bhull242 's Techdirt Comments

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• On the post: Free Speech Absolutist Elon Musk Reminds People He Laid Off That If They Disparage Him He May Sue Them

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2023 @ 01:59pm

  Masnkick seems to keep writing smears about people he likely has never met.

  Most journalists don’t meet most of the people they write about. What is your point?

  I presume given the circumstances, this article was written out of Masnicks superiority complex developed over the years.

  You presume far too much from very little. [lots of irrelevant background stuff that doesn’t make any difference]

  Using Techdirts search function I found many pages worth of articles written by Masnick about Elon Musk.

  This is a news-blog with a focus on technology. Elon Musk is an incredibly famous entrepreneur who has started or owns several major tech companies, namely Tesla, Space-X, and Twitter. Musk also appears a lot in most news media. Of course Techdirt will have many articles about Elon Musk. What would you expect?

  I am very sure at this point that Masnick has never met Elon Musk to talk about a single smear article he has written about him. Which should really say something about his moral character.

  Again, most people who write critical articles don’t meet the people being discussed. You may not like it, but it’s standard practice. Also, they talk only about publicly available information, primarily observed business actions and public statements. This isn’t about his private life, where personally knowing someone might be relevant.

  I can understand why Masnick might not travel to a foreign country he has a bias about so he would write a smear about a country he doesn’t like. But to live within the US, have the money capable to travel the country by car or plane and never once have a face-to-face conversation about any of the subjects written about for the purpose of smearing the man who’s clearly not a threat to communicate with about whatever subject.

  You said yourself that Mike isn’t that well-known. Why would you expect him to be able to interview Musk in the first place? Why would Musk consent to being interviewed in the first place?

  Does Masnick fear doing actual journalism where he interviews the people he writes about or goes to the countries he writes about with first-hand experience? The answer is no.

  Again, neither do most journalists. You clearly don’t understand how journalism works. Not every story needs to include first-hand accounts. This is especially the case for a news-blog rather than a news station or newspaper, as the former rarely include interviews taken by the person writing the article. But even with major outlets, not every story includes first-hand, face-to-face interviews. Many don’t include interviews at all. That’s not how it works. That said, he does sometimes write about interviews done by other people, so it’s not like there are no interviews being reported here. Not that it matters, as you apparently don’t understand how journalism is actually done and think that everyone who has a news-blog should interview every subject of anything they write.

• On the post: Now That Elon Musk Is Labeling NPR And The BBC As ‘Government Funded,’ Shouldn’t He Do The Same For Tesla, SpaceX, And Twitter?

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2023 @ 01:41pm

  Masnick appears to be blocking my posts, coward

  You got through under your name, and you aren’t signed in, so probably not.

  I’m glad they included BBC, btw, cuz it’s very explictly “government funded” much more so than the NPR.

  This is actually true. The BBC gets a very large portion of its funds from government-mandated payments, so saying it is government-funded media is pretty hard to dispute. There is also a stronger argument that it is government-influenced media as well, though not quite to the point of state-sponsored media like many or all Russian or Chinese media outlets. The NPR gets a lot less of its funding from the government, and I have yet to see any evidence beyond the mere fact it receives government funding to suggest that it is government-influenced even to the degree the BBC is (and that is pretty weak support at that), so the argument for it being government-funded is weaker.

  But “funded” usually means some sort of grant to a non-profit, which doesn’t engage in commerce as normally understood.

  Not really. “Government-funded” has been used in reference to for-profit schools and construction companies as well, among others. It’s pretty broad. It does tend to refer to those getting a significant amount of its funds from the government rather than a small fraction.

  NPR would qualify as would many “urban outreach” type orgs, […]

  Maybe in the loosest sense, though if you’re going to go that far, the label doesn’t seem that useful.

  […] as would all those NGOs engaging in a massive censorship by proxy pressure campaign. 🙂

  I still see no good evidence that there was a massive campaign, nor that it was censorship by proxy, as beyond the fact that grants were received for research that was adjacent to the flagging, there is no evidence that the government was involved in the decision to flag any of that material or intended that result.

