Matt Bennett 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (2814)

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 11:41pm

  So you’re comparing the horrific actions of the Chinese government to Twitter’s moderation policies

  Yes, absolutely. They're different in degree, not in kind.

  And this from the guy who’ll pop a valve if someone gets called a Nazi.

  Yes. Because 1) that is an ad hominem the Left now things entitled to use at any time no actual justification. 2) It is almost exclusively used by those who support totalitarian policies. 3) It's ironically fascistic in itself as it is used "other", to make violence against an out-group OK, i.e. "punch nazis". Remarkably convenient when "nazi" just means "people I disagree with". And then "punch" becomes "line up against that wall". You probably think I'm being hyperbolic, except this is exactly the progression that has played out the last two centuries, basically ever since the French Revolution.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 11:26pm

  They are able to do that, and there are sites (many religious sites) that have just such a policy.

  You would actually have to point me to such sites, specifically, because I would be very surprised such a thing hasn't been sued out of existence. Are you imagining them? I absolutely do not, in any way, believe ANYONE on the left would have a laissez faire were Twitter to ban [Progressive] anything. Gay marriage is just an obvious outrageous example.

  So tell us, Matt, do you think those sites are somehow censoring people?

  Yes, of course. (if they exist, I would be very surprised if they did [Citation needed]) Did you somehow lose the thread and 1) convince yourself I was a religious zealot of some kind? and 2) convince yourself that my principled objections were illusory and subservient to a religion I don't hold? Hilarious. But lol, no, I am basically atheistic. (complicated by that I am convinced we live in a simulation) I know it would be much more convenient for you if I weren't.

  This is the whole point of 230, by the way. That every site can moderate in the way they want to moderate, to create the kind of community that they, as private property owners, wish to create.

  Lol, no, it isn't, though I'm aware you often claim that, and it is dumbshit. The point of 230 is that platforms shall not be held responsible for content they did not write. That's it. No, it isn't designed to let you censor any which way and then simultaneously be immune to defamation suits on that content you just edited.

  If you’re going to argue that Twitter is different because it’s a “general purpose” site

  Fucken what? I'm arguing it's morally reprehensible because it is. No idea what you mean by "general purpose" and since it sounds like a strawman, don't care much. I'm arguing it's illegal when it is at government request, which yes, you've made many arguments to discount and dismiss, but frankly they're all dumbhsit so I don't care. It clearly has happened quite a lot.

  (think: Hobby Lobby, Chik-Fil-A, and lots of others)

  Weird grab bag of (well, 2, "lots of others" not actually being in evidence) companies that liberals hate for no reason. HobbyLobby is famous for not wanting to be party to medical procedures they find abhorrent. They won, btw. Chik-Fil-A has nothing to do with any of this at all beyond 1) Owners are known to be religious, which is why they're closed on Sunday. 2) Owners donated to religious charities liberals don't like (well dur). Never subject to any lawsuits that I know of, Liberals literally just hate them cuz they exist and are religious. Neither has any interaction with the internet that matters. None of this has anything to do with the internet or moderation policy. Absolutely amazing that you would lay your own biases down like that. So you're just a stock standard hateful, intolerant liberal then? I mean I knew that, but weirdly sad, I would have expected you to at least to give up more of a token a fight while claiming you're "totally nonpartisan" while on shitting on exclusively conservative causes. Gimme your venmo, I'll donate the money for you to get the Blue dye micro-fringe bangs you deserve. Aww fuck,

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 10:20pm

  Saying "Historical figure probably didn't say that" is super dumb. Nearly everything before the age of recording is apocryphal. Everything not written is dependent on witnesses, who are unreliable, and everything is subject to the telephone game of time. Even written text more than a couple centuries old has almost certainly been transcribed a couple times. How many original Roman texts do we have? Not a lot. Nearly all of it was rewritten once in the middle ages, at least. Did they do that accurately? Who knows. Anyway, quotes attributed to historical figures are essentially parables....supposedly smart things a supposedly smart person said that makes a certain point we agree with. MY favorite (hated) is the Einstein quote (which he absolutely did say, weirdly I found a site claiming he didn't) "Insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result" This is quoted by sophomoric asshats all the time.

  1. He said it in contesting quantum theory, part of the whole "god does not play dice with the universe" argument. I actually subscribe to vaious hidden variable/pilot wave theories but fundamentally he was wrong. Quantum weirdness exists, Einstein was disproven here.
  2. Very obviously, realistically, in real life situations, you will do the same thing and get a different result all the fucking time actually.

