Mason Wheeler 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (4010)

• On the post: Facebook's Use Of Smear Merchants Is The Norm, Not The Exception

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2018 @ 03:31pm

  Re: Re:

  It is entirely possible to reform the lobbying system, and reduce the undue influence of business and money on politics and regulation, without relying on a restrictive interpretation of the first amendment to do so.

  With the Citizens United ruling, and follow-up cases that double down on it, being a thing, I don't believe that this is true without a constitutional amendment invalidating the concept of corporate personhood.

  There are even detailed legislative proposals for how to accomplish this, backed by constitutional lawyers who have vetted them to ensure they don't conflict with the first amendment. For example, read about the American Anti-Corruption Act: https://anticorruptionact.org/

  I'm quite familiar with it, and the people behind it. It's a great idea, but the reality is it'll never "take" as long as corporate personhood remains a thing. I would absolutely love to be proved wrong on this point, but I haven't seen anything to make me think I will. :(

• On the post: Facebook's Use Of Smear Merchants Is The Norm, Not The Exception

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2018 @ 03:26pm

  Re: Re: Re: What's next?

  Sure, but we "threw out" what they stood for by choosing the candidate who best portrayed himself as diametrically opposed to what they stood for, every single time.

• On the post: Facebook's Use Of Smear Merchants Is The Norm, Not The Exception

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2018 @ 01:57pm

  Re: What's next?

  As I've said before on here, the long-standing political pattern in America, dating back all the way to the Clinton administration, (longer than a significant percentage of today's voting-age population have been able to vote, or in some cases even longer than they've been alive, making it the only pattern they've ever known,) is to respond to the poor job each successive President has done in leading this nation by throwing him out and picking someone of the other party, who ends up being even worse. We got Clinton as a backlash against Bush Sr., then Bush Jr. as a backlash against Clinton. Bush Jr. was such a screwup that we threw him out and elected Obama, who did such an inept job that we threw him out and elected Trump. That's the clear pattern: we elect Presidents based not on who they are, but on who they aren't: we pick whoever manages to portray themselves best as "the antithesis of the current President." And each one is even worse than the last. Next in line is a Democrat who turns out to be worse than Trump. Mark Zuckerberg would fit the pattern perfectly.

• On the post: Facebook's Use Of Smear Merchants Is The Norm, Not The Exception

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2018 @ 01:20pm

  Re: Re:

  This is true. It's also not relevant to what I wrote. I was asking, in response to the article saying that a big part of the problem is that we have "No lobbying and policy reform, no real punishment, and no real attempts to rein in policy and lobbying driven disinformation"--in other words, no legal policies to stop this kind of bad behavior--what the author believes would be an effective legal policy in a world where they can claim that their bad behavior falls under the near-absolute privilege of the First Amendment.

• On the post: Facebook's Use Of Smear Merchants Is The Norm, Not The Exception

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2018 @ 12:59pm

  While it's great everybody's upset about Facebook and Definers' clearly disingenuous tactics, this is a problem we've let infect the marrow of American business culture--in large part because we refuse to actually do anything about it. No lobbying and policy reform, no real punishment, and no real attempts to rein in policy and lobbying driven disinformation. The best we routinely get is a few bouts of short-lived hyperventilation and some hand-wringing.

  And what do you suggest we do? As long as we cling to the notion that corporate entities have the same First Amendment rights to free speech that real people do--an idea Techdirt is consistently outspoken in its support for--they will continue to abuse it as license to do more stupid crap like this.

• On the post: AT&T Ignores Numerous Pitfalls, Begins Kicking Pirates Off Of The Internet

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2018 @ 07:38am

  from the be-consistent dept

  Severing access to what many deem an essential utility is not only an over-reaction to copyright infringement, but a potential violation of free speech.

  Wait a sec.

  When Facebook or Twitter decide they don't want someone on their system, that's not a violation of the user's free speech rights because they're a private company and the First Amendment doesn't apply, but when AT&T does it, that's a violation of the user's free speech rights, because...?

• On the post: Marsha Blackburn Continues To Be Rewarded For Screwing Up The Internet

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2018 @ 08:04am

  Re: The Internet isn't everything, nor the only thing

  This.
  
  I've been following the Net Neutrality stuff pretty closely, and as near as I can tell, her opponent had the right views on NN, but was kinda terrible about so many other things that it's not clear that he would have been better overall.

