James Burkhardt 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (2642)

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

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2024 @ 09:35am

  Game it out. How do we prove my age? MY ID? How does an ID number prove my identity? it doesn't. The only way to verify identity is to now compare the person to the ID. So they need to store biometric information that can be compared (facial recognition). Its literally the most obvious hole in the plan. What should be even more obvious, but very clearly isn't, is the fucking parade of data breaches that have been occuring in the last few years, and the obvious criminal value in a list of people, with detailed PII, of people who took active steps to access www.yoursecrethumiliatingfetish.com.

• On the post: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Says That If Police Radio Transmissions Aren’t Encrypted, The Terrorists Will Win

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2024 @ 08:00am

  Communism being a left economic theory, and anarchism being a leftist political theory, Anarcho Communism is not contradictory. There are communists who would argue any form of communism with a central government harms the very goal of eliminating hierarchical social structures, thereby requiring anarchical principles. You may be thinking of Anarcho Capitalism, a philosophy that requires strong property rights (capitalism) and simultaneously mandates a lack of formal property ownership and therefore property rights (Anarchism).

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

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2024 @ 11:04am

  A justice asking questions interrogating a line of argument in the attempt to fully explore the implications and logic of those arguments is not equivalent to a court deciding in favor of your position. Your willingness to lie on that point is telling. As is your willingness to lie about the virtue signaling from Jim Jordan Mike did not simply claim timing to evidence his claim. Mike explicitly cited an email from prior to buzzfeed's publication indicating Amazon was aware the Buzzfeed article was going to be run (likely when Buzzfeed reached out for comment as any journalist would), and was discussing how Amazon wanted to get out ahead of the claims of the article. The lie here is yours. Amazon was not reacting to the publication of an article. The claim it was is you lying. Amazon was reacting to learning about the article pre-publication. The emails used as evidence for Mike's claim predate the article's publication. BOth emails describing the Buzzfeed article discuss are dated prior to publication of the Buzzfeed article, and discuss actions being taken in explicit reaction to buzzfeed's coverage. Your claims are supported by spurious accusations and are contrary to the actual direct evidence.

• On the post: When Viral Advocacy Fails: TikTok’s Call Flood To Congress Backfires

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2024 @ 11:57am

  Try it a different way: Setup: "a flood of calls from unsophisticated voters trying to shut down a resolution helped the GOP pass that resolution" Punchline: "You'd think the GOP was used to this." They are. Thats how they keep winning despite having lower popular support when running on policy. They expect unsophisticated voters to react emotionally. Its not a joke, its not a punchline. Its structured to dunk on the GOP, but it isn't a dunk. Its a pat on the back.

• On the post: When Viral Advocacy Fails: TikTok’s Call Flood To Congress Backfires

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2024 @ 11:50am

  Yes. I don't get what the GOP 'ins't used to' in this situation. They got their way. I don't understand the topical punchline on the GOP in this situation.

• On the post: Axon/Taser Once Again Caught Threatening A Government Agency For Not Giving It What It Wants

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2024 @ 10:46am

  To be fair, I was half done writing a response to you before I realized the phrase at question was "Anarcho-communism" and not "Anarcho-capitalism". The only time I ever encounter the Anarcho prefix are the ones who don't understand the conflict of Anarcho-capitalism, and no casual online mention of communism bothers to distinguish between the various governmental structures (up to and including no formal Government at all) that could support communism.

• On the post: When Viral Advocacy Fails: TikTok’s Call Flood To Congress Backfires

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2024 @ 10:29am

  I am struggling to understand this 'zinger'. 50-0 means bipartisan support, and the GOP platform is explicitly ban tiktok or force it to divest to a US company who could then be controlled by Social Media content restrictions the rest of the GOP are flooding the courts with. Like I get GOP = Unsophisticated constituents, I suppose Im not drawing a connection between the bipartisan flood of calls, the 50-0 result, and the idea the GOP mishandled or wasn't used to the (earned) stereotype of its voters.

• On the post: Biden Admin Finally Points Out That The Record In The Murthy Case Is All Lies

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2024 @ 11:41am

  I see we can add "Topical" and "topics of discussion" to the list of concepts you don't understand.

