Hyman Rosen 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 10:56am

    It is. My version of free speech is the correct, foundational one.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 01:41pm

    Of course not. Woke ideologues want to construe encouragement as force so that they can argue in favor of the censorship they want while hiding behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment. Large generic speech platforms that silence opinions based on viewpoint should be encouraged, shamed, or bought, but not forced, to get them to behave properly.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 12:43pm

    CDA 230

    Huh? 230 holds platforms not accountable for statements by their users. 230 doesn't apply if the platform removes the statements, since then there is nothing for which to try to hold the platform accountable! 230 certainly doesn't force platforms to host content.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 11:13am

    Willing Collaborators

    The problem is not that the government is coercing private actors to violate the free speech rights of its citizens. The problem is that these private actors are willing collaborators with the silencing the government wants to achieve, and so the government outsources what would be a 1st Amendment violation if it carried out the silencing itself to these private actors who are legally allowed to do it. The government cannot directly silence vaccine skeptics. But if it goes to Twitter and Facebook and says that they should (not must, just should) silence those skeptics on their platforms, and they do, then those skeptics have been silenced on those platforms just as surely as if the government had issued the orders itself. In a society that has freedom of speech as a foundational value, large generic speech platforms should not censor opinions based on viewpoint, no matter how wrong they think those viewpoints are, and no matter who is asking them to do the silencing.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2023 @ 09:52pm

    Freedom, Not Consensus

    Freedom is the opposite of consensus. People who do not want to share single-sex spaces with people whose bodies disqualify them do not get to have their beliefs and taboos be trampled upon by the "consensus" of others who don't like those beliefs. There is very likely a consensus among Americans that animal sacrifice is weird and wrong. But Santeria followers (and Hasidic Jews for that matter) still get to do it.

  • On the post: FBI, Defense Department Worked Together To Develop Facial Recognition Tech For Drones, Surveillance Cameras

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2023 @ 06:03pm

    Good. Criminals belong in prison. If this helps put them there, it should be encouraged. I'm glad the government is working on it.

  • On the post: Can A Robot Lawyer Defend Itself Against Class Action Lawsuit For Unauthorized Practice Of Law

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2023 @ 11:02am

    A chatbot is not a person, and therefore cannot be practicing law without a license. Anyone may go into court pro se (i.e., representing themselves) without needing a law license. Anyone may sell law text books. Anyone may sell legal research services, as PACER and Westlaw do. Anyone may sell boilerplate legal forms. Regardless of the merit of DoNotPay itself, it should be possible to put together such a service that will skirt the efforts of the entrenched gatekeepers to stifle competition.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2023 @ 12:54am

    You can weave your sophistries all you like, but it really isn't that complicated, except that woke gender ideologues don't want to accept it. A lot of people have religious, social, and cultural beliefs and taboos about not mixing sexes in certain contexts. A lot of trans people and their woke gender ideologue supporters want trans people to be allowed to force their way into single-sex spaces for which their bodies disqualify them. But trans people and their woke gender ideologue supporters don't get to trample on the beliefs and taboos of the real men and women already there, not even if bhull242 happens to think that those taboos aren't as important or as "objective" as affirming the delusions of the trans folks. Except for single-sex sports teams, I don't have any personal taboos about isolating sexes, so I would not complain about a person of the wrong sex being present with me, but that is not the same as "not taking sides". Should another person of the correct sex object, I would side with them, not with the trans person. As with speech platforms, private owners of single-sex spaces should get to dictate what the policies of those spaces are. If they decide to admit men into women's spaces, they might find themselves losing the real women who attend, just as Masnick claims that allowing dissent against woke gender ideology drives away people who might otherwise speak. But that's up to them and their users to work out.

  • On the post: Gizmodo Found 28,000 Apps Sending TikTok User Data

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2023 @ 08:00pm

    Billions of people enjoy free services from the large providers like Google and Facebook. Maybe three people have been "arrested because their identity was stolen". We who aren't privacy nuts are willing to take our chances, and we don't want the goodies taken away because the privacy nuts are paranoid. Nor do we thank the privacy idiots for having to constantly click "accept all cookies" buttons on every freaking website.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2023 @ 07:53pm

    Someone says I like the kiddy porn on Twitter, I say back that they like it because they imagine mutilating the kids' genitals they see, and you think that either of those statements are anything but snark? 🤦

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2023 @ 07:45pm

    A comment about censorship and moderation is off topic in a conversation about censorship and moderation? Is Stone rubbing off on you?

