Ben 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (424)

• On the post: We’re Walling Off The Open Internet To Stop AI—And It May End Up Breaking Everything Else

  

  Ben ( profile ), 09 Sep, 2025 @ 05:07am

  Mostly agreeably incoherent.

  I can't tell whether they're agreeable or not as I cannot read their word salad & capitalisation nightmare-fuel comments.

• On the post: Trump Administration Approves New COVID Vaccines… For Barely Anyone At All

  

  Ben ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2025 @ 05:10am

  Funny

  I wanted to click Funny, until I realized it is 2025 and the orange baboon and his coterie of apes is in charge.

• On the post: RFK Jr. Vowed To Find The Environmental Causes Of Autism. Then He Shut Down Research Trying To Do Just That.

  

  Ben ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2025 @ 06:15am

  Yes, it's in the article

  Their third study, published in 2023, took the link between solvent exposure and autism as a starting point. Using blood samples to examine the genetic makeup of the parents of children with autism, McCanlies and Hertz-Picciotto found that when exposed to solvents on the job, people with specific variants of 31 genes had an especially elevated risk of having a child with autism. Their genetic makeup appeared to increase the risk that solvents by themselves posed. Some of those 31 genes help cells connect with one another; others play a role in helping cells migrate to different areas so they can grow into the various parts of the brain; still others ensure that cells clear away toxic substances.

  You are one of those who had the genetic factors, that didn't need the additional tweak provided by the chemical pollution stimulating. I, on the other hand, am a son of an autist born in the 1940s, and the father of another born in the 1990s. We've all always lived in small town environments. I'd not be the least surprised to see some element of solvent or other chemical factor in our (mothers') lives.

• On the post: Politico Management Insists “AI” Shouldn’t Be Held To Any Sort Of Human Editorial Standards Because It’s Built By Coders, Not Journalists

  

  Ben ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2025 @ 05:18am

  From Google's AI mode

  you should not use AI due to its risks and limitations. Common reasons include concerns about reliability and accuracy, inherent biases, the potential for unethical use, and a negative impact on human skills and relationships. A critical understanding of these drawbacks is crucial for deciding when and how to appropriately use AI.

  Need I say more?

• On the post: UK Backs Down On Apple Encryption Backdoor—But The Secret Deal Raises New Questions

  

  Ben ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2025 @ 12:54am

  4chan (in a polite mood): "You can fine us as much as you like, how're you going to collect?" Ofcom: erm, the UK High Court will say bad things about you? 4chan: . Of course, this conversation works both ways - US law doesn't apply in the UK, nor does your insane 2nd amendment. (by the way, there's a hint in the name: it's an amendment - you could, you know, amend it away too)

• On the post: Privacy‑Preserving Age Verification Falls Apart On Contact With Reality

  

  Ben ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2025 @ 03:26am

  Bug?

  That’s not child protection; it’s infrastructure for control.

  "That's not a bug, it's a feature," said every congress-critter.

• On the post: UK Court Ruling Leaves Wikipedia Facing Years Of Uncertainty Under Online Safety Act

  

  Ben ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2025 @ 05:07am

  it's worse, it's a massive specification failure

  How much of a page needs to be touched by an unverified editor before it becomes 'unsafe'? One word? One paragraph? A section? It would become a "fun" target for DDOS perpetrators to use unverified accounts to just touch random pages (or 1000s of them) and get those tainted pages taken out of circulation. Do the users have to be verified 'today'. What happens if they weren't verified when they made the edit, but are now? What happens if an editor is now dead, but their verification status was not in doubt by the Wikipedia community at large (because they were a known reliable expert)? What about pages on niche subjects in low popularity languages that have been stable for a decade, but were written before verification became A Thing?

• On the post: Australia Completely Loses The Plot, Plans To Ban Kids From Watching YouTube

  

  Ben ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2025 @ 04:44am

  client side validation

  What you're suggesting is that sites will have to take the word of the connecting device that it is a 'child device'. This is a known anti-pattern - web developers have long known that it is stupid in the extreme to trust validation on the client side. One should always validate on the server side. And once you believe the device that's connected, you'll believe anything... fancy this bridge I've got for sale?

