Mike Masnick 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (23099)

• On the post: Jim Jordan Weaponizes The Subcommittee On The Weaponization Of The Gov’t To Intimidate Researchers & Chill Speech

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2023 @ 10:48am

  I remember back when techdirt was a proponent of FOIA stuff. Ahh man, those were the days!

  We still are proponents of FOIA. FOIA allows transparency into what the government is doing, which is necessary for an open government. It is not about the government snooping on private organizations. This is not FOIA. Meanwhile, if we are talking about FOIA, I'll note that Congress is exempt from FOIA. Why do you think that is?

• On the post: The Imbued Test, Or How To Know Whether Section 230 Applies

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2023 @ 05:56pm

  If my YouTube or Facebook is suddenly serving me ads for alcohol, or gambling, or Covid deniers, or whatever, does Section 230 protect them in the US?

  Yes. But mostly because none of those things violate the law. But even if they did, the liability is on the advertiser, and that would be true even absent 230, because of the knowledge issue I described in a comment above. It helps to recognize that there's a difference between "bad" and "illegal." And after separating that out, the purpose of 230 is to determine who is actually to blame for the illegal part. Not the "bad" part.

• On the post: The Imbued Test, Or How To Know Whether Section 230 Applies

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2023 @ 05:54pm

  It’s not just “recommending things”. It’s selecting things that people will see and not see. Gatekeeping would be a better word for it.

  But, again, there's no law breaking in recommending things. Or gatekeeping. Not sure why that's even a question. Recommending things is, inherently, protected speech. I can recommend bad, or even dangerous things, and it's still protected.

  Newspaper publishers are indeed responsible for ads, for example, if they meet the legal standard for libel or incitement, even though, all they did was to run an ad someone else made up for money. It never destroyed the newspaper business.

  But that's different in multiple ways. Newspapers run, what, 30 ads a day? Social media runs millions. It's multiple orders of magnitude difference. It's not even the same thing. And, again, you're wrong about what you claim, because existing law does not automatically make them liable. It's only true if they have knowledge of the violative nature of the content. That's why the publisher of an encyclopedia of mushrooms was found not liable when the encyclopedia recommended eating a deadly mushroom. Because the publisher could not have known about the violation, so the 1st Amendment forbade holding them liable (Winter v. Putnam if you're looking for a cite). And that ruins your theory of how all this works.

  If this “imbuing” test is how we should treat liability for purveying content, to be consistent, shouldn’t we apply it to all sorts of media enterprises? Why should the doctrine of “no responsibility” apply to taking money for promoting material on an internet platform, but not for newspapers and publishers of all content to have similar protection? Or is this just a way to favor internet communications over other types of content promoters?

  Again, not sure why this is that difficult to understand. The imbuing test makes sense because of the scale, and because of the knowledge requirement I discussed above.

  Put another way, the “imbuing” theory would allow Internet platforms (but not other alternative communication channels) to externalize costs caused by the extremely profitably business of extremely sophisticated targeting of content to people most susceptible to be incited or harmed by it. That’s the cost of divorcing responsibility for content from efforts to promote that content. Maybe not allowing this would restrict freedom of expression online, as you say. So, ultimately you have to choose or make some compromise, not just evade the question by novel theories like “content imbuer liability”.

  This is incorrect, though. The imbuer test also ENABLES platforms to be more aggressive in fixing problems, because without it, with the liability regime you want, you STILL RUN INTO THE KNOWLEDGE problem. And if you now hinge liability entirely on knowledge, congrats, you've now created incentives for platforms to ALWAYS look away and never gain knowledge.

• On the post: The Imbued Test, Or How To Know Whether Section 230 Applies

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2023 @ 02:51pm

  I immediately become concerned with the Imbuing Test when we apply it to ranking and sorting algorithms, though. One could make the 1st amendment-supported case that my Facebook feed is a thing that is created by Facebook, and they should be allowed to make it what they want. Good. But when the selection and ordering of my Facebook feed becomes Imbued with badness, because Facebook intentionally picked the alcohol stories to send to an alcoholic, or the radicalization stories to send to a vulnerable target, couldn’t the Imbuement Test assign the “objectionable quality” of my feed (distinct from the objectionable qualities of the articles themselves) to Facebook?