  Real quote, by a smart guy, but he was just wrong (on several different levels) in this case. Arguably his most famous quote after MC=E^2. I say this as a contrast because people attribute all sorts of very smart, true things to people who may or may not have said them and whether they did or not, besides being harder to verify the farther back you go (markedly harder earlier than the 20th century) really isn't that important.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 09:51pm

  So you’re agreeing that our elections are rigged?

  No, actually (but yes), my point is that the argument is exactly mirrored. Weibo will ban you for questioning Chinese elections. Twitter will ban you for questioning US elections. (but please note that Stacey Abrams was not) What is the difference there? Anything? You might answer "Chinese elections are fraudulent and US elections are not". OK....if there was an actual problem with US elections, how would you know? Who would be allowed to tell you?

  That will get you tarred and feathered by the extreme left on this website.

  Oh, that's adorable. I'm familiar with the hatred and intolerance by leftists on this site. The more they howl, the more I know I'm right.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 09:45pm

  The article you linked gives no indication that the researchers weeded out people who weren’t familiar with Twitter.

  I honestly don't give a fuck, not every detail is going to be immediately presented via a short-form link. I know such is common, Harvard-Harris poll is pretty well respected, so I suspect they do, I'm sure they list their methodology somewhere, you're free to investigate it. If you care about it, look it up, I don't. No, I don't have to provide rigorous proof of every little thing I say, even off-handedly, particularly via one, sole link. This is literally just looking for things to contest. Some retard is going to pipe in with "No evidence has been offered, thus.." I don't fucking care. It's not central to my argument, it's just dumb, frankly meaningless objection sent out by JMT that happens to be wrong (it will always be meaningless) because that is a thing that is checked for. If you care go and find out. Tell me what you find, I will be at least half interested.

  You are correct about that one claim,

  Yes, thank you, literally all I care about here.

  but the poll you referenced also doesn’t necessarily support an argument that Twitter really did what non-users think it did

  Oh, opinion polls are not findings of fact? Gee, go figure.

  regards to censorship a court ruling in the opposite direction about a former Twitter user who is a lawyer is evidence that Twitter and the government didn’t violate the First Amendment regardless of how the poll respondents define censorship.

  OK, so that's a word salad. Be more clear with your grammar.

  From what I could tell the poll didn’t define “censorship”,

  I should hope not, that would be essentially a leading question.

  it’s unclear whether voters understand that censorship with respect to attempts to remove speech requires coercion or intimidation.

  Should they "understand" that? Cuz that's not what the definition is, at all. Essentially all I'm reading from this you're disappointed the poll isn't biased in the ways you prefer and holy fuck do I not care about that.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 06:36pm

  Welp, none of that is true, but thanks for trying.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 06:34pm

  JMT says a bunch of irrelevant shit that doesn't matter

  Oh this leapt out at me:

  I can guarantee you that the thousands and thousands of people all around the world who have been the target of that hate speech

  See that's funny, cuz there are millions and millions of people who have been severely punished, often killed by their governments for supposed "misinformation". CCP fucking loves to get people for "misinformation". Not "hate speech", mind you, that's a US/Western obsession that goes away pretty quickly when you have real shit to worry about. I take that back. CCP I betcha has definitely put some Uyghurs in a concentration camp for "hate speech". "oh, no Han Chinese raped my wife at government orders! " See? Hate Speech.

  If you want to communicate those ideas there are numerous other options available to you where you’ll actually be welcome.

  This is a little like saying George Floyd could clearly still breathe, because he could still talk. Mostly shit like "help, I can't breathe!" But he could breathe, obviously. And then he died. Of not breathing. Your comment was so dramatically uninformed, vapid, lacking perspective, you should legitimately feel ashamed for uttering it.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 06:18pm

  actual homophobia

  No idea what you're referring to, but also I didn't care much.

  I love it when people say shit like this as if it’s a gotcha.

  It's ironic. Cuz Stephen (and all liberals as far as I can tell) are super fucking eager to label everyone who disagrees with them as some form of bigot. Like you can't critize the insane shit Ilhan Omar says without being called Islamaphobic, etc.

  some magical phrase they could use to attack others

  Yeah, like that. That's literally how you guys treat it. So yeah, I'm allowed to joke about Stephen being homophobic.

  But abusing that attack when it’s not warranted and no homophobia is present is actually you attempting to use homophobia for your benefit.

  There it is. I knew you'd get there eventually.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 06:07pm

  So you didn’t read the mail you are referring to as “evidence”?!

  I did. So you didn't? You obviously have a meaningless objection of some kind, voice it rather than wasting my time.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 06:04pm

  Most people don’t even use Twitter and wouldn’t have a fucking clue about what they did or didn’t do.