• On the post: FCC Pretends To Hold Carrier Feet To The Fire On Robocalls

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 07:57am

  Re: Re: Why the sic after combatting?

  Apparently spelling like that just makes Karl sic.

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

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 08:00am

  The Swedish ISP, Bahnhof, which has spent years pushing back against copyright maximalist extremism, but without much luck.

  There's something missing from this sentence...

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

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2018 @ 07:52am

  Wow, who was that, umm, that, uh, first guy on there? Did you, uhh, did you get Jeff, umm, Jeff Goldblum on the, uhh, the panel or something?

• On the post: Court Dismisses Bogus Charges Brought Against Nevada Man Who Pissed Off Local Cops By Using The Crosswalk

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2018 @ 07:07am

  Oh hey, looks like the usual ranting wasn't enough for Tim this time; he had to add gratuitous religious bigotry to the mix! Ugh!

• On the post: New Report Details Massive Mysterious Influence Campaign On Twitter

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2018 @ 11:59am

  a cluster of users on Twitter, who, at the very least appear to be acting in a manner that suggests some attempt to influence others

  Isn't that the principal purpose of basically all communication, though?

• On the post: And Here Come The Completely Ridiculous Lawsuits Over Internet Company 'Bias'

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2018 @ 12:20pm

  Re: Re: Net neutrality hypocracy

  If one platform doesn't want you on their platform, that's fine, because (as long as there is net neutrality) you can easily ... BUILD YOUR OWN.

  Waitasec. Haven't you had at least one podcast (and I think more than one) on the subject of how that would not be at all easy and may not even be possible in the current legal climate, to build a new social platform that's capable of competing with the incumbents?

• On the post: The Scunthorpe Problem, And Why AI Is Not A Silver Bullet For Moderating Platform Content At Scale

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2018 @ 12:07pm

  Facebook, despite its insistence on users using real names, seems particularly bad at letting people actually use their real names.

  I remember the story, from around 7-8-ish years ago, of a guy named Mark Zuckerberg who had a heck of a time signing up for a Facebook account, because its automated filters kept flagging him as fraudulently attempting to impersonate their founder, despite multiple manual interventions and appropriate documentation provided that yes, this was in fact his real, legal name.

• On the post: Court Rules It's Fine If FCC Wants To Deem Just One Available ISP As 'Competition'

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2018 @ 08:08am

  So what you're saying is, a US Circuit Court of Appeals just made an official ruling legitimizing "alternative facts"?
  
  I weep for the future of our nation...

• On the post: That Time Telco Lobbyists Sent Me All Their Talking Points About Trying To Shift The Blame To Internet Companies

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2018 @ 09:49am

  This sounds awesome. Why didn't you post the full document as an embed, like you frequently do with court rulings?

• On the post: Flordia AG Somehow Pivots To The Danger Of Video Games After The Latest Florida Shooting

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2018 @ 01:46pm

  Re: Correct me if I'm wrong,

  but I believe the point here is: when football players commit crimes, we don't blame the sport.
  
  Not entirely; the players have their free will of course. But to say that the sport is entirely blameless is willful blindness at its worst. There's a long history of football teams and/or leagues bailing out players, hiring lawyers and PR people on their behalf, paying off victims, etc, to keep their players out of jail and out of controversy so they won't end up taken off the field where they stop being able to make money for the team. And as any behavioral economist could tell you, when you reduce the personal cost of a certain behavior, you are directly encouraging more of it.

• On the post: Flordia AG Somehow Pivots To The Danger Of Video Games After The Latest Florida Shooting

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2018 @ 11:49am

  Re: Re:

  Not sure, but if so that sounds like it would be mostly about bad behavior on the part of fans. I'm talking about the strong link between football players and serious violent crime.

• On the post: Flordia AG Somehow Pivots To The Danger Of Video Games After The Latest Florida Shooting

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2018 @ 11:16am

  If playing a football video game makes people angry enough to shoot people, just wait until those decrying video game violence turn on their TVs on Sunday and realize that there are actual people playing the same game for real.

  This is not the best possible example, given how many of those actual people turn out to actually be violent thugs who commit serious, violent crimes against their fellow man.

• On the post: Important Appeals Court Ruling States Clearly That Merely Having An IP Address Is Insufficient For Infringement Claims

  

  Mason Wheeler ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2018 @ 11:13am

  But merely failing to police your internet connection is, in no way, inducement.

  The commas, are not, necessary, here.

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