TaboToka 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Enshittification Ahoy: Streaming Video Price Hikes Show No Sign Of Slowing Down

    TaboToka ( profile ), 24 Nov, 2025 @ 11:42am

    Time to bring out this old chestnut

    Dear clueless Wisconsin legislator: Your legislation advocates a (X) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to "protecting" children. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won’t work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.) (x) Bad actors can easily use it to harvest your online activity (x) Online services and other legitimate web uses would be affected (x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks (x) It will stop legitimate VPN use for two weeks and then we’ll be stuck with it (x) Users will not put up with it (x) "Big Tech" will not put up with it (x) Almost every business will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from ISPs (x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many websites cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential customers (x) People can still get to websites they want to use ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else’s career or business Specifically, your plan fails to account for ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it (x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for VPNs (x) Open relays in other countries (x) Open relays in other states (x) Open relays in other cities (x) Open relays in other neighborhoods ( ) The sudden rise of companies promising solutions ( ) Asshats ( ) Jurisdictional problems ( ) Unpopularity of weird new restrictions for doom-scrolling ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of the web ( ) Huge existing software investment in VPNs (x) Susceptibility of web traffic to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install government-mandated software ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes (x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches (x) Extreme risk of relaxing security ( ) Scammers and/or identity theft (x) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who still buy things with cheques ( ) Dishonesty on the part of app developers themselves ( ) Bandwidth unaffected by client filtering ( ) MS Teams and the following philosophical objections may also apply: (x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable (x) End-to-end encrypted tunnels should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually (x) Visiting websites should be free of government interference (x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatibility with open source or open source licenses (x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Submitting ID to every website you want to visit is cumbersome (x) I don’t want the government reading my browser logs ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough Furthermore, this is what I think about you: ( ) Sorry dude, but I don’t think it would work. (x) This is a stupid idea, and you’re a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) How do you manage to not accidentally hurt yourself?

  • On the post: X’s New Feature Reveals Why Trust & Safety Work Was Never About The ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’

    TaboToka ( profile ), 24 Nov, 2025 @ 11:21am

    Whomp, whomp

    MAGA's entire movement is built upon the foundation of mis- and dis-information networks. It started 55 years ago with Roger Ailes' memo about creating such a network, and this is the inevitable result: cult members conditioned to believe pure propaganda, without the capacity or will to recognize foreign actors and obvious falsehoods.

  • On the post: Federal Judge Spends Most Of 233 Pages Calling Out DHS, ICE, CBP, Border Patrol For Their Lies

    TaboToka ( profile ), 24 Nov, 2025 @ 11:15am

    Justice Delayed

    I get we can't do anything about these individuals currently that will shut them down permanently. We can (and should!) protest, turn out and protect one another to show them they don't have as much power they think they do. The next administration (Dem) damn well better be holding Neurmburg-like trials for ALL these fuck-sticks. The minions, their supervisors and everyone all the way up to cabinet level need to be on the hook and sent to prison if they're proven guilty. If we don't put the fear of prison in future would-be collaborators, we are truly lost, because they will try again if there are no consequences. If we don't De-MAGAfy the government at all levels, we're just postponing the inevitable. Hell, one of the reasons we're in this mess is the milquetoast AG refused to go after Individual #1! What a nightmare.

  • On the post: Extremely Innovative: HBO Raises Streaming Prices For The Third Time In Three Years

    TaboToka ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2025 @ 10:58am

    Just keep cranking it up!

    Conventional wisdom would say that prices increases should continue until they lose about 15% of their current subscribers. Supposedly, they have 110 million global subscribers, so they just need to crank prices up until they only have ~93 million subscribers. Should be pretty easy, no? Just raise the price by 25% every quarter!

  • On the post: How Trump Is Building A Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force

    TaboToka ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2025 @ 03:54pm

    Correction

    this force assembled from federal agents across the country could eventually WILL be turned against any EVERY group THAT GETS IN TRUMP'S WAY the administration labels a threat.
    MAGAts that cheer on the Fascists will realize too late they are just like the Sonderkommando (Jewish prisoners who were forced to assist the Nazis in Auschwitz): destined to go in the ovens when no longer useful.

