Mike Masnick 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (23246)

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 15 May, 2026 @ 02:47pm

  I can consider the perspective. I understand where you're coming from. I've been having these kinds of debates for years, which is partly why I find them so frustrating. This is nothing new. It's just "I don't like this type of speech so I think we should allow censorship." Specifically to the point of "impersonating doctors" I have yet to see a single case of it doing so in a manner that a company was deliberately misleading users into believing they were talking to a real doctor/therapist/whatever. I think if they were doing that we already have false advertising laws that take care of that. What you really seem to be complaining about is that when users WHO KNOW THE TOOLS THEY'RE USING use them in ways you personally disagree with, you think there should be censorship. I just fundamentally disagree.

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 15 May, 2026 @ 11:50am

  A knife is sharp. It can cut you. An LLM responds to you with words. Speech. It cannot cut. It cannot cause physical pain. How you interpret that speech may have all sorts of impact, but that's part of being a human. We allow speech that may harm or may cause distress. We have very few limits on speech because if we don't we lose so much more. So, no, I do not take someone to be a serious person if they claim that a words generating machine is somehow more dangerous than a knife. It's not. It cannot be.

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 15 May, 2026 @ 09:42am

  Comparing knives to a tool like LLMs is fundamentally an unserious position. And I also think that anyone who thinks chatbots are inherently dangerous (or even as dangerous as knives) has been taken in by a nonsense moral panic.

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 15 May, 2026 @ 01:16am

  You're not actually that naive, are you? Seriously?

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 15 May, 2026 @ 01:15am

  I find that take just fundamentally at odds with common sense. I mean, sure if you want to embrace the ridiculous notion that no products should be on the market unless they're 100% safe, but anyone who thinks that is fundamentally an unserious person. Are you?

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 14 May, 2026 @ 05:47pm

  You can misrepresent all you want, but normal people can read understand the sort of nuance you seem incapable of understanding.

  1. On the AI mental health stuff, the article pointed out that there is evidence that since people are already using these tools for mental health, applying liability would likely make the systems PERFORM WORSE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH leading to MORE DEAD PEOPLE. You seem to support this.

  2. Here, I am saying that of course politicians shouldn't be relying on AI to generate their laws without then reviewing the output.

  These things are not in conflict. I am not suggesting that people should absolutely use AI for mental health help. I am looking at what will lead to FEWER FUCKING DEATHS.

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 14 May, 2026 @ 04:31pm

  It is not the interpretation of this article that is the problem. It is the false claims about what I support. But also "The Phule's" history on this site insisting that censorship is good and their ongoing effort to insist that if only we had censorship magically the bad people would go away.

• On the post: South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 14 May, 2026 @ 09:19am

  It is astounding how much you misrepresent my positions on things. You either cannot comprehend nuance or you repeatedly feel the need to lie. Which is it?

• On the post: Supreme Court Breaks Another Election To Make Sure Black Voters Are Disenfranchised

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 13 May, 2026 @ 01:20pm

  Long enough it doesn’t matter, oh, and the precedent will also be better.

  My goodness are you easy to bait into admitting you are full of shit. You claimed the ruling was overturned. I pointed out you were factually incorrect, and now you admit that the only purpose the stay serves is to be "long enough it doesn't matter." You have now admitted that you support this sort of lawless action by the court to effectively block a ruling to the point of irreparable harm "long enough it doesn't matter." If you were smart enough to understand the law, you'd be smart enough to recognize that conservative scholars try not to admit exactly what you just admitted: this is a lawless action designed to get to a specific result, and that's why it's "long enough it doesn't matter" that they won't engage in an actual merits ruling. You're just too stupid to realize what you admitted. Fucking incredible.

• On the post: Trump Already Has His ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ Card. Now He Wants A ‘Get Out Of IRS Audits’ Card

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 13 May, 2026 @ 11:07am

  What I love about you continuing to comment here is that you continue to present perhaps the purest specimen of the kind of delusion one needs to go through to be a Trump supporter. It's like a pristine and perfect example of that delusion. If one were just to go on X, you see snippets of it, but giving you the space here to present your kind of obsequious Trump ass kissing is just... like tapping into a deep well of pure unadulterated MAGA delusional fervor. It's amazing.

• On the post: Supreme Court Breaks Another Election To Make Sure Black Voters Are Disenfranchised

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 13 May, 2026 @ 09:17am

  None of this matters, at all, he was overruled.

  Just as a point of fact, I know you keep saying this, but it is literally false. The lower court was not "overruled." The Supreme Court simply put a stay on the ruling. I understand that you're an engineer who thinks he understands the law, but since this has been explained to you multiple times, it's worth pointing out to others that you remain full of shit. The scenarios are identical. In both cases we have maps that have been ruled to be unconstitutional. In the two cases where new maps would help Republicans they have been helped along by SCOTUS. In the one case where it would help Dems, it was blocked. I know in your tiny mind you think that there is some distinguishing factor, but it is clearly partisan, just as your pathetic attempts to justify it are. You have no principles. You just want to kiss the ass of a guy who would gleefully feed you to sharks for a buck.