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

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2024 @ 11:09am

  Insight is not merely in the words on the screen, but in the point they make. And it seems you have tried to debunk a comment without factoring the context under which it was found insightful. TL;DR: You have addressed a comment whose point is "Economic factors traditionally used by Biden's opponents do not indicate a disastrous impact on the economy from presidential policy", and complained "I think some of these are slightly exaggerated, and you all are stupid for falling for it.". But since you didn't address the point, the claim that biden is sinking America, the best interpretation we can give you is meaningless pedantry. But it will appear to many observers that you are acting in bad faith, whether in support of Trump or for your own ends. The comment you take issue with was in response to a claim that biden's policy is sinking the US economy. And in an election year, claiming the Democrat nominee is sinking the US economy is a clear call for a change in administration at the voting booth. The claim the Biden Admin is sinking the US should be seen as endorsement of the leading GOP candidate (the GOP being the party of fiscal responsibility). Those who voted insightful understand that, for your complaints to matter, you would need more than minor quibbles on details to evidence the claim being debunked. If you aren't addressing the point being made, you are engaging in pointless pedantry. Factoring the context, your commentary reads as "biden maintained trends in the economy despite global slumps in economic activity but isn't beating Trump, so clearly biden is an economic disaster." Its not coherent.

  Unemployment rate is low but still very slightly higher now than the best Trump month

  Biden's best month so far was February 2023. As evidenced by (this february 2023 announcement)[https://www.commerce.gov/news/blog/2023/02/news-unemployment-its-lowest-level-54-years] unemployment in Jan 2023 was a 54 year record low, being 0.1 percent lower than Trumps best month. Comparing Jan 2024 to Trump's best month is not apples to apples. Biden's best month to Trumps best month, Biden wins. And even if you reworked your claim to be accurate, at worst Biden is maintaining the unemployment levels seen under Trump, not driving us to a fiscal cliff (unless of course, you want to claim both Trump had been doing so for 4 years and low unemployment is bad.) Burden of proof is on yourself (or others) to evidence the original claim.

  oil production is up like 2-3% from Dec 2019

  In what will be a reoccuring theme, Biden's numbers took a hit due to a global pandemic. Price per barrel of US OIL went negative in 2021. There was low demand. Oil production in 2021 and 2022 was negatively impacted. but as oil demand increased in late 2022 and 2023, production increased and passed 2020 production in Jan 2023. You could highlight that none of those changes are anything other than natural market movement. And I'd agree with you. But that means these metrics don't evidence an economy sinking due to presidential policy and so the marginal increases do not dispute the point made. Burden of proof is on yourself (or other defenders) to evidence the original claim.

  the stock market is indeed at an all time high but that’s true most years

  The claim is not that GDP is high, or rising, but that it is beating expectations. That is to say, the economy is doing better than expected under global and policy conditions. This claim evidences that by another standard economic measure, Biden policy is not sinking the US economy. Trump ran on improved GDP as a measure of his economic success. To those claiming Biden is sinking the economy, This economic figure both matters and disputes that claim. Burden of proof has shifted to yourself (or the original commenter) to evidence the original claim. Dispute over details is insufficient.

  inflation-adjusted wages were lower in Jan 2024 than Jan 2020

  The claim was that wages are rising (a comparison of wage growth), not that they are higher than in 2020 (a comparison of the value of the wages). https://www.hiringlab.org/2024/01/17/january-2024-us-labor-market-update/ Wage growth is above pre-pandemic levels. Most who would consider this insightful likely understand that the pandemic overall suppressed wage growth and in fact led to an average decrease is wages. We see that that decrease began in 2020 under Trump, recognize that the decrease was caused by global pressures on both ends, and note that wages have recovered and are growing. This standard economic metric does not evidence that Biden's policy is sinking the economy. He might not be creating optimal growth, but the claim being disputed is that he is sinking the economy. Under this standard economic measure, Biden's economy is afloat. Burden of Proof now moves to you (or the original poster) to evidence claims Biden's numbers indicate a sinking economy, not simply that Biden's economy isn't optimal by your nebulous unstated metrics.

  unionization rate is slightly lower now than under any Trump years

  (Accurate based on the DOL reports) [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf], however the unionization rate dropping from 10.3% in 2019 to 10.3% in 2021 to 10.1% in 2022 is not indicative of a sinking US econmy. (the 2020 spike being considered an outlier of the general trend by the DOL). Burden of proof is not on Biden defenders to evidence a rising economy, only to evidence an economy afloat. Further more, various union actions in 2023 are likely not accounted for in the 2023 numbers. DOL measurements of Union Membership are based on surveys of individual households and various statistical issues could be in play. For instance, Union workers not under a union contract may choose to report themselves as not members of a Union for various reasons depending on how questions are asked.

  there’s been more inflation under Biden than Trump despite that it’s 3 years to 4.