  But from there, the question raised with the imbuing test is where is the illegality? Recommending things is not illegal...

• On the post: Judge Says White House Can’t Get Out Of Lawsuit Over Pressuring Social Media To Moderate

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2023 @ 12:52pm

  To be clear: most things found in discovery are not revealed to the public. Discovery is not what the public perception of it often is...

• On the post: Book Publishers Won’t Stop Until Libraries Are Dead

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2023 @ 11:51pm

  I’ve been saying the same about “pirate” and “piracy”, but it seems to be a losing battle on Techdirt: Mike et al. seem quite committed to referring to people (possibly) infringing copyright as “pirates”.

  For years I refused to use "piracy," "pirate," or "intellectual property," but there's a point at which the battle is lost and you have to admit that the world has chosen what those words mean. I do still avoid them if there are better words, but often there are not.

• On the post: Matt Taibbi Can’t Comprehend That There Are Reasons To Study Propaganda Information Flows, So He Insists It Must Be Nefarious

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2023 @ 04:22pm

  Hey Matt, How's the weather by you? It's been crazy here. Anyhoo, remember yesterday when you posted a comment saying it would be your last comment on Techdirt and you were leaving? I do.

• On the post: Book Publishers Won’t Stop Until Libraries Are Dead

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2023 @ 04:18pm

  I have edited the post to reflect the content of the Facebook statement, but it was not a lack of research. This post was written BEFORE that Facebook post showed up, though published after it. I actually did a fair bit of research on it, and found 3 reddit posts, and 3 viral twitter threads (most of them from a year ago, but the one on Monday went more viral) all about it, with no statement that I saw from her until this Facebook post. I also don't understand why a "formatter" would add such a bizarre copyright license rather than the standard one that everyone uses. Or even how it is an "anti-piracy" statement, because that makes no sense.

• On the post: Why Link Taxes Like Canada’s C-18 Represent An End To An Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2023 @ 06:01pm

  Where will the money from a link tax go, paying journalists or to the executives and shareholders.?

  Ha! No, it goes to hedge funds. Many news orgs are already cash generating factories. They're stripped down not because they're not profitable, but because the hedge funds that bought them out demand even greater profits.

• On the post: Why Link Taxes Like Canada’s C-18 Represent An End To An Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2023 @ 01:38pm

  Her answer is always the same: a the daughter of a journalist, she knows the importance of local journalism, and "big tech" has destroyed the ability of local journalism operations to survive, so all this is doing is giving them a chance to negotiate for their "fair share" in order to sustain their journalistic efforts. That's wrong on almost every point, but it's what she says.

• On the post: Silicon Valley School District Files Laughable, Vexatious RICO Claims Against Big Social Media… But Not Facebook Or Instagram

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2023 @ 10:15am

  I don't doubt that schools have vandalism problems, but this complaint makes zero effort to even detail what level there was, with only vague allusions to it from a high school paper article headline and not much else. Tying that back to social media... and including holding social media liable is a totally different story. I mean, when I was in high school we had a similar vandalism outbreak. But again, everyone blamed the students who did the vandalism.

• On the post: Silicon Valley School District Files Laughable, Vexatious RICO Claims Against Big Social Media… But Not Facebook Or Instagram

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2023 @ 10:13am

  Indeed. Can't believe we missed that. Fixed.