  • On the post: Measles Outbreaks Abound Under RFK Jr.’s Inaction

    TaboToka ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2025 @ 11:10am

    All of the following diseases can be vaccinated against. Number is peak mortality per capita (i.e., per 100,000 people)

    • Whooping cough: 17 pc in ~1918.
    • Measels: 11 pc in 1923
    • Scarlet fever: 13 pc in 1901
    • Typhoid fever: 40 pc in 1900
    • Diphtheria: 30 pc in 1900
    • Pneumonia and Influenza: 102 pc on average from 1932-1937 (leaving out 1918, when it hit a whopping 588 pc).
    In 1900, the death rates for 1-4 year olds (from any cause) was 200 pc. (Source)

  • On the post: DOJ Purge Continues With Firing Of Prosecutor Who Refused To Go After Trump’s Personal Enemies

    TaboToka ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2025 @ 10:45am

    They knew.
    They didn't foresee the festering cancer of slavery would metastasize to institutionalized racism and xenophobia. Without aggressive treatment in 2025 and beyond, hospice might be the only option.

  • On the post: Oklahoma’s Overreaction To Charlie Kirk’s Murder Part 1: Kirk Statues At Every Public University!

    TaboToka ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2025 @ 10:37am

    Is there something in the water?

    Apparently, Shane and Dana haven't heard of the the compelled speech doctrine:

    The compelled speech doctrine sets out the principle that the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain expression. Thus, the First Amendment not only limits the government from punishing a person for his speech, it also prevents the government from punishing a person for refusing to articulate, advocate, or adhere to the government’s approved messages.
    Forcing a University to create a statue/plaque/square for Racist, Misogynistic Charlie collides directly with the CSD.

  • On the post: Verizon Remains On The Legal Hook For Illegally Spying On You And Selling Your Movement Data (For Now)

    TaboToka ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2025 @ 10:21am

    Not a smart strategy

    If the public cannot get relief from the courts, and if the rule of law is used to restrict the 99% in favor of the 1%, then other means will eventually be used to achieve relief.

  • On the post: Judge Mehta’s Google Antitrust Remedies: Threading The Needle Between Overkill And Underkill

    TaboToka ( profile ), 03 Sep, 2025 @ 04:59pm

    No, users don't care

    users actually wanted Google as the default.
    The hell they do. Users don't know what the fsck they want, and don't care, as long as they can do the search thing and get results. If users actually cared, they'd realize Google search results are the shittiest of shite sandwiches: a screen of AI Slop, followed by paid adverts, followed by stupid related questions ("People also ask" & "Things to know") and finally—maybe—a few related sites.

  • On the post: Wired, Business Insider Editors Duped By Completely Bogus ‘AI’ Using ‘Journalist’ Who Made Up Towns, People That Don’t Exist

    TaboToka ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2025 @ 08:00am

    But..but...but...

    The rushed integration of “AI,” usually by media owners who largely only see it as a way to cut corners and undermine labor, certainly isn’t helping. Add in the twisted financial incentives of an ad-based engagement infotainment economy, and you get exactly the sort of journalistic outcomes academics long predicted.
    The Promise of Capitalism™ was we would get better products, cheaper! Are you saying that capitalism naturally leads to exploitation, shittier products, higher prices and less choice‽‽‽

  • On the post: Trump Stooges Keep Helping The President Indulge In His Vindictive Crime Fantasies

    TaboToka ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2025 @ 04:11pm

    Not necessarily

    The US military has shown what good little dogs they are ~ by rolling over and attacking on command
    Contrary to public belief, officers (especially O-4 and below) know they can and will be held criminally liable for any violations of the UCMJ. If they follow illegal orders, their careers are over at best and they're getting a fully-furnished apartment in Ft. Leavenworth at worst. In the immortal words of Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) in Apocalypse Now: "Some day this war's gonna end."

  • On the post: Middle School Cheerleaders Made A TikTok Video Portraying A School Shooting. They Were Charged With A Crime.