  Again, that is not the claim being made. Every G8 country had a massive rate ofinflation in late 2020-2022. The US saw the quickest reduction in the rate of inflation in the g8, and US inflation did not top G8 inflation over the period. At worst, this shows biden policy had no impact on inflation. At best, this shows biden policy was moderately successful of resisting global inflation pressure. That does not indicate a sinking economy. No president can cause deflation. not in a free market capitalist economy. and no free market capitalist economy thinks deflation is positive. the best presidential policy can do is to serve as a check on the market to resist high inflation created in the market by capitalist urges to maximize investor returns by selling less for more. To this end, Biden's 2021-2023 inflation numbers show a response to inflationary pressures that resisted the worst seen in other comparible economies. Burden has shifted to you, or other defenders, to evidence that the result of Biden's policies, getting the rate of inflation back under control, is a sign of a sinking economy, but that would suggest inflation is good, and your complaint is that inflation is bad. So you somewhat self evidenced that Biden is not sinking the economy. Your point was stupid, but thanks for giving me an opportunity to channel my manic energy to it.

• On the post: Sony Is Trying To Clean Up Its Crunchyroll Mess, But It’s Still Messy Indeed

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 29 Feb, 2024 @ 08:40am

  The question I addressed wasn't why they didn't merge the libraries. The question was why they couldn't just merge the libraries. Absolutely the time to figure out how costly that would be would be before a merger. That is absolutely the appropriate way to go about it. I've never known a merger that considered it. As IT and Accounting, I've gone over horror story after Lovecraftian horror story of incompetent executives demanding a merge of incompatible services that should have been known to be incompatible long before the merger finalized. While the failures of foresight in the merger certainly impact Sony's liability (as in they should have some liability) going forward, the reasons they can't simply merge the systems (technical incompatibilities) are unaffected by what Funimation and Crunchyroll should have done before the merger (Accurately Determine feasibility of a library merge and prepare a solution) or after (paid the cost to integrate necessary licensing systems to Crunchyroll).

• On the post: Sony Is Trying To Clean Up Its Crunchyroll Mess, But It’s Still Messy Indeed

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 29 Feb, 2024 @ 05:19am

  The content exists in both services, in many cases. The issue isn’t merging the services, it’s merging the backend to account for a completely different licensing scheme than the ala-carte streaming one. I mean, yes the digital movie copies that came in a dvd/bluray combo pack would meed to be merged in, but a lot of wholly digital content people purchased is svailibld on streaming, but at a premium charge. Just tithing a person to see that one show is new code that violates assumptions of the old code, which is a lot more difficult than some people seem to think. So money. Funimation and crunchyroll aren’t sony, not legally. Merging libraries can mean new licensing agreements, royalty renegotiation, etc

• On the post: Sir, This Is A Supreme Court (Not A Wendy’s)

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2024 @ 07:01am

  Firstly: Dont believe everything you've read on the internet - Abe Lincoln Citation to the source of your comment so I can determine that Gorsuch said that and the context is critical to it being evidence. This appears to be from an oral arguement, not a ruling. This is a question. At best it implies an opinion. Absent a ruling, nothing Gorsuch says here impacts the law. If it didn't affect the decision, the implied opinion is implied to have been unsupported in the face of questioning. Multiple justices, including Kavenaugh, have written extensive rulings explaining that you are wrong. Techdirt's side is supported by ruling after ruling after ruling. Your side is supported by questions posed at oral arguments because the rulings in those cases went against you.