• On the post: Australia Completely Loses The Plot, Plans To Ban Kids From Watching YouTube

  

  Ben ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2025 @ 04:38am

  PBS on YouTube

  PBS publishes a lot of very good content on YouTube: Monstrum, Otherwords and Be Smart (used to be "It's okay to be smart") are my favourites, but there are plenty of others.

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

  

  Ben ( profile ), 04 Aug, 2025 @ 04:53am

  Sorry, what?

  TechDirt has always covered more than 'just' tech. Copyright and trademark spring immediately to mind, but there's plenty of other areas where politics and technology are intrinsically linked. So, for this week's content above, Ryan Walters has definitely been exposed by his use (mis-use in office?) of technology. And AI is so definitely 'technology' as to be laughable that you missed it. Need I say more?

• On the post: DHS Declares Abrego ‘Will Never Walk America’s Streets’ Hours After Judges Order His Release

  

  Ben ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2025 @ 03:30am

  Two branches?

  Branch One: The Orange Bully Branch Two: the dumb fzckers who enable him?

• On the post: Waypoint Writers Quit After Vice’s Chickenshit New Owners Delete Articles Critical Of Steam Policies

  

  Ben ( profile ), 24 Jul, 2025 @ 11:11am

  Ultimately it's not the payment processors (JP Morgan Chase, Worldpay, Stripe, PayPal, etc) who're the problem. It's Visa and Mastercard (and to a lesser extent Amex) who really call the shots. And they pull the puppet-strings of the processors. If Visa and Mastercard and Amex networks won't take your requests for payment, you won't be doing business with credit cards (or debit cards) at all, regardless of what the intermediate card processors say.

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

  

  Ben ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2025 @ 02:05pm

  Carrying on, sir!

• On the post: Trump’s $10 Billion WSJ Lawsuit Over Epstein Article Reveals His Lawyers Can’t Read Good

  

  Ben ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2025 @ 04:15pm

  Frankly, this couldn't happen to a nice chap... decide for yourself whether I'm referring to Trump, Murdoch or Epstein. (oh, but would that make me anti-semitic?)

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

  

  Ben ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2025 @ 01:57am

  OMG how low the standards of humour must have reached for that nugget of wit (sic!) to get noticed!

• On the post: RFK Jr. Promotes Meal Delivery Company That Serves Ultra-Processed Food

  

  Ben ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2025 @ 02:59am

  Follow the money

  What's the odds that Kennedy has an investment in the company? I'd say, given the current regime of adminis-grifters, the odds are significant.

• On the post: ‘Stop Killing Games’ Finds An Ally In An EU Politician

  

  Ben ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2025 @ 01:49am

  20 years rule?

  A full refund after 19 years? (because the company didn't support for the full 20) So how does a business make any money for giving you 19 years service? Surely some sort of pro-rating against the purchase date would make more fair sense. Perhaps a full refund after 1 year, degrading to 5% after 20?

• On the post: UnitedHealth’s Response To People Cheering Their CEO’s Murder: Silence The Critics

  

  Ben ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2025 @ 02:43pm

  Time to check the mailbox

  Is that a letter incoming from Clare Locke I see. Paging Ms Streisand. Could Ms Streisand come to the front page, please?

• On the post: Trump Globally Launches New Truth+ ‘Video Streaming Service’ That’s Just Right Wing Propaganda And Gibberish

  

  Ben ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2025 @ 05:24am

  "Pravda" had the same problem.

• On the post: Trump Globally Launches New Truth+ ‘Video Streaming Service’ That’s Just Right Wing Propaganda And Gibberish

  

  Ben ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2025 @ 05:55am

  AI crawlers

  Won't somebody please think of the AI crawlers. If they start using Truth+ as training data, who knows what nightmarish creations they will create. Second thoughts: maybe that would be a feature, not a bug? Make AI models so full of garbage people stop using them?

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