bhull242 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Appeals Court: Yes, Suing The Family Of People You Killed In A Car Crash For Defamation Is A SLAPP Suit

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 11:18pm

    Can’t say I’ve ever encountered any of the problems you people complain of, honestly. I just can’t view embedded docs anymore.

  • On the post: TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 11:12pm

    SCOTUS has ruled in ways that agree with MM multiple times, so no, they don’t prove him wrong at every turn.

  • On the post: TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 02:43pm

    This seems less like an addict seeking to satisfy their addiction and more like a rebellious teen engaging in spite. Either way, though, the point is that the ban appears likely to fail to achieve any of its asserted objectives.

  • On the post: TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 02:40pm

    Well, if it’s all a moral panic, then there’s no danger. You can’t have it both ways.
    That doesn’t actually follow. A moral panic is a severe overestimation of the danger; it doesn’t mean there’s no danger. Moreover, even if there’s no real danger, the perceived danger would be more appropriate for Red Note than TikTok. This is about pointing out how dumb the remedy is in terms of stated goals.
    Not sure I’d point to kids as being bastions of cybersecurity.
    They’re pretty good at circumventing it, at least.
    There’s a million and one examples of people exposing themselves for an app or program they like.
    That’s not a cybersecurity issue per se. That’s more of a “people do stupid stuff” thing.
    I’d have to go review the text, but Rednote is probably also covered.
    The law specifically targets ByteDance and their subsidiaries/successors, not Chinese companies in general.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 12:22pm

    While there was a written plan to create the virus with Project Defuse, the government engaged in parallel construction with the debunked “the pangolin did it” conspiracy theory.
    1. “The pangolin did it” isn’t a conspiracy theory. Even if it turned out to be false, that wouldn’t be a conspiracy theory simply because there are no allegations of a conspiracy involved.
    2. Even if the “China engineered the virus” theory turns out to be true, that isn’t inconsistent with the “pangolin” theory. However the breakout began, it’s clear that a) it was not intended to occur, at least not at that time and place, and b) it began at a Chinese food market selling pangolin meat. However the virus was created to begin with, it appears that the first infections were from consuming pangolin meat. Whether it got to the pangolin naturally or from a failure to contain the virus to a lab, “the pangolin did it” theory would still be accurate. It hasn’t been debunked.
    3. From what I can tell, Project Defuse was about experimenting on viruses of a similar type to COVID-19 in order to better understand how they spread and mutate, not about creating any specific virus. So no, that is not a written plan to create the virus. I will grant it makes it plausible that COVID-19 was the result of Chinese experiments and a subsequent breach of containment, but it doesn’t prove that COVID-19 was deliberately created. If anything, it appears that it was a result of random mutations over the course of the experiment that were not deliberately induced, and then it escaped containment somehow.
    If there was a man-made origin, that would imply that all deaths occurred at the hand of another, […]
    No, it doesn’t. You’re assuming intent that is not in evidence. And even if it came from Project Deluge, that doesn’t make it man-made. That, again, requires there to be specific intent to create the virus.
    […] and that a pathogen destructive to human health has been added to the environment.
    I mean, that was always the case even if it wasn’t man-made. It wasn’t there before, and now it’s there, so it was added to the environment even if it was nature doing the adding. And that it is a pathogen destructive to human health was never disputed by those pushing against the lab theory.
    The “fact” checking that occurred relating to Covid-19 origins was done to conceal criminal conduct.
    Even if I was to grant that the fact-checking concealed criminal conduct (and I’m not convinced that that’s the only or most likely possibility), it still doesn’t follow that the fact-checking was done to conceal criminal conduct. Though, really, even assuming that COVID-19 did originate from Project Deluge, I’m not convinced that there was any criminal conduct involved (save perhaps some criminal negligence, maybe).
    And the “fact” checking was reportedly done at the instigation of government.
    FB asked the CDC whether certain claims about the virus were true. The CDC said that, at that time, there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the virus came from a lab, and even less evidence that it was deliberately engineered. (Note: “it came from a lab” doesn’t mean it was deliberately engineered.) FB responded by moderating content claiming that it did and was, sometimes by removal, sometimes by downranking, and sometimes by adding a note. So no, it wasn’t “done at the instigation of the government”. FB asked if something was true, the CDC said, “We don’t have evidence to support that,” and FB moderated posts based on that information.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 11:51am