• On the post: The Vice Media Collapse Was Entirely The Fault Of Incompetent, Fail-Upward Brunchlords

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2024 @ 09:12am

  Second Wind is the post escapist channel. I'd shout out Dropout. After the facebook video scandal cost College Humor their existing website, Dropout was the replacement. Despite being a consistent source of growing revenue and a large revenue source pre-facebook, the brunchlord conglomerate that owned College Humor decided to cut the high up-front expenses. Sam Reich bought up the peices and held dropout together, and its one of the big independent streaming successes right now.

• On the post: The Right To Advertise?

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2024 @ 11:11am

  The last two paragraphs here should be struck. They were supposed to have been deleted.

• On the post: The Right To Advertise?

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2024 @ 11:10am

  Newspaper ads aren't open-access

  That would be the point of the stunt Mike is doing. The definition of open-access provided by the AELJ fits these ad-buys.

  That won’t make any difference though. There’s too many well-reasoned rulings from too many courts that social media sites are not public spaces by default and it’d take a deliberate action by the federal government to make them such.

  Like laws designed to force social media to host content, combined with a ruling from the top court in the land that the expansions of the 1A that come not from the text but are implied by the text are not constitutional, using a similar basis to Dobbs to revoke the associated 1A rights (like association, key to the prior rulings)? The kind of ruling that this case might result in? Which is why 'its never worked before' isn't the impediment you think it is? The goal of the current article is to discuss arguements in an amicus breif on a SCOTUS case. This Case touches on principles that have blocked federal social media intervention and the brief argues in favor of introducing an exception to 1A SCOTUS jurisprudence that allows politicians to use the government to force Social media to host and promote speech. As Dobbs showed, and is highlighted in light of the unconsidered consequences on display in the Alabama IVF ruling, this SCTOUS is absolutely willing to carelessly discard well-reasoned rulings and replace them with "lol no".

• On the post: Maybe Your Lawyers Shouldn’t Tell Reporters You Did Not Engage In ‘Conspiracy To Or Complicity In Murder’ When No One Was Claiming Otherwise

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2024 @ 09:36am

  So, are the new hire for hire accusations a mistake of using cut and paste boiler plate from previous threat letters, or an attempt to poison articles by making new salacious 'hit for hire' accusations the focus?

• On the post: Social Media Isn’t A Shopping Mall

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2024 @ 06:55pm

  Projects claims not supported by the legal record,

• On the post: Prominent MAGA Supporter Is Worried New KOSA Won’t Suppress Enough LGBTQ Speech

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2024 @ 10:56am

  Short answer: It still can enter the House. But starting house negotiations in March results in a bill that is unlikely to move everything forward before a new congress is seated in January. Once a new congress is seated, all bills that failed to be signed into law are dead, and it has to start all over. The abbreivated sequence: -Negotiations/passage in Senate [KOSA has failed to reach even this stage] -Negotiations/passage in House (who goes first changes) -Reconciliation (make the house and senate bills the same via negotiation.) -Pass the new bill in Senate -Pass the new bill in House -Presidental signature (becomes law) or Veto. -Potential veto override votes in house and senate.

• On the post: Max ‘Enshittifies’ Itself By Making John Oliver Harder To Watch

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2024 @ 09:51am

  John Oliver reportedly makes $8 million annually. The likelihood he makes significantly more than that, combined with enough to staff a room of researchers and writers and several people to do production (all at higher salaries, because I'm sure you aren't recommending John on patron is unlikely. Advertisers on the web have shown a significantly higher aversion to risk than HBO's lawyers when it comes to John Oliver's content, reducing sponsorship values which are already reportedly low. Need I remind you John Oliver's penchant for insulting his corporate owners? Of course, you probably assume the ability to covert followers is high, and that's far from a guarantee. He can. its possible. would he though? big question. And that is where the other side matters. John Oliver makes $8 million annually and is worth an estimated $30-$50 million. He could make much more money. Why should he want to? All that money he leaves on the tabe goes to handling shit he doesn't want to deal with. You aren't convincing me the 46 year old comedian with a cushy high 7 figure job should go grindcore on the chance he would make it even bigger, at the expense of more work and a loss of stability.

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

  

  James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 Feb, 2024 @ 11:54am

  Setting aside issues I might take with the article you failed to cite I do not see how the information, even when 100% true, Meaningfully evidences the claim that Techdirt won't shit on pedophile teachers.

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