Hyman Rosen 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (75) comment rss

  • On the post: Hulu Blocking Democrats’ Ads Is No More ‘Censorship’ Than Social Media Removing Harassment

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 28 Jul, 2022 @ 07:20am

    Nonsense. An entity silencing opinions based on viewpoint is committing censorship. The 1st Amendment doesn't allow governments to do that but does allow private entities to do it, but that does not make the actions of the private entities any less censorship.

  • On the post: Two Dogmas Of The Free Speech Panic

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2022 @ 06:33pm

    So, pretty much the same stuff I've been saying. Twitter, Facebook, et al. are the public square because the platforms have set themselves up this way and people have responded that way. The platforms welcome everybody to come discuss every subject under the sun. People come to the large platforms because network effects assure that everyone they want to speak to and listen to is already there. Now, those platforms have decided to censor certain viewpoints. Because that censorship is personally appealing to you, you go all technical on definitions of the public square and legalism about the 1st Amendment so that you can excuse such censorship as being OK. But it's not. People come to these platforms expecting to be able to speak their minds, and when particular viewpoints are silenced, their freedom of speech is abrogated, regardless of the fact that the platforms have the legal right to do that.

  • On the post: How The Dobbs Decision Will Lead To Attacks On Free Speech; Or, Why Democrats Need To Stop Undermining Free Speech

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2022 @ 12:20pm

    This is not unlike the story of detransitioners who proclaim the horrors of gender conversion. Using self-selected stories will not provide an accurate picture. For example, people who have had successful conversion therapy might be reluctant to out themselves as having been gay. That you want to consider conversion therapy bad and gender transition good does not make it incumbent in anyone else to affirm your views, not should it empower you to decide for other people what therapies they may choose to undergo.

  • On the post: How The Dobbs Decision Will Lead To Attacks On Free Speech; Or, Why Democrats Need To Stop Undermining Free Speech

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2022 @ 02:07pm

    In fact, Masnick had decided that some of my posts spread hate, and does not let those posts appear on TechDirt. So, no, I am not free to speak here. And needless to say, the TechDirt commentariat is such a tiny sliver of all who would speak that the freedom to speak here is irrelevant anyway.

  • On the post: Google Deletes Abortion Location Data As Attack On Roe Completely Realigns The Privacy Debate

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2022 @ 01:49pm

    Raising unrealistic scenarios in order to frighten people into behaving the way you want is as old as the hills. It's not going to work on me, and it's not going to work on a lot of other people.

  • On the post: Google Deletes Abortion Location Data As Attack On Roe Completely Realigns The Privacy Debate

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2022 @ 01:45pm

    Not being concerned about privacy does not mean volunteering to give information to anyone who asks for it. If you want all those questions answered, you will need to do the work to discover the answers without my help.

  • On the post: Google Deletes Abortion Location Data As Attack On Roe Completely Realigns The Privacy Debate

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2022 @ 01:41pm

    That is, I do not care about internet privacy in there same way that the privacy fetishists do. I have location tracking enabled, I am continuously logged in to my Google account, I accept all cookies, and I do not block any ad trackers. I also use urinals in public restrooms whether or not there are barriers between them. Hopefully, before too long the government will confiscate all privately owned AR-15s, and your posts will enable them to track you down and take yours as well.

  • On the post: Twitter Successfully Quashes Sketchy Copyright Subpoena Over Billionaire’s Critic On Twitter

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2022 @ 05:06am

    I know that technically correct is the best kind of correct, but once again, the First Amendment is not the entirety of free speech. Freedom of speech is the ability to speak freely. When the large platforms deprive their users of their ability to speak freely, those users will feel that their freedom of speech has been taken away, and your explaining to them that it's OK because the law allows it isn't going to mollify them, it's going to make them angry about the law. After all, civil asset forfeiture is also legal, but that doesn't stop Tom Cushing from railing against it.

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

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2022 @ 02:27pm

    I was going to enjoy other people's insanity here and stay out, but this is too tempting to pass up: it seems to have escaped your notice that Democrats too have a "let’s all agree on pretending to believe the following expedient alternative reality talking points" about you-know-what.

