blakestacey 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (297)

• On the post: 5th Circuit Is Gonna 5th Circus: Declares Age Verification Perfectly Fine Under The First Amendment

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2024 @ 05:20pm

  It's an article of faith among these people that any child will be forever damaged by an encounter with one (1) instance of pornography, instead of dismissing it as gross and weird (like the kissing parts of movies, but more so) and going back to defending the treehouse against the velociraptor invasion.

• On the post: Twitter’s Former Top Execs All Sue Elon Over Missing Severance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2024 @ 09:04pm

  Or more time on Pornhub and less time here.

• On the post: Twitter’s Former Top Execs All Sue Elon Over Missing Severance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2024 @ 02:07pm

  <sickos yes yes.jpg>

• On the post: Wikipedia Wisely Downgrades CNET Reliability Score After Lazy AI Screw Ups

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2024 @ 07:42am

  The Wikipedia community's list of "perennial sources" makes for interesting reading. There's a lengthy diatribe against Forbes.com "contributors", for example. Know Your Meme and TV Tropes both apparently have come up often enough that it's worth designating them "generally unreliable". The discussion that led to the downgrading of CNET can be found here.

• On the post: Justin Trudeau Rightly Points Out That Internet Porn Licenses Are A Dumb Fucking Idea; But He Still Supports Internet Censorship Bill

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2024 @ 01:59pm

  For those curious: Michael Geist has two posts, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a press release.

• On the post: No One Cares That Bill Ackman’s Wife May Have Plagiarized; They Care About Ackman’s Hypocritical Double Standard

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2024 @ 06:36pm

  "Take a look / it's in a book..." The Internet Archive has a copy of MIT's Academic Integrity handbook dated to 2005 and saved in 2006. Let's see what it has to say about citing the Internet! Under "What should I cite?" (p. 7), we find this bullet point:

  Electronic sources: web pages, articles from online newspapers and journals, articles retrieved from databases like Lexis Nexis and ProQuest, government documents, newsgroup postings, graphics, E-mail messages, and web logs (i.e., any material published or made available on the Internet).

  Gee whillickers! And on the very next page,

  Because it is relatively new and because so much of what appears on the Internet does not indicate the author’s name, people tend to think the information they find there is “free” and open for the taking. Everything on the Internet has been written by someone. The author may be an organization or an individual, but there is an author – or at least, a traceable source.

  Jinkies!

  Treat the information you find electronically the way you would treat it if it were printed on paper. If you quote, paraphrase, or summarize, cite your source as you would an article in a journal or newspaper. Do the same for a web site or web page.

• On the post: No One Cares That Bill Ackman’s Wife May Have Plagiarized; They Care About Ackman’s Hypocritical Double Standard

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2024 @ 03:41pm

  Fun fact: Wikipedia has a whole documentation page about how to cite Wikipedia articles. It was created in 2003, and at the end of 2009, it looked like this. The very first thing it says is,

  Wikipedia has a tool to generate citations for particular articles. For the cite tool, see ... the "Cite this page" link on the left of the page with the article you wish to cite.

• On the post: Surprise: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (Correctly) Explains Why Florida’s & Texas’ Social Media Laws Are Horrible And Unconstitutional

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2024 @ 07:25pm

  SCOTUSblog also has a summary.

• On the post: Surprise: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (Correctly) Explains Why Florida’s & Texas’ Social Media Laws Are Horrible And Unconstitutional

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2024 @ 07:15pm

  Another take:

  At the end of the arguments, a majority of the justices appeared to agree that, at a minimum, the laws could not be applied to the social media companies’ expressive activities, specifically, when they are taking actions that amount to editorial discretion. However, it was also clear, particularly as to the Florida law, that the resolution of the cases could be more complicated than that. [...] At the end of the arguments, it appeared likely that the preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the Texas law — which targets a narrow group of very large social media companies but specifically bars them from viewpoint-based content moderation decisions — will remain in effect while that case proceeds, a decision reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit but in agreement with the district court in the case. [...] As to the Florida law, however, the arguments — which were first — quickly got stuck on this question about the scope of the law.