• On the post: Reminder: Section 230 Protects You When You Forward An Email

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2023 @ 10:23pm

  It’s becoming increasingly clear that Masnick can use free speech as a convenient cover for the massive amounts of engagement Matt brings to the site. Matt makes Mike money, therefore why ban him? Mike is willing to make his bar a Nazi bar, so the proverb goes. Why should sensible people stick around and feed Matt? Let Mike have Matt and we’ll go elsewhere

  My commitment is to making it easier for most people, including you, to comment without having a login. Most users do not abuse that privilege. Were I to "ban" Matt, what would happen? He'd likely just keep posting anonymously, like you. What good would that do? And, deleting comments is just non-stop wack-a-mole, and I don't have the time to baby sit every single comment. Plus once people respond to comments, if we actually deleted them, then... the replies are all confusing as well. It just makes a mess of things. But, no Matt does not make me any money. We don't make money from ads, and it's not like Matt's rants drive more traffic. My general take on commenters like Matt is that they're useful tools (and I mean that in the worst way) in that they are so dedicated to trolling that they'll roll through every possible brain-dead nonsense ever, and it acts as "batting practice." When I engage with people who disagree with me, but who actually matter (unlike Matt, so people like elected officials, media, etc) who challenge my points, I'm much more ready to respond to them, because I've already seen every angle of nonsense, as Matt and the few others like him will try every ignorant, foolish, nonsense claim there is, so nothing takes me by surprise. In his own stupid way, he makes my work that much stronger.

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

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2023 @ 12:39pm

  Moderation for decorum is agnostic about the viewpoint of an opinion.

  They're not about the viewpoint. They're about whether or not the content is used to harass and abuse people. As I've told you. You've already admitted that you LIKE abusing and harassing people. And therefore you ignore the fact that your statements do so, and you try to pretend that when YOU abuse and harass people it's just "stating facts." The problem is you're not. You're stating facts in a way that is designed to increase real world risk for people who are already marginalized and at risk. I think it's quite reasonable for any website to say "no, we will not allow that kind of abuse and harassment."

  Your claims that opinions that “attack the identity of people at risk” or “lack context” should be silenced for decorum

  Hyman: do not put words in my mouth. I did not say they "should be silenced." I said that sites get to make those decisions, and many decide that, in the interest of decorum, they will not choose to allow such abuse and harassment. That's different than saying they should be silenced. Personally, I often think there are better approaches. But I'm explaining to you why your claims are false. They are not engaged in "viewpoint censorship." They just want to stop assholes and idiots from harassing and abusing others on their site.

  cognitive dissonance of wanting to be seen as an advocate for free speech while also wanting to censor dissent against woke ideology.

  There's no cognitive dissonance. I understand free speech and you don't. I understand that a private website has the right to choose not to host speech that it disagrees with, even if I allow that speech here. I'm just explaining to you how your stance is bullshit. You claim that you think websites SHOULD moderate for decorum. I'm telling you that's what they're doing which you're mad about. If you ever bothered to learn literally ANYTHING about how these trust & safety operations work, you'd learn that they're not filled with "woke ideologues" like you falsely claim. They're filled with every day people with a wide variety of opinions and stances... and they just want you to stop being a fucking asshole. And yet, you can't stop. And that's why sometimes they ban you. Because you refuse to learn how not to break the rules they set for you. You INSIST on being an asshole and ruining decorum. It's not because you're enlightened and fighting back against woke ideologues. It's because you're a very, very ignorant asshole who is shitting on the rug, even though they asked you kindly not to do that. Not responding to the rest of your nonsense rant, because it's stupid and irrelevant and wildly disconnected from reality.

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

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2023 @ 11:04am

  All speech platforms, including large generic ones, should moderate for spam, topicality, and decorum.

  Do you not understand how all of the things you whine about being unfairly "censored" by platforms tend to be... moderating for "decorum." Because when people like you post stuff that attacks the very identity of individuals who are at risk, or when you (as you've done repeatedly) post statistics completely out of context in a manner that leads to false beliefs about an entire class of people, many people think that allowing that sort of incendiary speech leads to less decorum, and could in turn lead to real world violence. You seem unable to comprehend that this is why sits moderate. You only wish them to moderate for decorum on topics YOU support. That's the issue. You're not just full of shit, you're a hypocrite as well.

