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Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment summing up the ridiculousness of the constant Republican attempts to force social media to host speech:

Businesses can’t be forced to bake cakes for gay people.

You can’t be told to wear a mask.

You can’t be told who you can sell a gun to.

But social media companies should be forced to publish your hate speech?

“Small government,” right?

In second place, it’s another anonymous comment responding to a commenter on that post complaining about Techdirt’s comment “censorship”:

If you keep on claiming that you decide where what you say is acceptable, some people here will exercise their right to get you comment hidden, which is not censoring. Free speech includes the rights of other to refuse to listen to you.

That post also drew the perennial and incorrect claim that “When a commercial platform de facto replaces the public forum, then either free speech must be enforced on that forum or free speech dies” — leading to an anonymous response that is our first editor’s choice for insightful:

And where is this de facto public forum that is also a social media company? Is it Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Youtube, TikTok, Snapchat, Parlor, Gab, 8chan? Please do tell me, which one of these social media companies have become the de facto public square?

And please tell me, what are the criteria that makes a company the de facto public square such that they lose their 1A rights?

When did all public lands close down their town squares forcing people online?

When did this happen? I don’t remember hearing about any legal decision that stated social media companies are now part of the government in relationship to the 1A.

If the government can’t force a bakery to bake for a gay couple, why should they force companies to host somebody else’s speech?

Where did you even get this statement anyway? Legal opinion? Federal Law? Your asshole?

Why do you hate the first amendment so much? (Never mind, don’t answer that)

Also, I live in Seattle, and there is a very robust “public forum” downtown where all sorts of people espouse their political opinions on a daily basis. So I can say with a high level of certainty, that the public forum has not been replaced by any social media company here.

Next, it’s yet another anonymous comment, this time about the lawsuit trying to hold Facebook liable for failing to stop militants from going to protests to shoot people:

So I can not think of much good to say about Facebook. However if SCOTUS has ruled that cops have no duty of care to save civilians, I can’t see how a third party communication service can be held to have it either

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Eric with a question about a major omission from The Social Dilemma:

What about addiction to techdirt…

Haven’t seen the movie…but i assume they did not cover techdirt and its impact on mental health! techdirt is clearly designed to be addicting due to the content they produce. I need to start my day by seeing if any new articles were posted overnight, I need to check at lunch, often time at the end of the work day I’ll check again…don’t even get me started on the lack of articles on the weekend – what am I supposed to do on Sunday morning, be with my family?! Its about time a documentary gets created about techdirt and it’s impact on the emotional well being of it’s die hard fans.

In second place, it’s That One Guy responding to the hypocrisy of the FCC commissioner cheering on Zoom for blocking people:

Be careful of the standards you use, lest they be used on you

Being convicted of a crime means you can be booted off of a privately owned platform and there’s no grounds to object? Well, I can’t possibly see that backfiring for members of Trump’s cult…

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start with Bt Garner and a question about our latest t-shirt offering:

So if I buy the $751 shirt, can I write that off as a business expense on my 2020 taxes?

Finally, it’s Rocky expanding on a discussion about the challenges of algorithmic content moderation with a great quip:

“Stupid computer! It doesn’t do what I want, only what I tell it to do!!”

That’s all for this week, folks!

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Author: Leigh Beadon

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