  • On the post: Google AI Fracas Shows How The Modern Ad-Based Press Tends To Devalue The Truth

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 05:36pm

    I don't think it's that people aren't interested in the truth. I think it's that fiction has had sentient computers and robots for such a long time, combined with the fact that laypeople don't understand just how hard a problem true general purpose AI is, combined with the fact that the press doesn't understand anything. Also, the wonder that is speaker-independent natural language recognition, which would have been deemed miraculous a decade or two ago.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 05:08pm

    The point of free speech is that those hundreds of millions of people don't get to silence the people they don't like.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 04:55pm

    Woke gender ideology poisons and destroys everything. You, and the ACLU, used to be advocates for freedom of speech. Now you are pleased that the largest forums for public speech censor users who dispute woke gender ideology. Not that long ago, if conservatives had said that schools would force teachers to lie to parents about their children's mental problems, liberals would have dismissed that as insane scaremongering. The latest justice of the Supreme Court refused to answer the question "what is a woman?" The "obsession" over genitals is (with vanishingly taste exceptions) because it is genitals that determine whether someone is a man or a woman, and woke gender ideologues who attempt to say otherwise should be countered. And it comes up often here because it impacts many of the topics discussed here. Addressing people how they want to be addressed is not just a matter of politeness. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it's a form of getting the other person to affirm incorrect gender beliefs. The former is fine, the latter is not. I would address a priest as Father. I would not kiss a Cardinal's ring. It's about context. People are naked in locker rooms. People are naked in communal showers. Men do not belong on women's sports teams or as prisoners in women's prisons.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 02:22pm

    No. For manifestly obvious reasons, Black history in the United States is worthy of special notice. Having White History Month would be silly, since there is no single "white people" to have such a shared history. Instead, we have separate ethnic origin events usually associated with holidays - Italians with Columbus Day, Irish with St. Patrick's day, and do forth.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 02:15pm

    Judicial definition of "fighting words", basically.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 02:14pm

    As always, woke ideologues would love to silence their opponents. Sorry, no. Public affirmation of lies is a problem for everyone, and everyone gets to speak about it.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 02:04pm

    They look funny, and it is especially amusing to abuse them in various ways. (I may have been unduly influenced by Jackass Forever.) Nudity taboos exist regardless of rape fears. They are part of many religions, for example, because such intimacy is supposed to be reserved between husband and wife. Woke gender ideologues do not get to dismiss nudity taboos for "reasons".

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2022 @ 12:32pm

    People who can identify birds are not "obsessed with feathers". Men are not women and women are not men. If men want to go into women's spaces, and disguise themselves as women to do so, then there needs to be a way to examine them so they can be kept out. We have religious, social, and cultural taboos such that people, women especially, do not want to be seen naked by strange men and do not want to see strange men naked. This is so even when they might not be aware that men are present, as every arrested peeper can testify. Genitals are how we most clearly distinguish between men and women when other physica cues are insufficient. Oh, and whether your ranting about me is sincere or just an attempt to rile me, it's not going to affect me in the slightest. Woke gender ideology is a ridiculous lie, and I will continue saying so.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2022 @ 03:43pm

    You do not get to tell people that their religious, social, and cultural taboos are irrelevant because you believe in a fantasy of men being women. That's not even counting men forcing their way onto women's sports teams, and women being locked up together with men in prisons. That's not even counting schools that have their teachers lie to parents about their children. You are trying to privilege the delusions of literally insane people, treating them as if they were real and everyone else is crazy for refusing to see that. I don't have to ask why that is - it's because your tribe got sucked into it by the ideologues who equated gay rights with trans delusions, and it's now become part of your identity. You are free to believe as you like, but you don't get to silence people who say the opposite because you think it's none of their business. Public affirmation of lies is everyone's business.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2022 @ 03:30pm

    You have a very strange definition of letting other people be. Forcing women to allow men into their single-sex spaces is the opposite of letting people be. Having schools tell teachers to lie to parents about their child's mental health issues is the opposite of letting people be. Censoring people who point these things out is the opposite of letting people be. Would you feel the same if we were talking about creationism or vaccine denialism instead of woke gender ideology? Fundamentally, what happened is that woke gender ideology is a ridiculously obvious falsehood, and yet we are being pressed to affirm it. I refuse. Reality does not bow to wishful thinking.

  • On the post: Democrats Need To Get Their Head Out Of The Sand: The Only Reason GOP Is Supporting Their Antitrust Bills Is To Force Companies To Host Disinfo

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2022 @ 02:59pm

    No, I want to convince Twitter that their policy is wrong.

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