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Well, I know my political opinion is that you should check out my new product, and I'm going to express this political opinion a lot. If necessary I'll include

Well, I know my political opinion is that you should check out my new product, and I'm going to express this political opinion a lot. If necessary I'll include a sentence about a US President. I'm half serious here. I would love to tell people about a new game I have on Steam (let's say), so I code a WebDriver "tool". It searches out gaming related Tweets and then expresses my political opinion. I have to press enter once for each post it makes. It's not a bot, since it only responds to user input from a genuine Texan. I even do a captcha by hand every once in a while. I guess it goes back to your excellent quote, nobody know what compliance with this law looks like.

trimethylpurine 4y ago
The very fact that you made this comment implies that you expect the public to understand what it means. Therefore, so would a jury of your peers. In other words, if you get that this behavior is just a twist on botting, it's safe to assume the courts will too.
- judge2020 4y ago
  What is 'botting'? Would it include paying a bunch of college kids $50 to spam reply this message to people for 3 hours a day?
  - trimethylpurine 4y ago
    That all depends on how many years your attorney has been playing golf with the judge.
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    > What is 'botting'? It's whatever your acceptable-use policy defines "botting" to be, as long as that definition is viewpoint-neutral. A restriction against "paying a bunch of college kids $50 to spam reply this message to people for 3 hours a day" is clearly a viewpoint-neutral one, and so, yes, it would be obviously legal.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- okaram 4y ago
  You expect way too much of the justice system... The 'peers' on HN are very different from the peers on an average jury
  - trimethylpurine 4y ago
    You expect way too much of HN. Apparently, the average poster on HN doesn't know how jury selection works. There's nothing "average" about a jury.
- Buttons840 4y ago
  If I have to run a thin thread of politics through my product from beginning to end I will. It won't be the first time a product is tied to a political identity, and it's often beneficial to do so. Heck, I'll even make two similar products and tie each to a different political party, so everyone can buy the product that matches their political view. My products are political statements, and 1% of all profits go to political causes! I'm not faking, if you give me an incentive to let my political opinion seep into every aspect of my life, I can do it; even without incentive I find it hard to avoid. Being able to spam social media about my product without punishment is a pretty big incentive. If I genuinely believe that the most important thing people can do to support <politician> is buy my product, that is still far - far! - from the most extreme political views out there. Someone out there is pushing their product as a supposed political view, you drag them into court and find that they actually believe it, and they also genuinely believe the world is flat and the government is run by lizard people. What are you going to do? All their speech about those things is now protected.
  - trimethylpurine 4y ago
    Sure, all of that's true, so long as you can convince a judge, or a jury of peers selected by a team of attorneys highly paid to make your life a nightmare. The law is subjective, just like your spiteful view of it. And you can bet there are spiteful judges, just like you.
    - Buttons840 4y ago
      A lot of your comments seem to be in the realm of "it doesn't matter what the law is, judges and juries will do what they want", which I partly agree with, but within the context of this debate we should assume that judges and juries will uphold the law. Otherwise, why are we debating the pros and cons of the law if nobody is going to uphold it?
      - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
        Because reality is that laws are not enforced regularly, equally, and uniformly.

trimethylpurine 4y ago

The very fact that you made this comment implies that you expect the public to understand what it means. Therefore, so would a jury of your peers. In other words, if you get that this behavior is just a twist on botting, it's safe to assume the courts will too.

judge2020 4y ago
What is 'botting'? Would it include paying a bunch of college kids $50 to spam reply this message to people for 3 hours a day?
- trimethylpurine 4y ago
  That all depends on how many years your attorney has been playing golf with the judge.
- catiopatio 4y ago
  > What is 'botting'? It's whatever your acceptable-use policy defines "botting" to be, as long as that definition is viewpoint-neutral. A restriction against "paying a bunch of college kids $50 to spam reply this message to people for 3 hours a day" is clearly a viewpoint-neutral one, and so, yes, it would be obviously legal.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
okaram 4y ago
You expect way too much of the justice system... The 'peers' on HN are very different from the peers on an average jury
- trimethylpurine 4y ago
  You expect way too much of HN. Apparently, the average poster on HN doesn't know how jury selection works. There's nothing "average" about a jury.
Buttons840 4y ago
If I have to run a thin thread of politics through my product from beginning to end I will. It won't be the first time a product is tied to a political identity, and it's often beneficial to do so. Heck, I'll even make two similar products and tie each to a different political party, so everyone can buy the product that matches their political view. My products are political statements, and 1% of all profits go to political causes! I'm not faking, if you give me an incentive to let my political opinion seep into every aspect of my life, I can do it; even without incentive I find it hard to avoid. Being able to spam social media about my product without punishment is a pretty big incentive. If I genuinely believe that the most important thing people can do to support <politician> is buy my product, that is still far - far! - from the most extreme political views out there. Someone out there is pushing their product as a supposed political view, you drag them into court and find that they actually believe it, and they also genuinely believe the world is flat and the government is run by lizard people. What are you going to do? All their speech about those things is now protected.
- trimethylpurine 4y ago
  Sure, all of that's true, so long as you can convince a judge, or a jury of peers selected by a team of attorneys highly paid to make your life a nightmare. The law is subjective, just like your spiteful view of it. And you can bet there are spiteful judges, just like you.
  - Buttons840 4y ago
    A lot of your comments seem to be in the realm of "it doesn't matter what the law is, judges and juries will do what they want", which I partly agree with, but within the context of this debate we should assume that judges and juries will uphold the law. Otherwise, why are we debating the pros and cons of the law if nobody is going to uphold it?
    - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
      Because reality is that laws are not enforced regularly, equally, and uniformly.