Stephen T. Stone 's Techdirt Comments

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• On the post: Where Did All Those Brave Free Speech Warriors Go?

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 19 May, 2025 @ 10:41am

  the warning from the Harper Letter was not heeded

  The Harper Letter signatories were never warning about a Republican president using the levers of power to commit to a fascist trampling of free speech. They were warning about people deciding that conservative opinions on things like civil rights and race relations were horseshit and deserved to be called out for being horseshit. They’re not saying shit about Trump using his power to silence critics (successfully or otherwise) because they wanted this outcome. Conservatives confess with every accusation and reject every self-imposed label. The signatories of that letter stand as proof.

• On the post: Where Did All Those Brave Free Speech Warriors Go?

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 19 May, 2025 @ 10:00am

  Ellie Avishai wrote about how she was drummed out of the University of Austin for posting a very bland LinkedIn post that quoted Yale Psychologist Michael Strambler’s article suggesting that both sides on the debate over DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) were going too far.

  Leopards, faces, etc.

• On the post: New Law Would Add New Tax To Your Netflix Bill So AT&T And Comcast Execs Can Get Richer

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 19 May, 2025 @ 08:46am

  The wealthy prefer to create suffering than to feel it, which is why they prefer to use a golden parachute rather than cut its strings.

• On the post: New Law Would Add New Tax To Your Netflix Bill So AT&T And Comcast Execs Can Get Richer

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 19 May, 2025 @ 06:22am

  The billions of dollars in new fees and misdirected consumer anger that will come as a result of this effort is probably something tech companies should have thought about before they tripped over their own asses to support Trumpism. It wasn’t hard to see coming. Trump earlobe-nibbler Brendan Carr has been telegraphing this whole plan for a while, including in his chapter in Project 2025.

  You say that like those companies didn’t know about Project 2025. Hell, I’m sure that more than a few CEOs were counting on Trump winning so Project 2025 would go into full effect and give their companies all the tax breaks and whatnot. That they might one day face the backlash inherent in Trump’s self-indulgence and the GOP’s gross incompetence was never on their minds.

• On the post: The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP’s Favorite ‘Save The Children’ Laws

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 17 May, 2025 @ 07:14am

  Can’t it be both?

• On the post: FCC Commissioner Gomez Calls Out Administration’s Attack On Free Speech, Warns She May Get Fired

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 16 May, 2025 @ 02:29pm

  No one has the answers to this. I don’t, other than to say “trying to infringe upon or take away the rights of the worst people, no matter the intent, won’t ever end well for everyone else”.

• On the post: Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With A Smile

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 15 May, 2025 @ 09:49am

  Their right to come together as group, to amass power and resources and brainstorm and shit? It enables their speech, and the groundwork of their beliefs, to gain ground and power that it shouldn’t.

  And how do you propose we stop that from happening in a way that doesn’t open the door for a future (or current) government regime to use those exact words as a justification for hurting marginalized people? Because what you said there could easily be used against, say, trans rights groups without changing a single goddamn letter. Therein lies my concern with wanting to use the law (or go outside the law) to handle complex sociopolitical issues with a hammer: Sooner or later, someone who can use that hammer in a way you don’t like will see you as a nail. The dream of banning groups like the Klan or the Oath Keepers from existing shouldn’t be realized at the expense of the same protections that let trans people and their cisgender allies come together to advocate for trans rights under a government regime that hates trans people.

  they are smart enough to recognize that there are marginalized groups who amass power for good and don’t go “what if bad people go after the marginalized groups with this power?”

  We live in a different country. What applies to German politics and German society may not translate to the U.S. because of differences in foundational legal structures. Technically, banning hate symbols like the swastika would be fundamentally impossible in the U.S. due to free speech laws. Imagine a Wolfenstein game without being able to kill actual Nazis because the government said “nope, can’t have Nazi symbols in your game”. Maybe you see that as a weakness of the U.S. constitution and legal system. That’s your right. My view is that, weakness or not, it is the law of the land and it applies to everyone, including the same people you want buried in a mass grave as a “message” to anyone who thinks fascism is a good thing. You have to contend with the notion that the speech and groups and people you want gone are protected by a constitution…

  The Constitution is going to need fundamental reforms in a post-Trump world.

