CrushU 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: If Epic Vs Steam Is To Be A PR War, Epic's Boss Just Issued A Brilliant Retaliatory Strike

    CrushU ( profile ), 02 May, 2019 @ 08:54am

    Re: Re: Re: I'll give you a hint: Less choice is seldom customer

    At the moment? Yeah, they are, unless you want to point to another platform that's bribing publishers in order to coerce potential buyers to use them instead of the platform they prefer, and that could have been the one that the game was advertised as being on before.
    Steam. They bribe publishers to coerce them to use the Steam Store exclusively. It is literally the same thing. Every argument you've made against Epic's store can be equally applied to Steam's. The only difference I can see right now is that Epic requires developers to only sell on Epic's store sometimes, while Steam doesn't literally require it, but it ends up being effectively required because the vast, vast majority of people buying PC games online just go to Steam's store first because of the network effect. Right now, I'm only mad because my system tray has too many icons in it, now.

  • On the post: Enough MEPs Say They Mistakenly Voted For Articles 11 & 13 That The Vote Should Have Flipped; EU Parliament Says Too Bad

    CrushU ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2019 @ 01:06pm

    Re: Re: Fake news

    Oh. So they aren't receiving any monetary compensation for being in office? Since that's the usual way to delineate Professional vs non-professional: "Did you get paid for it?"

  • On the post: EU Puts An End To The Open Internet: Link Taxes And Filters Approved By Just 5 Votes

    CrushU ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2019 @ 11:15am

    Re: Server returned 451: Unavailable For Legal Reasons

    There's an even better solution. We can just use the Evil bit and just set it to true for anyone uploading content that would be illegal. It's foolproof!

  • On the post: If You Think Big Internet Companies Are Somehow To Blame For The New Zealand Massacre, You're Wrong

    CrushU ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2019 @ 01:38pm

    Re:

    And then you have videos with the audio muted getting through. Good job! The correct response is to say they shouldn't be "responsible" for content moderation, they should just do it out of a desire to weed undesirable content out. Making them responsible for it is folly.

  • On the post: If You Think Big Internet Companies Are Somehow To Blame For The New Zealand Massacre, You're Wrong

    CrushU ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2019 @ 01:24pm

    Re: Re: Steps can be taken

    https://twitter.com/settings/safety

  • On the post: If You Think Big Internet Companies Are Somehow To Blame For The New Zealand Massacre, You're Wrong

    CrushU ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2019 @ 01:22pm

    Re: Steps can be taken

    I also don't understand why Twitter and Facebook still lack content warning filters like Mastodon has.
    Twitter has one. You've just probably turned it off, because everyone turns it off.

  • On the post: Court Dismissed Lawsuit Brought Against Social Media Companies Alleging An Anti-Conservative Conspiracy

    CrushU ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2019 @ 12:57pm

    Re: Re: Re: Another win for leftist censorship

    Yes it is!
    No it isn't!

  • On the post: How To Actually Break Up Big Tech

    CrushU ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2019 @ 01:22pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    (Speculators buying and selling it like stocks doesn't count; we're talking about cryptocurrency being used as a currency here, not as a commodity.)
    Critical Argument Error: False Choice (That is, if you're going to claim that you shouldn't look at transactions by speculators, yet proclaim the millions lost by speculators is the main problem with the system, your argument is counterproductive.) I do think it is very likely that the total percentage of losses in the "cryptocurrency economy", including speculator transactions, is higher than 0.13%. Thus, I am confused why you shot a hole in your own argument.

  • On the post: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Will You Do The Fandango?

    CrushU ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2019 @ 01:31pm

    Disappointed

    I'm always disappointed by RPG systems, since that's like making half a game. The DM has to make the rest of the game for you. Still, it's interesting at least.

  • On the post: YouTube's ContentID System Is Being Repurposed By Blackmailers Due To Its Failings

    CrushU ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2019 @ 02:17pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    one could say the same about ContentID not being the problem, and that those who are blackmailing the YouTubers should be sued.
    Almost correct. The difference is that ContentID immediately causes legitimate content to be taken down, because there's no due process in place. But you're right in that the people who are blackmailing should be sued, so good job realizing that it's the people performing the action who should be responsible, not the platform. Because ContentID bypasses due process, that's why it's a problem. Especially when there's no reparations to be made when ContentID gets it wrong and deletes an account. (Or is abused to cause an account to get deleted.)
    Well aside from the fact that the blackmailers can't easily be found, if at all, thus making your solution impossible,
    Well, gosh, I guess we'll just have to let everyone who commits a crime and can't easily be found go free then. Your logic is foolproof, and will definitely hold up in court, especially in criminal cases.

  • On the post: YouTube's ContentID System Is Being Repurposed By Blackmailers Due To Its Failings

    CrushU ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2019 @ 02:10pm

    Re:

    Oh hey, good job, you can identify the song. Too bad that's not the problem. Can you identify unlicensed instances of a song? And what about when the licensing agreement expires or changes? (Amusingly, an upload filter would do literal nothing in this case, as the song/copyrighted material is already uploaded, its legal status has just changed. There's no feasible way to re-scan every bit of content, so automatically handling this case just doesn't look possible.)