• On the post: WaPo Gets All Hand-Wringy Because People Are Suggesting Trump Needs To Be Assassinated

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 13 May, 2026 @ 09:10am

  My goodness, you truly are our dumbest troll. Do you just repeat talking points without ever investigating? None of the studies I posted were based on the ADL's numbers, and I agree that I wouldn't trust the ADL's numbers either (an organization I have regularly criticized). On top of that, all of the studies do not include Islamic terrorism as right wing. Indeed, most of them break it out as an entirely separate category. You can't even respond to the actual evidence because it proves you're full of shit, so you rush to find a weak and obviously fake strawman to knock over. You remain so fucking pathetic.

• On the post: Prosecutors Had A Drugs-for-Votes Scheme “Locked Up.” Under Trump, They Were Told Not To Pursue Charges.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 12 May, 2026 @ 09:21pm

  It is pretty funny how these MAGA dipshits are all "LAW AND ORDER!" and "THEY BROKE THE LAW, KICK THEM OUT!" and as soon as there's any evidence of anyone in the MAGA realm breaking the law suddenly it's all "oh, it's just a pooooor wittle puppy, why would yoooo hurt a poooor wittle puppy." Pathetic losers.

• On the post: WaPo Gets All Hand-Wringy Because People Are Suggesting Trump Needs To Be Assassinated

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 12 May, 2026 @ 03:43pm

  Democrats are the party of violence.

  You said this last week too, and I pointed out a long list of studies showing that it's the far right that is way more violent. And you disappeared. Not going to dig the entire thing out again, so here are just a few. You'll (of course) lie and dissemble and dismiss rather than taking ownership of the fact that EVERY SINGLE STUDY shows that the far right is way more violent. National Institute on Justice study: "Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives" UMD Criminology & Criminal Justice study: "Consistent with findings at the U.S. level, attacks by left-wing extremists are 45% less likely to result in fatalities when compared to attacks by right-wing extremists." Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society study: "Far-left homicide incidents accounted for 15.6% of these homicide events, and far-right homicides accounted for 84.4%." Princeton study: "In short, our individual-level examination found that among radicalized individuals in the United States, those adhering to a left-wing ideology were markedly less likely to engage in violent ideologically motivated acts when compared to right-wing individuals." Basically every single damn study says you're full of shit (and some of those look at multiple other studies as well). Just face it: either you are deliberately lying, or people are lying to you and you're believing the lies. You might want to examine why.

• On the post: In The Vacuum Of AI Legislation, Libraries Have The Playbook

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 12 May, 2026 @ 09:47am

  Wut?!?

• On the post: Elon Musk Settles SEC Lawsuit For Spare Change, Proving Once Again That Rules Are For Other People

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 12 May, 2026 @ 12:41am

  Wut?!?

• On the post: In The Vacuum Of AI Legislation, Libraries Have The Playbook

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 12 May, 2026 @ 12:40am

  Wut?!?

• On the post: Elon Musk Settles SEC Lawsuit For Spare Change, Proving Once Again That Rules Are For Other People

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 11 May, 2026 @ 03:34pm

  What a weird response.

  1. There is never a single thing we have EVER written in support of government-backed censorship. Go ahead, and point me to a single example. You won't find it.

  2. This story has nothing to do with "censorship" at all. It is entirely about a very clear situation in which there is a clear as day violation of the law. The law requires you disclose when you reach the 5% ownership line. No one denies that Elon ignored this law.

  The efforts you contort yourself to kiss the ass of a guy who couldn't care any less about you is embarrassing, dude. Have some self-respect.

• On the post: More Liability Will Make AI Chatbots Worse At Preventing Suicide

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 09 May, 2026 @ 05:50pm

  OK, then, what harm do you believe an LLM could do that’s not the product of misuse, hypothetically? Is there any situation you can envision a person using an LLM as intended that leads to a harmful result?

  LLM harms could come in many varieties, but they would have to be from the LLM or the company itself. So, for example, if the LLM was deliberately trained to cause harm, with the intent of the company programming it to cause harm. That strikes me as a case for liability. It is the incidental situations of harm, or (as nearly EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE I'VE SEEN) where the user pushes and probes the LLM until it gets it to respond positively to their desire for self-harm, that seems a bad case to put the liability on the provider.

  Could you please explain to me how you differentiate correct and incorrect use of the LLM in this case which isn’t outcome based?

  This was a good question and made me think a bit deeper on this. And I'll admit perhaps my first statement was a bit too flippant. But I think what I described above is a clearer argument for what I mean. I could see liability apply if it could be shown that the system was programmed deliberately to lead to harm. If the LLM was deliberately programmed, for example, to steal money from users. That strikes me as a case where they should be liable. But that's not what's happening in these cases. They tend to be ones where the user pushes through multiple guardrails (the Adam Raine case, famously, involves chatgpt pushing him to get help multiple times, and him continually pushing for ways around it, including claiming it's just for a fictional story). Once you get to that point, I'm sorry, but I don't see how you can pin liability on the company without leading to terrible results.

• On the post: More Liability Will Make AI Chatbots Worse At Preventing Suicide

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 09 May, 2026 @ 05:38pm

  Just because I think that code is speech (as we all should) that doesn't mean code gets copyright protection. It is entirely consistent to believe (1) code is speech and (2) only human speech gets copyright protection. I don't see it as a contradiction at all. Protections of the First Amendment only apply to speech. Copyright only applies to a small sub segment of speech (that which is by humans, and which meets the creativity bars required to deserve copyright protection).

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