  …that can’t be changed to suit your needs without you having a gigantic nationwide push for those changes. If you really think you can get two-thirds of the states in this country to ratify changes to the Constitution that would fundamentally alter the way this country handles speech and association (and potentially religion, given how intertwined that is with speech and association), you go do that. Until then: The Constitution is the law of the land and it protects the shitbags you hate, and you’re going to have to deal with that in a way that doesn’t involve actual physical violence.

  When you get a dictator in office, after they are ousted, do you keep the conditions and laws and such that led to them being able to take power the same as they were before?

  Ideally? No. This country is fucked if it doesn’t change things in a way that stops another Trump⁠—a worse Trump⁠—from taking office. That said: You’re going to find that changing the U.S. Constitution, and the society it undergirds, is going to take more work than you might think. For starters, you have to deal with the fact that millions of people in this country want fascism/authoritarianism because it means they don’t have to think about politics or the “big decisions”. If they think you’re trying to hurt them in the way they’d like to hurt you, rest assured that they won’t go down without a fight. (Not that you would probably mind if the government had an excuse to go slaughter a bunch of conservative, but still.) You are talking about a wholesale change to the fundamental fabric of American society that would affect a hell of a lot of people’s lives in ways they may not be prepared to handle⁠—now or in the future. I’m not saying you’re wrong that we’re going to need to change a lot of shit in the future. I’m saying that you’re going to need more than the kind of Bojack Horseman–type “stupid piece of shit” negging you’re doing at me to get that job done. I mean, if you can’t get someone who agrees with you in some way to come over to your side because you keep trying to shame him into following your beliefs without question, how the fuck do you think you’ll get tens of millions of people to join your cause? In the end, I do agree that we need to change some things. Treating me like a piece of shit because I’m not willing to advocate for lethal violence or attacking free speech or whatever your problem is with my principles won’t get me on your side. So either stop the negging or stop replying, because you’re not winning me over by trying to make me feel like a stupid piece of shit. I already have that job covered⁠—and trust me when I tell you that you’re nowhere near as good at it as I am.

• On the post: Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With A Smile

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 15 May, 2025 @ 06:34am

  “Advocacy for genocide and spreading racist stereotypes to foment violence is just speech you don’t like and you have to just deal with it, even though other countries have figured out functional ways to deal with it” is a core American Liberal Democrat philosophical pillar.

  Other countries may not have the right of association protected in their core legal documents. The U.S. does. As much as you might hate how groups with Klan-like ideals are legally allowed to exist so long as they’re not doing crimes, that’s your problem to sort out. And I once again recognize the shitty position I’m putting myself in because I choose to have a set of principles that requires a defense of the rights of the worst among us. You think I want to be defending racist assholes? Because I don’t. The only people who genuinely want to defend them are other racist assholes. My defense of their right to come together as a group is limited to their civil rights and it doesn’t extend to the content of their speech or the groundwork of their beliefs. I also recognize that the racist genocide-desiring assholes you’re talking about are complete shitbags who don’t deserve respect or sympathy. That said: In the U.S., they’re allowed to get together and speak their minds so long as they don’t go about hurting people or blowing up buildings or whatever. If you want to give the U.S. government a way to stop those people from getting together, you’ll have to deal with the idea that a future administration (or the current one) will use that power against marginalized people. It’s exactly why, to your eternal disappointment, I don’t advocate for laws and actions that would give the government that kind of power: Abuse of that power is far too tempting, especially if no one will ever be punished for that abuse.

  When all this is over, and we hopefully return to some semblance of sanity & sane governance, how do you think we’re going to re-earn the trust of our international allies if we don’t address the conditions and toxic information & speech environment that led us to where we are at this current juncture in time?

  I dunno. How do you suppose we do that without doing something as drastic as, say, ignoring the Constitution? Because my concern here lies in giving the government enough power to hurt marginalized people for no reason other than equating “they said mean things about privileged folks” with “they’re being hateful bigots who are calling for violence”. And we have examples of that already happening, in case you haven’t read about how the Trump administration black-bagged foreign students only for writing op-eds decrying the genocide in Gaza, so don’t go acting like it wouldn’t or couldn’t happen because of some magical guardrail you think up.