• On the post: Ninth Circuit Tells Twitter It Can’t Reveal Exactly How Many National Security Letters It Receives Because The DOJ Showed It Some Scary Stuff

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2023 @ 10:44am

  Uh no. I mean, I've written about this particular case before and highlighted it in past posts regarding Twitter's commitment to free speech, specifically in that Twitter chose to fight this, rather than cave like the rest of the internet world did. We'll see if Musk is actually willing to pay a lawyer to try to push this to the Supreme Court. I'm somehow doubtful of that, perhaps especially because this whole project was a focus of the previous management.

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

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 06:24pm

  Actually, no, I was saying it effectively didn’t as they would be sued into the ground

  I mean, look, if you want to argue that the entire judicial system is unfair, I'm not going to argue with you. That's why I say we need tools like Section 230 and anti-SLAPP laws to help protect 1st Amendment rights by getting bad cases kicked out of court early. But the fundamental claim you made -- that the 1st Amendment does not protect a private company from disallowing speech on its property -- is demonstrably false, as shown by the courts. If you're arguing that it doesn't matter because the court costs are too expensive, that's an access to law question and one where we agree. But that does not mean diddley squat regarding your fundamental false claim about the 1st Amendment. The only one moving the goalposts here is you. You were proven 100% incorrect, so instead of continuing to make your point about 1st Amendment jurisprudence, you now whine that it costs too much. That's a different issue. Have you EVER fucking admitted to being wrong? You were wrong. Admit it for fucking once.

• On the post: Yes, The US Government Threatening To Block TikTok Violates The 1st Amendment

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 06:18pm

  Which fucking reports, Masnick?!?

  I've already explained to you which ones. I'm sorry you can't be bothered to comprehend basic concepts. But that's on you. Each of the documents Taibbi has revealed regarding actual FBI involvement has not been about censorship. If there was evidence of that, you'd have a point and I'd call it out just as I call out any examples I see that go over the line. But, as I've now explained to you for months, the evidence needs to actually be there. All of the documentation, not just those in the Twitter files, demonstrated that there was a robust information sharing program going on, with most of it focused on the government sharing information with the companies not for the purpose of censorship but so they were aware of accounts the government was aware of were engaging in things like CSAM or foreign influence operations.

  It actually just looks like defending the CCP, really, which is really fucken weird.

  Only a total fucking moron, dumber than a fucking rock would read it that way.

  Have you been here for the last 22 years? Cuz I don’t think it’s a good thing (indeed it’s wrapped up with the bullshit at Twitter) but they can justify anything on national security grounds.

  No. That's not how it works. Look Matty, I know that you like to think the 1st Amendment works the way your ignorant mind thinks it should work. But, it just doesn't. When it comes to the 1st Amendment, you can't just scream "national security" and get away with it without proof. That's EXACTLY WHY the judge tossed out the WeChat case, as cited above. Which you're now pretending didn't happen. Because you don't fucking know how any of this works no matter how many times you pretend to. You're wrong, Matt. Stop pretending you know shit you don't.

  Provably false

  Then fucking prove it with actual fucking evidence or fuck the fuck off already.

• On the post: Copyright Means You May Need Permission To Post Photos Of Your Own Home Online

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 06:06pm

  This seems like such a strange hill to die on. Transformative use is a US fair use concept, not German, so it doesn't apply there. Though I was responding to someone doing a US fair use analysis. However, the transformative use standard in the US makes a lot of sense, because it would bar crazy results like here where you can't show a picture of your own home. I'd argue that this entire interpretation of copyright law is nonsensical. The artist is not losing any money here: he licensed his work to the wall paper company. No one is now not going to buy his artwork because they saw a home offered on a site. Indeed, it might cause more people to find out about him and his works (and the wallpaper).

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

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 03:33pm

  No credit for pointing out the more loony applications

  It wasn't the "loony applications." We highlighted the problems of the ban on DDoSecrets for posting BlueLeaks, which was under the hacked materials policy and called out that the same policy would stifle journalism. We also cheered on when Twitter admitted that the hacked materials policy was bad and changed it. Matt, you'd be taken more seriously if you didn't lie all the fucking time.

