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> (Section 230) https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-dece

> (Section 230) https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
TechDirt (via the "Copia Institute") is paid by Google's Public Policy team, as disclosed at Google's Public Policy Transparency page: https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency/ https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency/ in https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/4b9e2caa400b9cd51977ade1c5b070be4706802afdab79a8b502bc15e0e7c9ff4a9e388fb41d4ae510e1bf0823593dd4f1f588340a95ce2c432ffaf14a44b850 https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/4b9e2caa400b9cd5... (pdf) Mike Masnick is, as disclosed, a Google shill on payroll. If you didn't realize this, Google's public policy team is doing their job well.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
  And literally 90%+ of your twitter feed (www.twitter.com/ocdtrekkie, this is not doxxing, the user mentions their twitter handle in their HN profile) is full of posts against Google and big-tech in general, including several retweets of low-effort anti-FAANG humor, gloating about the recent DoJ anti-trust lawsuit, and so on. So let's not even pretend that you don't have a beef with them and are more than a little biased. Feel free to point out the legal issues that he gets wrong about Section 230, even if it is via an article written by an opposite shill.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    Masnick appears to have little interest in honestly representing any position he claims to address, nor does he actually successfully address them. For example, in whether or not Section 230 removes the incentive to moderate, he claims that before 230, there was an incentive to not moderate, which Section 230 removes. He fails to address reality here though: That the primary force behind moderation and not moderation comes from ad revenue, and Section 230 simply makes tech companies not liable for those very financially-motivated decisions. He also buys into the "regulations actually harm the little guy" narrative big tech is known for using to defend a law that solely serves to enable mass-scale algorithmic moderation, while doing nothing meaningful to protect human-curated decisions. Intent is very important in law, and small human moderators doing their best effort are perfectly fine pre-230, but large companies using algorithms to maximize engagement and revenue at the cost of human society really needs 230 to survive. Large companies that need to be regulated generally claim regulation won't really hurt them, but hurts small businesses. This is, of course, a completely ridiculous claim: If it helped them more than their competitors, they'd be all for it. Regulations can (and generally are) careful to include proper methods of handling businesses from small to large, and we've seen this bad claim from Google when trying to discourage privacy legislation like GDPR. He also addresses the conversation largely as someone who doesn't recognize the vast disparity between the large companies Section 230 protects, and the smaller parties it harms. For instance, while recognizing the first amendment is a largely suitable way to handle legitimate cases that Section 230 would apply to, he dismisses it by saying that Section 230 helps avoid nuisance or "frivolous" suits. Of course, if "nuisance suits" is the problem, perhaps we should admit that the three most valuable companies on the planet can more than afford to handle nuisance suits without additional legal protection. I'd love to find a good write up by an "opposite shill", but honestly, that's pretty hard: Google has invested more money into political lobbying than literally anyone else at this point. They've bought everyone who can be bought. And, while we're talking about not doxxing... how much work for Google have you done? A lot of your HN history seems to be largely defensive of them, and I found at least one comment clearly denoting you at least did work for them. I can confidently say I've never been paid by anyone working for or against Google... can you? So perhaps we should leave scouring each other's profiles out of it? The HN moderators would almost certainly prefer it.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

TechDirt (via the "Copia Institute") is paid by Google's Public Policy team, as disclosed at Google's Public Policy Transparency page: https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency/ https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency/ in https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/4b9e2caa400b9cd51977ade1c5b070be4706802afdab79a8b502bc15e0e7c9ff4a9e388fb41d4ae510e1bf0823593dd4f1f588340a95ce2c432ffaf14a44b850 https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/4b9e2caa400b9cd5... (pdf) Mike Masnick is, as disclosed, a Google shill on payroll. If you didn't realize this, Google's public policy team is doing their job well.

kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
And literally 90%+ of your twitter feed (www.twitter.com/ocdtrekkie, this is not doxxing, the user mentions their twitter handle in their HN profile) is full of posts against Google and big-tech in general, including several retweets of low-effort anti-FAANG humor, gloating about the recent DoJ anti-trust lawsuit, and so on. So let's not even pretend that you don't have a beef with them and are more than a little biased. Feel free to point out the legal issues that he gets wrong about Section 230, even if it is via an article written by an opposite shill.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Masnick appears to have little interest in honestly representing any position he claims to address, nor does he actually successfully address them. For example, in whether or not Section 230 removes the incentive to moderate, he claims that before 230, there was an incentive to not moderate, which Section 230 removes. He fails to address reality here though: That the primary force behind moderation and not moderation comes from ad revenue, and Section 230 simply makes tech companies not liable for those very financially-motivated decisions. He also buys into the "regulations actually harm the little guy" narrative big tech is known for using to defend a law that solely serves to enable mass-scale algorithmic moderation, while doing nothing meaningful to protect human-curated decisions. Intent is very important in law, and small human moderators doing their best effort are perfectly fine pre-230, but large companies using algorithms to maximize engagement and revenue at the cost of human society really needs 230 to survive. Large companies that need to be regulated generally claim regulation won't really hurt them, but hurts small businesses. This is, of course, a completely ridiculous claim: If it helped them more than their competitors, they'd be all for it. Regulations can (and generally are) careful to include proper methods of handling businesses from small to large, and we've seen this bad claim from Google when trying to discourage privacy legislation like GDPR. He also addresses the conversation largely as someone who doesn't recognize the vast disparity between the large companies Section 230 protects, and the smaller parties it harms. For instance, while recognizing the first amendment is a largely suitable way to handle legitimate cases that Section 230 would apply to, he dismisses it by saying that Section 230 helps avoid nuisance or "frivolous" suits. Of course, if "nuisance suits" is the problem, perhaps we should admit that the three most valuable companies on the planet can more than afford to handle nuisance suits without additional legal protection. I'd love to find a good write up by an "opposite shill", but honestly, that's pretty hard: Google has invested more money into political lobbying than literally anyone else at this point. They've bought everyone who can be bought. And, while we're talking about not doxxing... how much work for Google have you done? A lot of your HN history seems to be largely defensive of them, and I found at least one comment clearly denoting you at least did work for them. I can confidently say I've never been paid by anyone working for or against Google... can you? So perhaps we should leave scouring each other's profiles out of it? The HN moderators would almost certainly prefer it.