  I prefer it to be as bloodless as possible

  Hey, so, I’mma just press X to Doubt right now.

• On the post: Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With A Smile

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 05:09pm

  Unfortunately (for you), banning groups on the basis of their political beliefs alone is against the Constitution. Unless you’d like to give Trump and his administration the tools to ban people from associating with one another based on how much the Trump administration dislikes the beliefs of those people, you’re gonna need a better solution than “ban all the groups I don’t like”. And no, killing people isn’t going to be that solution, no matter how much some people would really love to kill all the people who are one step right of center for whatever reason.

• On the post: Why The Fuck Are Democrats Helping Build MAGA’s Censorship Machine With KOSA?

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 03:02pm

  You mean Senate and House. Both chambers make up Congress.

• On the post: Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With A Smile

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 02:57pm

  Centrism is a compromise that asks, “Who or what can we throw under the bus to avoid hurting our chances at winning elections?”

• On the post: Why The Fuck Are Democrats Helping Build MAGA’s Censorship Machine With KOSA?

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 11:40am

  why hasn’t anyone in power at the time of the election, done ANYTHING to sincerely try to stop MUSK, DOGE, or anything Project 2025?

  In the tiniest bit of fairness, Democrats no longer have any real power in the halls of Congress. They can gum up the works a little and that’s about it. That said: They could be doing so much more outside of Congress to draw attention to the encroaching fascism of the Trump administration, such as its desire for resegregation (by way of attacks on DEI and civil rights laws) and the impending revocation of the civil rights of all Americans (by way of suspending habeas corpus), but that would involve any of the major players in the Democrat party to have a fucking spine.

• On the post: Why The Fuck Are Democrats Helping Build MAGA’s Censorship Machine With KOSA?

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 11:32am

  It raises a huge question of… what the fuck are they thinking?

  They’re at least thinking something they were thinking in 2024: “We as a party must appeal to people who would never vote for us in the hopes that we will somehow convince them to vote for us. This is an excellent plan.”

• On the post: DOJ Declares Victory In The War On Drugs, Claims 250 Million Lives Have Been Saved By Fentanyl Seizures

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 10:09am

  “Actual human lives? Fuck ’em. We care more about theoretical lives. I mean, have you seen our stance on abortion?” — the GOP, probably

• On the post: RFK Jr. Takes His Grandkids For A Mother’s Day Swim In A River Of Human Shit

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 05:22am

  I’m not sure he has much of a brain left to eat, given how much damage the worm seems to have already done.

• On the post: RFK Jr. Takes His Grandkids For A Mother’s Day Swim In A River Of Human Shit

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 14 May, 2025 @ 04:51am

  When I said that RFK Jr. wanted people to die, I didn’t think he included himself in that group.

• On the post: Meta Threatens To Pull Facebook And Instagram Out Of Nigeria Over $290 Million Fine Imposed For Violation Of Local Privacy Laws

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 13 May, 2025 @ 07:21pm

  Maybe they could convince Elon to do the same with X, too.

• On the post: Hasan Piker Just Gave His Millions Of Followers A Masterclass In What Not To Do When Detained By CBP

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 13 May, 2025 @ 07:20pm

  So nice, it’s linked to twice. 🙃 (Also: That’s what I get for not reading the whole-ass article before commenting. 😅)

• On the post: The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP’s Favorite ‘Save The Children’ Laws

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 13 May, 2025 @ 07:19pm

  Not for nothin’, man, but continually saying shit like that about 230 is what helps move the Overton Window in a way that normalizes the idea of “maybe 230 should be repealed”. We all get that 230 being repealed would be a bad thing, so could you maybe stop with the Chicken Little act?

• On the post: Hasan Piker Just Gave His Millions Of Followers A Masterclass In What Not To Do When Detained By CBP

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 13 May, 2025 @ 05:14pm

  To fully guard against any potential “misunderstandings” by cops/feds/judges, explicitly invoking both the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney before shutting the fuck up is probably the best approach.

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