  You fully supported their suspensions for supposed “hate speech” (not misunderstood movie quotes) and “misinformation”. You supported Gadde, vociferously, and that was her whole deal. You’re changing your tune now (which is good!) but now want to lie about your past position.

  My position has remained entirely consistent. I supported Twitter's RIGHT to make its own policies, just as I complained when those policies seemed dumb. I wrote about Gadde's general position which was free speech supportive, because that was accurate. That doesn't mean I agreed on all policy decisions, but Twitter has the right to set its own policies, and (unlike you) I understood how the company was seeking to enable more free speech by recognizing that it sometimes had to deal with bad actors who were trying to silence speech.

  This is dumb, you’re pretending that because the target was only tragically maimed that means the shooting was an attempting murder.

  No, I'm not. As I wrote when Parler got booted from the app stores, I do have issues with there being only two app stores, but I did feel that the solution to that is building web apps. Parler getting booted from AWS was less of an issue because it was easy for it to find an alternative host as there are many. As long as they can set up a web site, then they're good. Which is what Parler discovered. Ditto all those other sites that did not face the same problems.

  Holy fuck, I’ve ONLY seen reports that it was about removing content. What ELSE could it be about?

  Foreign interference?

  https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1610394284867436547

  Yeah, I think Adam Schiff is a jackass and that he went too far with that request. I don't think I've ever said a nice word about Schiff who is an intelligence community/law enforcement lackey. But also, as a single Congressman he has no coercive power over Twitter, as is evidence FROM THAT VERY FUCKING LINK which shows Twitter repeatedly explaining why they're ignoring his stupid demands. Again, as this court (and many others) have shown, without coercion, there's no violation. There was none here.

  https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830108321677315

  That link does not show the government demanding the removal of topics. It shows a private organization highlighting (stupidly, I agree) the kinds of information that it sees on twitter that this private organization doesn't like. So fucking what? It's the same thing as me saying something. It's not the government, and there's no sign that Twitter paid any attention to it.

  This is a bold-faced lie. Twitter does not control the definition “shadow-banning”, shadow-banning was a term coined by others and always meant what Twitter was calling “visibility filtering” internally.

  Not going to go through this again, but it's false. The definition changed years later. Twitter was explicit in which definition it was using (the original one). That others LATER chose to reinterpret the word is on them, not Twitter.

  A hot second ago you claimed you were against misinformation policies. And what are you going to do with a “misinformation” policy but remove content? Jesus wept.

  I never said I was "against misinformation policies." I am against the government defining what is and what is not misinformation. But private organizations have every right to study misinformation. I have no problem with the study of misinformation. I have no problem with websites choosing to define it however they want. I only have an issue with the gov't saying what is and what is not misinformation. I remain entirely consistent on this. The fact that you can't follow is a you issue, Matt.

  Many dozens of FBI agents move across the country to work in one place is normal, somehow?

  Is is. Name any large company and you'll see the same damn thing.

  There many hours long meetings with fed agencies each week but they weren’t talking about removing content, basically the only thing they would have an interest in Twitter doing for them?

  That's not at all "the only thing they would have an interest" in. They used the platform to monitor all sorts of illegal behavior. The main thing the feds communicated to Twitter about was fighting CSAM. Going to tell me you're against that now?

  You didn’t see any evidence of Schiff demanding Paul Sperry get banned, or to censor “true but misleading” covid info? Bitch, you commented on the first one and agreed it was bad.

  Yes, I agree the Schiff demand was stupid, but not coercive. I have no problem saying he's a jackass for making the demand. But it's not against the law.

  Not only was Twitter using some bizzaro world definition fine, but someone changed the definition afterwards (fucken how?) to pretend committed perjury? The perjury they committed by just straight lying?

  Again Twitter was EXPLICIT in explaining what definition it was using. And the definition you're using was a much later version. Matt: reality calls. Stop fucking lying.

Next >>