3 ms·

Let's just legislate everything! When you have a group of people whose job it is to legislate and they work a good portion of the year, eventually those people

Let's just legislate everything! When you have a group of people whose job it is to legislate and they work a good portion of the year, eventually those people will create a law to govern everything including which finger you're allowed to pick your nose with. I'm not sure how many days the Arizona house is in session but they should take a page from the US House and take a major portion of the year off. If this is what they choose to spend their time on do we really need them to show up for work? Hell, I'd be happy to have my taxes to toward their vacations if it kept them from coming up with these ludicrous bills.

mindslight 15y ago
This phenomenon applied to the Internet is especially egregious. The Internet has happily existed for decades with very little fiat law. Facebook hires a good PR firm to spin Eternal September as a good thing, the self-entitled masses show up with no concern for how this world might be different, and every sad-sack politician is suddenly looking to solve non-problems to appear hip and relevant. Number One rule of the Internet: If what's being said affects you in a negative way, stop listening (this applies from OSI L2 on up). If you cannot handle this responsibility, please leave.
- DanBC 15y ago
  > Number One rule of the Internet: If you don't like what's being said, stop listening That's fine. I agree. What happens if AA says to BB "I know where you live, and I'm going to fucking kill you"? And if AA puts BB in a filter, and stops listening, and so BB morphs to BC and keeps writing. And then socks to BD, BE, BF and BG, and finds all relevant social media that AA is on, and posts anti-$MINORITY screeds, with credible threats of violence?
  - stcredzero 15y ago
    > Number One rule of the Internet: If you don't like what's being said, stop listening That's fine. I agree. That's find in my book as well. There's a consensual transaction. If one party doesn't like it, they can stop it. And if AA puts BB in a filter, and stops listening, and so BB morphs to BC and keeps writing. Then the transactions are no longer consensual. As I commented elsewhere, I think not being f^cked with if you don't want to be is a fundamental human right. Also, in this day and age, if someone has to get off the Internet entirely to achieve this, then something is wrong. If the concerted efforts of another party are involved in this state of affairs, then there is likely something unsavory and sadistic at play.
  - mindslight 15y ago
    I'd say there are many ways to take action and solve this while still using social media (after figuring out where on the vendetta...robot scale they fall) - filters, moderation, ban public comments, inform authorities in case anything actually happens, etc. Fundamental point being, if you can't solve unwanted communication to your satisfaction using the available tools for social media, including the various web sites' policies and processes that have been developed to deal with such phenomena, stop using those particular sites. If a technology fails to provide all the capabilities you'd like, that doesn't give you a right to demand changing the underlying philosophy. (Sorry, I changed my quote a bit because one can (and should) read things they "don't like", it's when one is looking to forcibly silence others' speech that they become the problem.)
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  I'm all for that but not so such an extreme. I have to admit that cyber bullying is a real phenomenon that really does hurt kids. That said, it's not the Internet that needs to be legislated. Harassment laws are already on the books. We simply have to make sure they apply to the web instead of creating totally new laws for Internet specific harassment. When you legislate online harassment separately from other forms of harassment you create two separate worlds with potentially two different sets of rules. Harassment is harassment no matter the medium and separating it like that opens the door to terrible things like censorship. Laws governing harassment offline generally aren't so broad that they restrict free speech but somehow when it comes to the web people have this weird cognitive disconnect like somehow your rights online are different than those offline. Maybe it's the anonymity of the web that allows legislators to think of Internet users as somehow not human. I don't know.

mindslight 15y ago

This phenomenon applied to the Internet is especially egregious. The Internet has happily existed for decades with very little fiat law. Facebook hires a good PR firm to spin Eternal September as a good thing, the self-entitled masses show up with no concern for how this world might be different, and every sad-sack politician is suddenly looking to solve non-problems to appear hip and relevant. Number One rule of the Internet: If what's being said affects you in a negative way, stop listening (this applies from OSI L2 on up). If you cannot handle this responsibility, please leave.

DanBC 15y ago
> Number One rule of the Internet: If you don't like what's being said, stop listening That's fine. I agree. What happens if AA says to BB "I know where you live, and I'm going to fucking kill you"? And if AA puts BB in a filter, and stops listening, and so BB morphs to BC and keeps writing. And then socks to BD, BE, BF and BG, and finds all relevant social media that AA is on, and posts anti-$MINORITY screeds, with credible threats of violence?
- stcredzero 15y ago
  > Number One rule of the Internet: If you don't like what's being said, stop listening That's fine. I agree. That's find in my book as well. There's a consensual transaction. If one party doesn't like it, they can stop it. And if AA puts BB in a filter, and stops listening, and so BB morphs to BC and keeps writing. Then the transactions are no longer consensual. As I commented elsewhere, I think not being f^cked with if you don't want to be is a fundamental human right. Also, in this day and age, if someone has to get off the Internet entirely to achieve this, then something is wrong. If the concerted efforts of another party are involved in this state of affairs, then there is likely something unsavory and sadistic at play.
- mindslight 15y ago
  I'd say there are many ways to take action and solve this while still using social media (after figuring out where on the vendetta...robot scale they fall) - filters, moderation, ban public comments, inform authorities in case anything actually happens, etc. Fundamental point being, if you can't solve unwanted communication to your satisfaction using the available tools for social media, including the various web sites' policies and processes that have been developed to deal with such phenomena, stop using those particular sites. If a technology fails to provide all the capabilities you'd like, that doesn't give you a right to demand changing the underlying philosophy. (Sorry, I changed my quote a bit because one can (and should) read things they "don't like", it's when one is looking to forcibly silence others' speech that they become the problem.)
billpatrianakos 15y ago
I'm all for that but not so such an extreme. I have to admit that cyber bullying is a real phenomenon that really does hurt kids. That said, it's not the Internet that needs to be legislated. Harassment laws are already on the books. We simply have to make sure they apply to the web instead of creating totally new laws for Internet specific harassment. When you legislate online harassment separately from other forms of harassment you create two separate worlds with potentially two different sets of rules. Harassment is harassment no matter the medium and separating it like that opens the door to terrible things like censorship. Laws governing harassment offline generally aren't so broad that they restrict free speech but somehow when it comes to the web people have this weird cognitive disconnect like somehow your rights online are different than those offline. Maybe it's the anonymity of the web that allows legislators to think of Internet users as somehow not human. I don't know.