  About 1% of NPR’s budget is from federal grants That’s a straight lie, btw, as it’s only counting the money grated to the overarchnig org directly, the majority is actually donated to the member stations (which is where main org donations would go) some of it filtered up. Real % is obfuscated, quite on purpose (also shady), but maybe as high as 25%.

  Do you have evidence for your claim?

• On the post: Now That Elon Musk Is Labeling NPR And The BBC As ‘Government Funded,’ Shouldn’t He Do The Same For Tesla, SpaceX, And Twitter?

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2023 @ 01:22pm

  None of that says anything about a funds-for-influence relationship.

• On the post: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 11:21pm

  Yeah, none of that bears any resemblance to what I said, nor does it derive from anything I said. Take your craziness somewhere else.

• On the post: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 11:19pm

  To us, yes. To the white supremacists, it’s upholding it. Intent is key since we’re talking about political affiliations.

• On the post: Teslas Are A Privacy Nightmare: Staff Regularly Shared Camera Recordings, Made Memes & Jokes At Customers’ Expense

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 11:12pm

  Yes, hello Hyman! How is your spring going? Seen any good films?

• On the post: Teslas Are A Privacy Nightmare: Staff Regularly Shared Camera Recordings, Made Memes & Jokes At Customers’ Expense

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 11:11pm

  “Harmless” as in “causes no tangible damage”.

  So, any nonviolent act would qualify. Like identity theft. I’m sorry, but just because you don’t believe in privacy doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

  As in, “click to accept cookies” everywhere, brought to you by the same privacy morons who are complaining now.

  Yes, there is such a thing as going too far. This isn’t one of them.

• On the post: Teslas Are A Privacy Nightmare: Staff Regularly Shared Camera Recordings, Made Memes & Jokes At Customers’ Expense

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 06:03pm

  Define “harmless”. I believe the reasonable privacy of a lot of people was harmed by this. Whatever your opinion on the matter, “invasion of privacy” is a legally recognized harm and one recognized by society. Not to mention that private details like credit card numbers or Social Security numbers can also be leaked.

• On the post: Teslas Are A Privacy Nightmare: Staff Regularly Shared Camera Recordings, Made Memes & Jokes At Customers’ Expense

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 06:00pm

  Surely now he’ll bring back the censorship you want so much!

  Y’know, you people keep saying we liked the old moderation, but we didn’t. We accepted it, and thought it was better than a number of alternatives, but it was mostly just the least bad moderation. Also, no one expects Musk to change his mind at this point. That was never the goal.

  The internet is full of people’s embarrassing moments, some private, caught on video.

  And the ones done without the knowledge or consent of the people depicted taken in private by a business are the ones being objected to here. How they became public is important.

• On the post: Now That Elon Musk Is Labeling NPR And The BBC As ‘Government Funded,’ Shouldn’t He Do The Same For Tesla, SpaceX, And Twitter?

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:52pm

  Apparently the audience for NPR is more left leaning than Buzzfeed and HuffPost….there are no republicans there to speak of.

  [citation needed] for both claims

• On the post: Now That Elon Musk Is Labeling NPR And The BBC As ‘Government Funded,’ Shouldn’t He Do The Same For Tesla, SpaceX, And Twitter?

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:50pm

  Literally no one—not even Matt Taibbi or Elon Musk—ever even alleged that Twitter was funded by the FBI or the CIA, let alone that the Twitter Files even suggest such a thing might be true. Where in the world did you get that notion from, because it absolutely was not the Twitter files themselves which say nothing about the CIA paying Twitter a penny, and the only thing about the FBI paying Twitter anything was as a reimbursement of costs for complying with a court-signed subpoena, and nothing about that suggests it was intended to fund Twitter rather than to ensure that Twitter didn’t lose money from following its legal obligations.

• On the post: Now That Elon Musk Is Labeling NPR And The BBC As ‘Government Funded,’ Shouldn’t He Do The Same For Tesla, SpaceX, And Twitter?

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:43pm

  Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter aren’t “Government Funded Media” though. They might be government-funded, but they’re not media, at least not in the traditional sense of media.

