Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment about Silicon Valley VCs lining up to back Trump and our supposition that it's because they cynically welcome chaos:
Look, we put BBQ sauce on our faces and everything, so no snacking alright?'
Either that or in the hopes that if they publicly swear fealty to the Party of Leopards Eating Peoples' Faces their faces will be off the menu, because grovelling and appeasement has been working great for them so far.
In second place, it's Stephen T. Stone with a couple quotes about GOP hypocrisy:
Quoting A.R. Moxon twice here:
Hypocrisy is a virtue to fascists. It's a clear demonstration that the rules they enforce upon others won't apply to[ ]them. The more blatant the hypocrisy, the greater the virtue.
It's important to remember, when you hear a fascist talking about free speech," that hypocrisy is a virtue to fascists, and that fascists do not have principles, they only have intentions.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from GHB about Meta's attack on Section 230 protections for third-party apps:
It remidns me of MediaFire's attack against SkipScreen
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/its-my-browser-and-ill-auto-click-if-i-want
In summary, MF wanted to ban an extension that just autoclicks a download button, so they went out of their way to demand firefox to remove SkipScreen because it violates its ToS.
The claim that it violates its ToS is false. ToS only applies to users agree to the terms, users who come to the site to download requires mutual assent, and the tool does not eat up additional bandwidth (it just automates something that a human being would do).
This is one of the earliest attacks on the open internet, when websites want to have control on the user experience on their webpages.
This is the same site that have intrusive ads on their site. If you want to download a file off their site, you must allow them to open a random site on your browser (as a separate browser window or tab), which is potentially dangerous (I've experienced tech support scam pages being opened). Thankfully this can be bypassed by right-clicking and save link as". News sites have ads and don't need the user to risk their browser and PC just to use their content.
Next, it's an anonymous comment about Elon Musk's DSA debacle:
But i thought Elon was all aboard for maximum free speech - as long as it complies with local law. Well, here's some local law. Is it because the EU isn't Bharat or another of the more censorial countries? Does he think majority white nations deserve more free speech? Or is it just the mood that suddenly grabbed him? Roll 2d20, baby.
Over on the funny side, out first place winner is tanj with a comment on the years-long battle that eventually prevented a cop from suing an activist for the actions of others:
Given TD's coverage of this and section 230
It's like TD doesn't want people held accountable for the actions of unrelated third parties.
In second place, it's jpmeyer with another comment about Elon Musk's hypocrisy:
Consistency is...
the hobgoblin of non-billionaire minds.
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the sample library company that issued a copyright strike to a YouTuber and lawyer who showed their terms of service:
Ah, to be a fly on that wall, what could have gone through the minds of the Splice legal team? So here's the plan, guys. This woman's a copyright attorney, negotiates all her music deals, has been doing this for quite some time. So we'll lull her into a false sense of security, end the call with a positive note... and completely sidewind her with a copyright strike, she'll never see it coming! Who but a copyright attorney would be able to appreciate the beauty of a copyright strike, she'll never contest that. Copyright lawyers don't eat their own!"
Finally, it's an anonymous response to our assertion that even Musk's fiercest advocates can't overlook some of his latest failures:
Mike, have you read the comments section to one of your posts about Elon?
That's all for this week, folks!