  • On the post: YouTube's ContentID System Is Being Repurposed By Blackmailers Due To Its Failings

    CrushU ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2019 @ 02:08pm

    Re:

    Wow, that looks a lot like a bunch of people posting defamatory content who should be sued. As in, not the platforms. How does Section 230 factor into this?

    Section 230 of the CDA was done to save companies money, pure and simple.
    Oh good, I can stop reading the article. Properly aim your lawsuits.

  • On the post: Herrick V. Grindr – The Section 230 Case That's Not What You've Heard

    CrushU ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2019 @ 10:16am

    Re:

    of a law that causes a man to be harassed the way this one was
    I think I missed the part of Section 230 that forced the evil ex to provide contact info to prospective suitors. (Pop Quiz: What exactly did Grindr do here that couldn't have been accomplished by going to a masquerade gay bar and giving out contact info there?)

  • On the post: Blockchain Voting: Solves None Of The Actual Problems Of Online Voting; Leverages None Of The Benefits Of Blockchain

    CrushU ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2018 @ 06:58am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: "a decently strong degree"

    My first thought would be a hardware RSA key, possibly shipped separately, that could be used to confirm the system is running the correct software. And it's as simple as 'Match these numbers.'

    No idea if that would work, but it's a thought at least.

  • On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 188: Government, Activism & Silicon Valley

    CrushU ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 09:54am

    Re:

    I've noticed it a few times in the past that certain guests have that problem.

    I will say that it's probably a common trait among engineers or other technicaly-minded people... It's a public-speaking skill, essentially. I'm surprised to see it from a congressional staffer, though.

  • On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 188: Government, Activism & Silicon Valley

    CrushU ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 10:03am

    That last bit

    Towards the end where you said that employees of a company working on a project desire the knowledge of how that project will be used...

    Wow, he pushed back against a strawman. Who put forth the argument that the whole company would need knowledge of that program? Sure, some in the company might object without full knowledge of it, but if they aren't working on it, I don't see how they would need full knowledge of the project? And they're free to object to how they perceive the project might be used?

  • On the post: After Being Sued To Block Sci-Hub; Swedish ISP Blocks Court's And Elsevier's Website In Protest

    CrushU ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 09:41am

    As an example

    I think this works out okay for Banhoff. They'd prefer to not show anything to anyone trying to see any of the three sites, but with the court order, they're trying to be as fair as possible. Yes, it violates NN principles, but the court order itself did that, so if they're already being forced to violate NN, might as well do some good while violating NN to explain why they're violating NN.

    Thus, I think this works as an example of a Net Neutrality violation, while explaining that court-ordered violations also exist.

  • On the post: Georgia's Brian Kemp And The No Good, Very Bad Claim That Democrats Were Hacking Voter Registration System

    CrushU ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2018 @ 01:11pm

    Re: Provisional Ballots

    While possibly nefarious, they don't count Provisional ballots all the time if the count wouldn't affect the results.

    If one candidate is ahead by 10,000 and you have 5,000 provisional ballots... Why bother counting?

  • On the post: John Oliver Exposes The Sketchiness Of Political Grandstanding State Attorneys General

    CrushU ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2018 @ 08:15am

    Re: Re:

    This is something I've been noticing recently. A lot of the 'voter guides' I see have "No Response" from a lot of candidates. I generally assume that this indicates someone who isn't paying attention to constituents, so I'll generally vote for anyone who responded at all.

    But then I came across one candidate who had all their responses as "For more detail on this question, see <candidate's website>"

    That made me extremely annoyed. If you can't at least give a summary of your position on the question, and instead try to subvert the '100 words or less' limit by trying to redirect to a website... Never voting for you.

    Still, I wonder if candidates respond to all of the surveys they receive, maybe I'm looking at the wrong voter guide that certain candidates don't respond to. I try to verify that whatever voter guide I'm using is a nonpartisan one, but it's not always clear. I almost think this should be some kind of regulation, that this guide is the one every candidate should respond to and every voter should reference for answers. But I think that runs into First Amendment issues pretty fast.

  • On the post: Verizon Just Obliterated Ajit Pai's Justification For Killing Net Neutrality

    CrushU ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2018 @ 07:53am

    Re: Re: Karl, I agree

    Stop voting for only two parties. Change needs to happen at the individual level, not the top of government. Only then will we actually see lasting change.
    While I agree with the sentiment, because of how our voting system works, we'll be stuck in a two party system forever. With a winner take all (also called 'First past the post') system, people will naturally gravitate towards a two-party system. I believe it's backed mathematically, but I don't have those proofs on hand. (For more information, look for CGP Grey's Youtube videos on the topic of the 'Animal Kingdom' and how different voting systems work.)

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