out. Those people all got a bunch of chances, but when the mainstream headlines informed other customers they were profiting from hate, they were out. I suspect that what we're not seeing is something behind the scenes where some principled CTO is talking to them and saying that if KF don't go then they pull a contract. It's rare, but I've seen it happen. If what I've read elsewhere is true, KF weren't exactly prompt at paying bills, so it might not have taken much nudging once this story got enough traction to interest the mainstream. It would be nice if "I'll turn a blind eye so long as you feed me dollars" wasn't a thing, but that's the nature of capital.

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 01:50pm

  That's true, but lacking a CDN doesn't do that. It means they'll potentially have problems with accessibility and more vulnerable to DDOS attacks, etc. but on its own it doesn't drive them underground. Whereas, there's certainly a good argument that providing a CDN to protect them from attacks and obfuscate their real location does endanger people, since obvious nobody can co-ordinate on a website if the website is offline. It's complicated but a service provider refusing to do business with a customer is not a massive deal on its own. From what I'm reading, they have larger problems at hand, and even the regular Russian alternative is not happy to do business, but still lacking a CDN, DNS, DDOS protection, whatever service is not death for a site. It just raises the costs and the need for people who know what they're doing who don't mind bypassing some morals to deal with you.

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 01:35pm

  It's a double edged sword, as we'd seen with similar groups. Removing public access drives the true believers underground and potential to more extreme influences, but it also ensures that potential new recruits are far less likely to stumble across them. I'd say that with the recent controversies and additional attention being given to them right now, the right move is to ensure they're not as easily located, although I'd certainly hope that someone with the power to intervene if they do get more extreme is following them.

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 01:32pm

  Both sides bad, blah blah. On one side, we have people being hounded IRL by people attempting to destroy their lives, and in some cases even drive them to suicide or trigger a violent accident. This has included placing members of the US government in danger (supposed SWATting attempt against MTG). On the other side, we have people saying it's not right for companies to profit from hatred and if KF wants to continue as they are they should not have it easy, plus the people actually responsible for the IRL attacks be held accountable for their illegal actions. I'm not sure there's any way to convince me that these things are equal to each other, but you're welcome to try. Just bear in mind that if you're going to pretend that "this company should not exist and we should kill it" is equal to "this person should not exist and we should kill them", you're in for an uphill battle.

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 01:27pm

  I'm not sure if you'd find a lot of ideological allies, but... I'd be fascinated to find out what you mean here. Are you saying that the nature of the site is being misrepresented? That there's some issue with the timeline or the processes described? Are you just feeling that the takedown is unfair because you don't personally involve yourself with the actions that have led to these reactions? I'm certainly always open to a discussion with someone who has first hand knowledge of a problem or mistake in the article I'm reading. I doubt I'd be sympathetic if you are part of the doxxing, etc., but if not and there' something we're missing, I'd be interested.

• On the post: Everyone’s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 01:18pm

  That's the ultimate question. A balance needs to be found between letting them operate in a space that's easily monitored and acted upon by law enforcement (not a problem if it's all public, of course), and forcing them way from being able to recruit now members. Where that balance is, I don't think we really know right now. We know we can't let them operate in the open but we also know that driving them completely underground is harder. At the moment, though, all the decisions appear to be made by private entities of their own volition, so there's no overall plan in motion as far as I can see. We're just dealing with another hate group who finally overstepped the line that made a service provider decide that their profits were damaged more by accepting their money than it was by refusing service. Let's hope it stops here, but allowing them to spread their hatred at a time when they're getting free press wasn't going to be the correct solution, so let's keep an eye on them and hope that they leave track like so many other groups do.

• On the post: A New Ad-Based Tier Won’t Fix What Ails Netflix

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 12:02pm

  "Apparently you fail to understand that some people don’t want to see things they support fail because of outside forces." Of course, but there's no way of avoiding outside forces in this market. Some are more impactful of others, but I don't think your renting a DVD of Frivolous Lola or some other Tinto Brass movie will alter their fate whether or not they have it in stock. "I didn’t compare Netflix and shudder. I used it as an example of cutting content." That wasn't obvious, but fair enough if I misunderstood. Although, Shudder would seem to be a weird example in this regard. They have other content, increasingly including stuff licenced from Arrow (which concerns me slightly as I don't like to see that market cannibalised), but in recent times they've placed more focus on "Netflix is currently spending big money to snag big film rights. The are funding that by cutting deals with the smaller studios." You seem very much confused as to what's happening. Netflix have multiple types of deals going on. For some, they're bankrolling the whole movie from script to screen as a normal studio would. For others, they're getting involved during production and bankrolling a release. Others they're picking up for distribution at film festivals or grabbing international distribution after a domestic release in whatever country. Sometimes this pays off - Squid Game, for example isn't something that would exactly have played on prime time in the older days. Other times it doesn't - some of the recent big budget "blockbuster" attempts have been fairly weak. But, then, people have watched them, and lower audience scores didn't affect the Transformers franchise... "Outside of their own in-house content, they have no US exclusives." Lol "outside of what they own they have no stock!". Yeah, that's how business works. It doesn't matter how much you want a Big Mac, if you only visit Burger King you won't get one. "Every big film they spend on for rights is a collection of small multi-film contracts not renewed." Weirdly, this seems to be getting better, at least where I am. "They aren’t bringing in the new customers when they stream films that are on other services" Which is why they've spent so much time and money bringing in exclusives rather than depending on content that Sony, Disney or Universal can pull. "They keep buying into non-exclusive exclusives." This is what I don't understand, so maybe you could be more clear. Are you talking about mainstream titles that have a limited life before moving elsewhere, indie/foreign stuff that's not only on Netflix, or what? Without some titles I'm not sure what you're referring to unless it's things like the Marvel shows that only had a limited licence and more than served their purpose. "They’re killing themselves." In my mind, if they do this it's not the content that will do it, but making the service less convenient. Once they try to push ads too much, try to crack down on people who may or may not be sharing accounts, etc., that's what will push people to move away. It's not going to be the content alone, but comparing it to when they could get any title they wanted for the cost of a disc and not an international licencing agreement is somewhat disingenuous.