    Well, except it is. Of course it is FB pulling the lever but at the same time the “fact checkers” know EXACTLY what will happen when they call “Biden has age related dementia” as “fake news”.
    No, they do not, because FB doesn’t do that for every post the fact-checkers determine to be false. Sometimes, all they do is attach a note saying that the post is false and do nothing else. Since the result of telling FB a post is false doesn’t always lead to that post being “censored” even under your definition, you cannot infer that the fact-checkers knew beforehand that FB will “censor” any particular post that gets determined to be false. So no, they do not “know EXACTLY what will happen when they call ‘Biden has age related dementia’ as ‘fake news’.” Since your premise is false, your argument is unsound. (Side note: To my knowledge, fact-checkers don’t generally call things “fake news”. Among fact-checkers, that term is generally reserved for people impersonating actual major news outlets or forging articles from such outlets, not just any false claim.)
    FB outsourced the decision, so now it’s the “fact checkers” making the decision.
    No, they outsourced only the determination of whether something is true or untrue. FB still makes the decision about what to do with a post that has been determined to be false. Heck, you yourself point out multiple different responses they might take for a given piece of content, so clearly FB doesn’t do the same thing every time.
    In the end it doesn’t fuucking matter, Duumb@ass english majors are asked to determine what is “true”, do so in hilariously biased fashion, censorship ensues, exactly as planned.
    Except there is zero evidence that it is planned, nor does “censorship” ensue even half of the time. Most of the time, they just affix a note. You don’t even have to click past a splash page. Not to mention that fact-checkers aren’t all English majors, and being an English major doesn’t mean you’re unqualified to fact-check a claim.
    And you cheered them the whole time,
    Because they were taking measures that didn’t always involve removal of posts altogether.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 11:30am

    The NYP article claims that even having a message attached claiming that the content is false is censorship. Not even you went that far.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2025 @ 11:28am

    Just saying “that is absolutely censorship” doesn’t mean it is censorship

    If it blocks your meme, link whatever, makes people click past a “this has been determined ‘false'” splash page, makes it so that content shows in feeds less — keep in mind “fact checkers” get things wrong all the time, often on purpose (i.e. it’s just propaganda)….. that is absolutely censorship.
    Here’s the thing: The fact-checkers do not do any of that. All the fact-checkers do is state whether a claim is true or false and why they believe that. The stuff you’re complaining about is the platforms’ decisions, not the fact-checkers’. As such, even if I granted your claim that even hiding content behind a “this is false” splash page (something I can’t say I’ve ever seen) or downranking content so it gets recommended less is censorship (something I vehemently disagree with, especially since it’s private platforms we’re talking about), that still wouldn’t make the fact-checking itself censorship even if the fact-checkers were deliberately making false statements. It could be defamation, but defamation is not censorship. Moreover, the NYP article makes no such distinction. It explicitly calls out even having a tag attached that says the post is false as being censorship, even if there is no downranking, blocking, or hiding of the content at issue. Therefore, even granting everything you say here, it doesn’t actually address the article at issue here, which is the thing being complained about.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2025 @ 04:46pm

    Honestly, the most annoying part of this for me is that it renders “censorship” a meaningless term. No, MAGAts, someone telling you you’re wrong—even if they themselves are wrong about that—is not censorship. It doesn’t become censorship if someone else then acts on that fact-check to moderate or censor you, either. That’s just pure speech (not even expressional conduct), and speech (absent conduct) is not and cannot be censorship.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2025 @ 04:42pm

    You should care about them, given that you should care about yourself.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2025 @ 04:41pm

    People cannot be liquidated. That’s incoherent. Though, frankly, you probably will complain that they aren’t “imprisoning enough subversives”.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2025 @ 04:39pm

    A reminder that they controlled all branches of the federal government back in 2017, too.

  • On the post: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

    bhull242 ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2025 @ 04:38pm

    They… don’t trend to the right, though, and the MSM’s fact-checking is not what the NYP article was even criticizing. Not to mention that Republican-leaning sources are no better.

  • On the post: Meta’s Moderation Modifications Mean Anti-LGBTQ Speech Is Welcome, While Pro-LGBTQ Speech Is Not

    bhull242 ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2025 @ 12:46pm

    Tell me you know nothing about psychopathology without saying you know nothing about psychopathology. Being different from the norm is not necessarily mental illness just because it’s the brain that is different.

  • On the post: Meta’s Moderation Modifications Mean Anti-LGBTQ Speech Is Welcome, While Pro-LGBTQ Speech Is Not

    bhull242 ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2025 @ 12:44pm

    –and yeah, they really should stop trying to trans the kids,
    Nobody is trying to do such a thing.
    it really is mostly a fad that has done real, physical harm.
    There is little to no evidence of physical harm, and none that it is even slightly a fad, let alone mostly.
    And everyone else noted that the censorship was political decision in the first place.
    No, they haven’t. Banning all posts calling people mentally ill, LGBT or not, is not political.
    Go ahead, call me a “bigot”, you’ve made that term meaningless.
    You’ve made so many terms meaningless that you have no room to complain.