  And another:

  It is difficult or impossible to predict what the justices will do. It would not surprise me if there are more than 2 opinions from the 9 justices. Fractured courts do happen in difficult speech cases, such as the Turner case, where no single position garnered a majority of the justices. Both sides finger-pointed at each other for the lack of a more developed record, but without such a record, the justices were vexed by the proper procedural move. I did like what Justice Sotomayor had to say near the end. Something to the effect of: “I have a problem with laws that are so broad that they stifle speech on its face.” If a majority of justices share that sentiment, then they will have to find an appropriate procedural mechanism to make sure that speech-stifling statutes don’t go into effect. To me, the appropriate step would be to impose the preliminary injunctions and let the district courts apply any further guidance when evaluating the permanent injunction.

• On the post: Mayor Adams Files Ridiculously Stupid, Dangerous Lawsuit Against Social Media, Claiming It’s A Public Nuisance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2024 @ 05:24pm

  specifically White men, currently the most-persecuted group in tech in America

  (wipes away a single tear) Ah, thanks. I needed a laugh today.

• On the post: Mayor Adams Files Ridiculously Stupid, Dangerous Lawsuit Against Social Media, Claiming It’s A Public Nuisance

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2024 @ 02:50pm

  Eric Adams versus Facebook: the lawyers win, the people lose.

• On the post: The Copia Institute Tells The Ninth Circuit That The District Court Got It Basically Right Enjoining California’s Age Design Law

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2024 @ 12:52pm

  The link to the brief itself seems to be missing, but it can be found here.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 05:23pm

  Ding ding ding

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 05:22pm

  It's a story from The Hill syndicated by Yahoo News. So, apply the "Beltway media" filter: the facts reported are probably true, but they could be being spun or presented without context.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 03:18pm

  I see that here:

  Depends upon how much time they spend stuck in government budget/shutdown standoffs like they're doing now. If they find floor time to allot to it, I suspect it could pass both chambers b/c no one wants to be seen as against "protecting kids on social media" in an election year.

  And he might be right.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 02:39pm

  It's conceivable — not remotely guaranteed, but conceivable — that House Republicans would not want to give Biden a "win" that he could tout in his re-election campaign. In other words, from their perspective it's bad that Biden could say that he protected the children. But that is very much speculation.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 02:23pm

  Here's the letter, in case anyone is curious.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 01:45pm

  I agree that it'll probably sail through the Senate at this point. All sorts of things could happen in the House: rubber-stamping the Senate version, amending the Senate version and setting off a conference committee, deciding to do nothing to refrain from giving Biden a win... Regarding how the courts will see it, I have questions that would need a real lawyer to answer. (I, as a theoretical physicist trying to keep up, have very limited knowledge here.) About the only bright spot is that "covered platform" does not include "an organization not organized to carry on business for its own profit or that of its members", so nonprofit social media might survive... but a webcomic with a comment section could face liability for putting children at risk of ill-defined harms. The other thing is that the list of exceptions in KOSA is, to my untutored eye, very reminiscent of an aspect of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act which was explicitly called out in the Netchoice v. Bonta preliminary injunction order, i.e., that itself is a contributing factor to triggering First Amendment scrutiny. See page 15 here. KOSA's definition of online video games would also seem to make it a "content based" restriction per the Netchoice v. Yost injunction (page 21). I.e., getting into the weeds about what is and isn't a microtransaction triggers strict scrutiny.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 12:27pm

  The Senate is out of session until February 26.

• On the post: Senator Blumenthal Pretends To Fix KOSA; It’s A Lie

  

  blakestacey ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2024 @ 12:14pm

  Well, now it's co-sponsored by Tommy Tuberville, so you know it's a good idea. /s

Next >>