• On the post: Appeals Court: No Immunity For School Cop Who Assaulted A Student Over Perceived Disrespect

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 10:36am

  Those were words. I wonder - were they aimed at me (the commenting doesn't make it clear), and if they were, did you intend to make yourself appear like a sane rational person with a point someone else reading here was meant to understand? Because the way you have arranged your comment here, it seems that you're taking some offense to something I haven't said, and aimed your artillery toward at least one target that I have no relationship to. "you ALWAYS default to cheapshots, lies and disinfo about me" I literally don't know who you are. I can only respond to the comments made here, I don't even have enough info to try and stalk you as you have me if I wanted to (weird, by the way), and if any thread follows between threads it's only because you repeat the same obvious fictions. If you're the AC I think you are, the only possible comment is that you expend way more energy on angry rants than you would if you familiarised yourself with the basic of the facts before you started typing, and what you did above doesn't help your case. "You and I have been through this for years–as other media picks up my stories, or publishes the same facts that you constantly demand evidence for" Yes, that's how things work - sane people don't take the word of anonymous people online, they ask for facts. If the facts are presented, that leads to further discussion, and so on... That's usually when these threads go silent or get filled with whining that the site doesn't accept 10 messages in the space of 2 minutes from known bad sources.

• On the post: A New Ad-Based Tier Won’t Fix What Ails Netflix

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 06:35am

  All I see if a whiny little child who can't face the fact that streaming licencing is completely different to DVD, and that he now has a wide range of competition he can now choose which he didn't when Netflix was the only game in town. You could have saved a hell of a lot of words and effort by being a grown up, yet as usual here we are with the whining and the persecution complex and the inability to accept reality... "Netflix is nearing a decision point. Sell out, like Shudder, and put the majority of your content on Amazon as a channel/station" The fact that you think that Shudder and Netflix are comparable in any conceivable way, be that subscribers, reach, history, whatever, is laughable, but it does help demonstrate how clueless you are on many subjects. The idea that Netflix would sell to Amazon because they have a couple of million less subscribers (many of the Prime subs being because it's a free add-on to delivery not because they actually want it) it the funniest joke I've heard since Trump claimed he was too popular to have lost the election.

• On the post: A New Ad-Based Tier Won’t Fix What Ails Netflix

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 06:26am

  "Netflix was long admired for its deep and varied catalogue." Yes, and then the studios fucked them over with licencing, first by trying to demand too much than would be possible to keep them in business, then by setting up their own competition. Such is the business of licencing streams vs buying DVDs, and it's the fault of copyright law, not Netflix "That would be fine if they didn’t abandon those who supported them since day one." They didn't abandon anyone willingly. However, if the choice is between servicing you individually with huge licencing fees and doing something that keep their business afloat, they're going to choose the latter every time, no matter how many times you want to watch the hardcore cut of Caligula without buying a disk. "That less common material brought over users willing to stick around when it went to streaming" Yes, and now that they can measure their subscribers in hundreds of millions globally rather than thousands of users domestically, they service the people who pay them money. If you don't like it, stop whining, cancel your Netflix sub and pay the people who do give you what you want. Your main problem is that you choose to be a whiny asshole trying to change everyone else instead of being an adult and supporting people who provide the service you want. Stop being a prick. "The content issue is they are spending big money with the hopes of locking in users" I'd say I hope you're not stupid enough to believe this, but many previous comments suggest you are. One thing they'v e never done is lock people in. Cancel now if you don't want to pay, sub next month if you see something you want to watch. No matter what the fiction outlets you call news program you to believe, you are not locked in. If your complaint is they provide exclusive content in order to retain users, I'd ask you to name a provider than does not do that. Even Tubi have started providing their own content, and they're 100% ad supported.

• On the post: Appeals Court: No Immunity For School Cop Who Assaulted A Student Over Perceived Disrespect

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2022 @ 06:15am

  It's weird... you decided that I use the same name here as I do on YouTube, yet decided that I use a completely different name on Reddit. Would you mind if I asked you to present your evidence for the hilarious fictions you presented? I'm just intrigued as to how you came the the conclusions which are so obviously wrong, and which innocent person you're trying to convince people to attack if they're too weak to address criticism of their own comments here.

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