  • On the post: Can We Subpoena The Monkey? Why The Monkey Self-Portraits Are Likely In The Public Domain

    bhull242 ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2025 @ 10:26am

    If he did not carry the cameras to the location, there would be no image. If he did not put a memory card in the camera, if he did not attach a lens, if he did not charge the batteries, there would be no image. Like it or not, he did plenty of things that contributed to the end image.
    Copyright law only considers the creative contributions, not the mechanical ones. Hence why, in a case where one person designs a work and another person fixes the work, the former is the author rather than the latter. None of what you describe constitutes a creative contribution. And US copyright law does not grant protection on the basis of the “sweat of the brow”, and but-for causation has no role in this determination.
    What I think funny is that you are making such a cause out of a silly, rather rare circumstance. It’s like you are, once again, attempting to kill all of copyright based on a single extreme case.
    Who said anything about killing all of copyright? No one was doing that! These articles are solely about the copyrightability of works that have no human author(s), whether—if such works can be copyrighted—Caters would have standing to assert that copyright against others, and whether the use of a photo in an article that is specifically about that photo is fair use (assuming it is copyrightable). The second issue is only relevant based on the answer to the first and is specific to this case. The first issue is only applicable to this case and others with similar circumstances. Neither of those have any applicability to assertions of copyright outside of these “silly, rather rare circumstances”. The third issue does apply outside of these unusual circumstances; however, a) making fair use of an image is part of copyright law and doesn’t constitute “attempting to kill all of copyright”, and b) none of the factors that make this case unusual are relevant to the third issue (so it doesn’t matter whether or not those circumstances are extreme or rare).
    Let me ask you a simple question: Did you get permission to use the image on your site?
    Entirely irrelevant when at least one of the following holds true:
    1. There is no human author.
    2. The work is not copyrightable for other reasons.
    3. The copyright has expired.
    4. The use would be considered fair use, de minimis use, or scène à fàire.
    In this case, both 1 and 4 apply. Therefore, Techdirt doesn’t require permission to use the image on their site.
    Are you sure of the copyright holder?
    Given the facts of the case are well known and that every lawyer who spoke on the subject agrees with Techdirt in this, yes. Though, again, this is entirely irrelevant if the use is considered fair use, which it is here, and it presumes there is a copyright holder, which there (at least arguably) is not.
    Are all images copyright at the time of creation?
    All images that are copyrightable are protected by copyright at the time of creation; those which are not copyrightable are not. One of the criteria for copyrightability is having a human author, and there is no human author here.
    I would say that while there may be some margin merit to your arguments, it doesn’t make your use of the image any more correct.
    None of what you have said makes that case.