  As specifically mentioned in the article, the label was once “Government-Funded”, not “Government-Funded Media”. The author speculates that the change may have been in response to people pointing out that Tesla and SpaceX are also government-funded. As for Twitter not being “traditional” media, where in the label does it say anything about tradition? You’re just inserting language not present.

  Now if you’re going to start labeling Twitter as a media publisher, like NPR and the BBC, your argument about companies deciding whether or not to host content falls apart.

  Where does the label even say “publisher”? Like, the distinction is irrelevant to §230–which is about who authored the content, not who published it—but even ignoring that, the label says “government-funded media,” not “government-funded media publisher”. As such, that Twitter would be labeled as a media publisher doesn’t follow from the premise. Of course, as I already mentioned, it’s also irrelevant because the platform-publisher distinction isn’t anywhere in §230 or in the justifications for it, so calling Twitter a media publisher would have no impact on the justifications for §230 in the first place. Really, none of the three things stated (labeling Twitter’s account as “Government-Funded Media”, labeling Twitter as a media publisher, and the justifications for §230) have anything to do with each other. This argument is broken on so many levels.

• On the post: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:27pm

  Who said that the platform was the only target to be fixed? Letting users of the platform know is a sufficient reason IMO.

• On the post: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:26pm

  Speaking for myself, I don’t use Twitter for the news. I just go there for stuff about anime, video games, and VTubers. But to your point, that argument only works if Twitter is the only place the news can be accessed in such a form. Mike is already addressing that by also posting on Mastodon.

• On the post: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:23pm

  Also nonsensical term. “Secular religion” is self-contradictory.

• On the post: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:22pm

  No, as defined, it couldn’t apply to white supremacy. You specifically mentioned tearing down society, which is exclusively leftwing.

• On the post: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 05:19pm

  “Wokeness is a cult or secular religion which teaches that society systemically oppresses certain marginalized groups. […]”

  In which case, wokeness doesn’t exist. For something to be a cult requires a level of centralized organization not present or even alleged here (mere commonality of beliefs is insufficient to demonstrate organization, even if disagreement with said beliefs is suppressed, because there is no organization to be tied to), and “secular religion” doesn’t exist because the term “secular” inherently excludes religion by definition. Because the allegations fail to meet the definition of a cult, and “secular religion” is a nonsensical term, “wokeness” under this definition factually does not exist based on the allegations presented.

• On the post: Free Speech Absolutist Elon Musk Reminds People He Laid Off That If They Disparage Him He May Sue Them

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 01:50pm

  No, they are not the same thing. A NDA precludes you from speaking on a specific subject, regardless of viewpoint. A non-disparagement clause precludes you from expressing a given viewpoint (regardless of whether it is true or false or pure opinion), but other viewpoints on the same subject are permitted. Viewpoint-based restrictions on speech bear an even stronger presumption of unlawfulness than other forms of content-based restrictions, and they are unenforceable at least when applied to those who aren’t currently-employed signatories to the agreement, particularly when there are other terms the signatory whose silence is required that are neither NDAs nor non-disparagement clauses. The fact is that some rights (like the right to vote and the right to not be a slave) cannot be lawfully signed away for money or other compensation. The right to speak poorly but truthfully in public about an ex-employer is one such right. The right not to disclose certain private information at all—whether in a positive, negative, or neutral light—is not necessarily such a right.

• On the post: Free Speech Absolutist Elon Musk Reminds People He Laid Off That If They Disparage Him He May Sue Them

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 01:36pm

  You cannot sell the right to criticize your employer in perpetuity. The Trump Campaign learned this the hard way.

• On the post: Free Speech Absolutist Elon Musk Reminds People He Laid Off That If They Disparage Him He May Sue Them

  

  bhull242 ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 01:34pm

  No, he specified that it was about ridiculously broad NDAs, as well as non-disparagement agreements in general. He never said or implied that all NDAs are necessarily incompatible with supporting free speech. You are reading claims into the article that aren’t there, implicitly or explicitly. Just admit that you were mistaken about what was being said about NDAs and move on.

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