  Oh, cool, we can dismiss people's opinions on the basis that they're uninformed? Well I guess I'm the only commenter on tech dirt who's opinion matters, then! Anyway, that's not how it works. Pollsters usually weed out people who nothing about the subject at hand. Regardless, Strawb's claim was "you’d be part of a minority," and that has been disproven, regardless of what you think of the opinion in question. (I didn't ask nor care)

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 05:54pm

  The only things I’ve seen you post are links to a Twitter account that was spoon-fed cherry-picked items in order to push a very specific narrative.

  Oh, I see, you just want to dismiss the evidence via ad hominem! Well unfortunately, the evidence still exists, regardless of whether you want it to.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 05:02pm

  The most reversed circuit lately has been the 6th,

  I tried to look up the same stat and found the same article....that's one specific year, dumbass. The Ninth is reversed a LOT, % wise, not just numbers.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:59pm

  Sure! https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1610394294850064385

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:58pm

  Just don’t be as dumb as Parler was, and you’ll be fine.

  But exactly, you're not allowed to do that. Big Tech killed it off specifically BECAUSE it wasn't moderating "enough", whatever the fuck that is.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:55pm

  Wow, I am used to liberals playing victim, but that is hardcore.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:49pm

  “What can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.”

  Evidence has been presented in abundance, tho. Also, why do you think that's a rebuttal to the point that "no punishment and Twitter can refuse to act on any requests that the gov’t may make." is a pointless comment?

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:46pm

  No, but you’d be part of a minority,

  Oh, nevermind, turns out you're just exactly wrong: https://apnews.com/article/politics-censorship-78ca50083243a3da2ad09d9bf3545f0b "NEW YORK and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly two-thirds of voters believe Twitter shadow-banned users and engaged in political censorship during the 2020 election, according to the December Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll, released today by Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW). Seventy percent also want new national laws protecting users from corporate censorship. Download key results from the poll – a monthly collaboration between the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard (CAPS) and the Harris Poll and HarrisX – here."

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:34pm

  No, but you’d be part of a minority,

  Oh? I am? Prove it.

  which proves my point:

  It does? HOW? Constitutional principals are not decided by majorities, they're actually meant to thwart them. You have a right to free speech even if a majority think you shouldn't, you have a right to own a gun even if a majority thinks you shouldn't, etc.

  barely anyone outside the right-wing echo chambers thinks it happened.

  Well THAT's not true.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:29pm

  More that it is a useless point to bring up.

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

  

  Matt Bennett ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2023 @ 04:28pm

  You’re clearly referring to the Masterpiece Cakeshop case

  Goldstar!

  A bunch of random strawmen, mischaracterizations, and unsupported assertions by Stephen T. Stone

  This will be fun:

  1. Funny way to say a bunch of liberal judges misjudged, SCOTUS told them that their basis of ruling was wrong, and to try again.
  2. Incorrect
  3. Well that's just made up. Literally none of that is true. Phillips had no problem making a cake for someone who was gay, was explicit about selling a cake already made or a new one, just not supporting a gay wedding. Also, he won. Are you talking about a cake shop in an alternate dimension maybe?
  4. Well, no not even vaguely actually. In fact SCTOTUS quoted that case of CO applying the law unequally based on the speech involved. I.e. because authorities did not agree with the message in one case, the Bakers decision to refuse it was Ok, and because they agreed with the message in the other it was not OK for the baker to refuse it. Which is very much not OK.
  5. Yes, they did and no, you would not. In neither case were they asking for "public accommodation", they were asking for expressive speech, and in one case the government tried to force the speech and in the other they did not, based on which speech they agreed with.

  That all sounded very rehearsed but also very wrong. Is this another echo chamber thing where you all agree on a version of events that have nothing to do with the facts? Seems like.

  Now, if you have any other misconceptions about that case

  No, I feel quite well versed, thank you very much. I'll take the written court opinions over your made up version. But we have established that you're a rank hypocrite. When the censorship runs your way you're quite happy to chime "but it's a private company!", "you can't force them to allow that!" and "it's OK if when they label 'misinformation' they're wrong, it's OK, you can still say it other places!" When the censorship (not actually censorship, Phillips was refusing compelled speech, maybe "resistance" is a better term) runs against you it's all "discrimination", "Public accommodation", "The government wasn't compelling speech even though it was clearly doing that and even being selective about it!" and finally "there are definitely no other cake shops anywhere willing to make gay wedding cakes!" So you're just lying, or possibly have zero introspection. OK. I mean, I knew that, but it's nice to hear you SAY it.

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