  • On the post: There’s No Dancing Around It: Apple’s Vision Pro Was An Ugly Dud

    bhull242 ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2025 @ 04:37pm

    This is evidence of a journalist with no real understanding of the XR industry, what came before Vision Pro, and how in many ways it’s improved what has been industry stagnation for years, leading to more larger players coming back to spatial computing to show Apple who can do it better.
    Dude, the industry is still stagnating. There hasn’t been other larger players coming back to spatial computing since the Apple Vision Pro. Any improvement to the industry has been marginal, not revolutionary. Also, you clearly have less understanding of the XR industry than the writer does.
    Meta Quest and many others were very happy to sell them cheap nand loss lead, retrofitting mobile chipsets into HMDs, worrying that to make a high-spec product it would cost too much and so would turn people off.
    And it worked out relatively well for them, all things considered. Those others you speak of were considered fairly successful, even if not as successful as shareholders and executives would prefer.
    Apple looked at all of these issues and went all in on making the best it could with what is available at the limit of technology right now. All of this innovation came at a cost.
    And, as a result, the product flopped. Make all the excuses you’d like; the fact is that the product was unsuccessful and didn’t result in massive changes to the industry as was promised.
    It’s a hard or impossible purchase right now for the many, but components can only get cheaper as time goes on and future models grow in maturity.
    Perhaps, though Apple has shown no intention of making a future model as of yet, and this doesn’t change the fact that it simply wasn’t successful.
    They will become more reasonably priced to make it accessible.
    You’re still ignoring the lack of demand for the product to begin with. The fact of the matter is that there simply isn’t as much demand for an AR headset as there is for a VR headset, and headsets in general don’t have as much demand as handheld devices or smart-home devices. The fact that it has to be worn on your face and is much bulkier than a pair of glasses or a pair of goggles alone make them not worth it for most users. Combined with the fact that such technology is pretty much inherently unusable by the significant portion of the population who get motion sickness from XR devices, and it’s easy to see that the price point was far from the only issue here.
    By then, the Vision line should have a robust app store, full of stuff to use the product for.
    They said the same for Google Stadia. How did that turn out, exactly? Also, there is no evidence that there will ever be a Vision line. You’re counting chickens before they hatch.
    Remember the first iPhone had no app store at all.
    Yes, and? It was still wildly successful as a mobile phone, MP3 player, digital camera, and a device that can be used to browse the internet, features that were present in the first iPhone. The Vision Pro was not successful, and it would have needed a robust App Store to even be as successful as VR devices. Basically, you’re comparing a device that was successful without an App Store due to the features it did have even without one to a device that failed and had a lackluster App Store despite being almost entirely dependent on apps in order to succeed.
    Apple Vision Pro is not without flaws. By no means has Apple refined the product to the point it has shed the stigmas that VR has suffered for years: bulky hardware, not overly comfortable for long periods of time, and the weight of the product requiring better distribution.
    Those aren’t “stigmas”. Those are just inconvenient truths. A stigma is purely reputations and sticks even when it is no longer the case (if it ever was) that the reputation is factually accurate. In this case, the Vision Pro was itself bulky hardware, not overly comfortable for long periods of time, and having poor weight distribution. At any rate, you’re only proving the point of the article, which is that the Vision Pro, specifically, was over-hyped for what it actually was and how well it would sell.
    You can say it’s a flop, hot trash, garbage to grab clicks and either ragebait Apple fanboys or seek the adulation of the Apple haters.
    I’m neither an Apple fanboy nor an Apple hater. I have had iPhones, iPods, and iPads (and still do own an iPhone that I use regularly), but I prefer Windows for laptops and desktop computers and other browsers. There are things I think Apple does or has done well, and there are things I think they don’t. However, my opinion for Apple as a whole has nothing to do with my opinion of the Vision Pro. It is objectively a commercial flop, and my opinion is that it was a bad idea given the current state of technology and was overhyped. I personally know Apple fans who would agree with me on that.
    You are allowed an opinion as long as you have the knowledge of the industry Vision Pro is playing in and you are educated enough on what came before it.
    You don’t get to decide who is or isn’t allowed to have an opinion. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion, even if that opinion is objectively nonsensical and counterfactual. Moreover, the article demonstrates that they do, in fact, have knowledge of the industry and what came before the Vision Pro. They even point to facts about the industry and the history of XR devices as evidence for their conclusions here. That you disagree with their interpretation of those facts does not mean they lack knowledge of them.

  • On the post: There’s No Dancing Around It: Apple’s Vision Pro Was An Ugly Dud

    bhull242 ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2025 @ 04:00pm

    Are you still upset that large tech corporations are free to do whatever they want and make the rules as they please?
    Frankly, it’s none of my business how large corps choose to waste their money in most circumstances. This is one of them.
    Well, now is the time to get up and support the movement to boycott TechDirt.
    There is no such “movement”, and no one cares.
    Even though the website professes to support free speech and digital rights, just about everyone has the impression that it favors the big business lobby and minimizes the effects technology monopolies have on their smaller competitors, users, and privacy.
    1. Given how often writers here have spoken out against “the big business lobbies” and pointed out “the effects technological monopolies have on their smaller competitors, users, and privacy” (even criticizing others who actually attempt to minimize them), such an impression—to the extent it even exists for anyone—is not only far from universally held but demonstrably false and the exact opposite of reality.
    2. Having the impression that something is true—even if that impression is universally held, which it is not in this case—does not make it true, nor is it sufficient evidence of truth.
    3. Even if I was to grant all of that, none of it is inconsistent with “support[ing] free speech and digital rights”, so I have no idea why you present these as contradictory.
    We help to strengthen these systems when we assist TechDirt, whether we like it or not; systems which oppress and repress us.
    [citation needed]
    It’s about time we start asking more of the outlets we rely for news and knowledge.
    Ask them what? You don’t follow up with a question, and, as written, there is no reason to assume that the following sentence is a continuation of this one.
    Get on board to defend the interests of the majority as opposed to the few that have the resources to influence the game.
    Again, you point to no evidence that Techdirt isn’t already on board. At most, you simply disagree with them on how to do so or what those interests actually are.
    Say no to TechDirt, and join in the call for a fairer digital community!
    How about you just go already.

  • On the post: Jets Owner Woody Johnson Reportedly Made Personnel Decisions Based On Madden Ratings

    bhull242 ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2024 @ 11:44am

    lol, this is what you think makes a comment

    Seriously, it’s not even good trolling.

  • On the post: The Trump Vengeance Tour Continues As He Sues Pollster For Being Wrong

    bhull242 ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2024 @ 02:05pm

    It’s common knowledge that […]
    “Common knowledge” is neither universal nor reliable, much like common sense. Saying, “It’s common knowledge that [X],” is no better evidence for X than saying, “I believe [X].”

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