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2023 @ 07:39pm

    When I talk about demanding affirmation of course I don't mean here on TechDirt or me personally! I mean that wherever woke ideologues have colonized administrations - universities, local government, professional organizations - they demand affirmation of their ideology from people under their control, such as the college professor who was censured for refusing to address people by pronouns that didn't match their sex but was willing to address them by name only.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2023 @ 10:20am

    There's no such thing as a gender identity. People who don't think they're of the opposite sex but just want to adopt the stereotypical social appearance and behavior of the opposite sex are more weird than ill. I would say it's more of a fetish, like enjoying BDSM or gingers. In any case, that's not an issue for anyone else to get exercised over, unless, again, those people seek forced entry into single-sex spaces for which their bodies disqualify them, or demand that public schools teach falsehoods about the existence of gender identity as truth. Note that I disagree with the idea that schools should not mention gender identity, trans issues, and such at all. They should "teach the controversy", that is, that some people believe certain things about sex and gender, and others do not, and that this is a source of very large public political debate, and a religious debate as well. The same for racial issues, white privilege, affirmative action, and antiracism. If this is properly taught, I'm not even a great fan of letting parents opt their children out of such classes. It's good to opt out of indoctrination. It's not so good to opt out of education.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2023 @ 01:23am

    In my view, a mental illness has one or more of these features: the mentally ill person suffers from feelings that are inappropriate for their situation and/or the mentally ill person believes things that are objectively counterfactual and/or the mentally ill person is unable to control their behavior in the way they would like. Examples of each: people with depression, people with paranoia, people with addictions.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2023 @ 01:07am

    Transwomen are men. The statement "transwomen are women", oft repeated by woke gender ideologues, is objectively false. I'll make you a deal; we'll let schools hide children's mental illness from parents out of fear that the parents will become abusive as long as we can lock up arbitrary Black people out of fear that they may become criminals. Sounds good? No? Parents have sole jurisdiction over the raising of their children unless they have been shown to violate the law. Period. No woke ideologue gets to stand in the way and impose their own agenda on the children and then hide that from their parents by making claims that their parents "might become abusive". Any school that tries to do this should be sued out of existence.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2023 @ 06:33pm

    Woke gender ideologues are attempting to force people who don't believe them into affirming their beliefs and giving up their own. That you cannot see this is why we fight instead of debate. A man who thinks he's a woman forcing his way onto a women's swim team is not living his own life, he is trampling on the lives of others.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2023 @ 10:41am

    Once upon a time I thought you were the only one here that had reasonable objections to my views, but that is no longer the case. You are as ridiculous as the other commenters here. Social disputes involve everyone. Should people who cannot become pregnant not offer opinions on abortion? There are no "objective" reasons for religious, cultural, and social taboos. That does not stop people from having them, and it does not entitle anyone else to trample over them. There is no objective evidence for religion either, but that didn't stop the founders from realizing that freedom of religion should be a fundamental value of the republic. I don't know why you think I say I am not taking sides. I believe that being trans is a mental illness, with trans people either profoundly wishing they were the opposite sex, or having delusions that they are the opposite sex. But people live with all sorts of mental conditions, and it is not up to other people to control their lives. The problem I have is with woke gender ideologues who insist that these delusions are true and would force everyone else to accept them.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2023 @ 08:37pm

    You really are an idiot, aren't you? Woke ideology needs to be purged from public institutions. The woke themselves should be left alone to gnash their teeth in rage.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2023 @ 02:39pm

    You say you want evidence in the same post that you attempt to dismissed such evidence as "one of two cases". This is pure sea-lioning. And yes, I am absolutely going to dismiss certain things out of hand. That's how life experience works - over years, you build up a mental model of the world, and you understand that there are people pushing theories that go against that model. Those theories should be dismissed out of hand until they develop sufficient evidence to warrant changing world view. Woke gender ideology does not even come close to that standard. And yes, I want the government to take charge of riding the streets of nuisances and criminals so that normal people are not inconvenienced. It's actually funny - woke ideologues demand that dissent online be silenced because it makes them feel "harassed", "abused", and "unsafe", but when it comes to scum who actually harass and abuse and harm normal citizens, woke ideologues fall all over themselves to protect the scum instead of the good people.

  • On the post: As Twitter Goes Down Yet Again, Report Highlights How Fragile Its Infrastructure Has Become

    Hyman Rosen ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2023 @ 06:17am

    I woukdn't tell them anything, because I don't have single-sex space taboos, religious, cultural, or social, except for sports teams, and that only in the abstract, since I don't play. I don't have modesty issues about seeing nudity or being seen nude (although I have sympathy for people who see me unclothed, given my old, fat, bald, hairy, out-of-shape body). If there are other people who do object, I would support them, and I would support laws against such intrusion so that people who want single-sex spaces can have them without people whose bodies disqualify them being able to force their way in. But I would oppose laws that unilaterally forbid trans people from using single-sex spaces for which their bodies disqualify them, if the owners of such spaces want to welcome trans people into them. Generally, transmen in men's spaces are perceived as less threatening than transwomen in women's spaces, Boys Don't Cry notwithstanding, for the usual reason as expressed by feminists: "Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them." Even for sports, the unfairness of men competing on women's teams just isn't there for women competing on men's teams, given the large statistical difference in ability between the best athletes of both sexes.

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