    TaboToka ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2025 @ 06:32pm

    Charge the administrators

    What a joke. The administrators can't be bothered to do their job, so they throw the book at everyone. Make a video dramatizing a school shooting? Expelled Make the shape of a gun with your hand and present to shoot? Expelled Take a bite out of a pop tart so it vaguely resembles a gun and then pretend to fire it? Suspended

  • On the post: Warner Bros. Discovery Investors Balk At CEO Zaslav Getting Another Fat Raise As Company Unwinds Disastrous And Pointless Megamerger

    TaboToka ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2025 @ 10:24am

    Enshittification ensues no matter what

    I was considering getting the Disney/Hulu/Max deal.
    That deal blows no matter what is happening with HBO/Max/HBO Max. Wait until all the episodes of your show(s) are released, sign up for the trial and binge. Cancel it out when complete. Or sail the 7 seas. ← (this is a joke, wink, wink, nudge, nudge; say no more, say no more) Either way, you won't get stuck paying for drek you never watch just for the sliver of content you actually want.

  • On the post: Sen. Joni Ernst To Constituents Regarding Medicaid Cuts: We’re All Going To Die, Someday

    TaboToka ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2025 @ 06:04am

    Lol, wut?

    The ability to prolong life through medicine now outstrips our capability of paying for it for free for everyone.
    100% completely false, but good on you for parroting the GOP talking point accurately. Only the US is as backward a nation that it cannot provide universal healthcare and tuition-free college to all its citizens, yet somehow manages to spend more on its military than the next nine countries, combined with 7 of those being (for now) allies. The US spends $997 billion on defense. The following combined spend $984 billion on defense.
    • China ($314b)
    • Russia ($149b)
    • Germany ($88b)
    • India ($86b)
    • UK ($82b)
    • Saudi Arabia ($80b)
    • Ukraine ($65b)
    • France ($55b)
    • Japan ($48b)
    The sole and simple reason for this is greed, with military contractors sucking the marrow of this country dry.

  • On the post: Stop Begging Billionaires To Fix Software — Build Your Own

    TaboToka ( profile ), 03 Jun, 2025 @ 04:01pm

    To be fair

    It also does make me a little sad, that more people will never actually learn to code.
    Most people will also never learn to fix problems with their cars, and they're perfectly happy taking it in to the shop when something breaks. Several months ago, my AC blower died. Here in the South, that's nearly a death sentence. I found the part at a local parts store for a reasonable price, then watched a few videos to see how to switch it out (RIP Haynes) and got it done. It wasn't hard and I was happy I learned something new while saving a bunch of $$$.

  • On the post: Kids Don’t Have IDs And Age-Estimation Tech Is Frequently Very Wrong

    TaboToka ( profile ), 23 May, 2025 @ 02:10pm

    Wow, they waved their hands REALLY hard!

    How do you verify a user is a child or adult? Stupid lawmakers are stupid, so they say, "we'll tell you later, nerds!"

    §13-75-301 Effective 05/07/25. Division rulemaking. In accordance with Title 63G, Chapter 3, Utah Administrative Rulemaking Act, the division shall make rules establishing processes and means by which an app store provider may verify whether an account holder is a minor in accordance with Subsection 13-75-201(1)(a)(ii).
    Malicious compliance will never feel so good!

  • On the post: ICE Raids South Dakota Businesses Three Days After DHS Head Kristi Noem’s Visit Was Greeted With Protests

    TaboToka ( profile ), 23 May, 2025 @ 02:03pm

    Jujitsu Time!

    We need to use this behavior against them. Perhaps staging a protest in a heavily maga-leaning town when Cosplay Barbie comes to town?

  • On the post: RFK Jr. Fraying: Berates Senator Instead Of Answering Simple Budget Cut Questions

    TaboToka ( profile ), 22 May, 2025 @ 02:34pm

    Chemtrails

    he just has to declare it solved.
    Since he doesn't understand how airline wings cause vapor trails, he must assume it is a conspiracy. He can never declare the natural phenomenon "solved" without grounding all of the airplanes, everywhere, forever.

  • On the post: We Shouldn’t Have To Explain To The FTC Why Content Moderation Is So Crucial To Free Speech, But We Did

    TaboToka ( profile ), 22 May, 2025 @ 02:28pm

    Or

    It’s only bizarre if you presume that these people are honest.
    Or if they have reading comprehension skills.

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