Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is a simple anonymous reply to a complaint that Techdirt has become more politically biased:

Perhaps it isn’t really Techdirt that has changed, have you ever considered that?

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about the UK moral panic about kids having phones:

Yeah, they pretty much said the same things about skateboards, rollerblades, TV, Gameboys, Pokémons and so on.

But this time, it will be a great time when an young adult, for his very first day of work, will say: “I’m sorry, I know how to use a phone or a computer but I don’t recognize the blue icon? What? Internet? Ah yes, I’ve heard about it but I wasn’t allowed to talk about it.”

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with another anonymous comment, this time about how killing Section 230 strengthens tech monopolies and hurts the little guys:

I’ve said this a million times. As someone who occasionally makes websites that sometimes has user-generated content (not just comments, sometimes this involves hosting things like stories, or add-ons for a platform, etc), if you want to make me liable for user-generated content, I’m either going to cut out anything even remotely controversial, or simply not bother. This is not out of vindictiveness; I simply have better things to do than to be spending all day moderating.

I do think some people will cheer this on from their corners, and they would be right. A less-connected world does mean fewer opportunities to harass; remove Facebook from Myanmar and there is a good argument that the situation would have developed far slower (note that the Rwandan radio station involved in spreading hate-speech was later prosecuted explicitly for its involvement). However, as the number of digital platforms dwindles and the remaining ones are sanitized in the name of “safety”, I think we will find ourselves in a far more constrained new world. Kid-friendly usually just means disabling in-game chat: no communication, no cyberbullying! As someone who was a kid during that era, I do fear that will be the approach the world now takes: no communication, no crimes, no harassment, no nothing.

If that’s not a dystopia, then I don’t know what is.

Next, it’s Stephen T. Stone with a reply to a comment defending Australia’s overreach in attempted to censor ExTwitter:

For what reason should Twitter be held liable for third party speech if no employee at Twitter, up to and including Elon Musk, played any direct role in crafting or publishing that speech?

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is a quick anonymous retort to a grimly stupid comment:

Son, people here can see the stupid ass shit you are writing.

In second place, it’s David on last week’s winning comments post, responding to one of the featured comments that called for legislators to “have an IQ above room temperature”:

Locking legislators in cold storage would be cruel and unusual punishment.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the internet privacy law for private jet owners:

Maybe privacy will trickle down from the rich folks to the rest of us.

Finally, it’s one more anonymous comment, also from last week’s winning comments post, responding to a comment that called Craig Wright “just another grifter in a space packed with them”:

Don’t tell me he’s running for congress!

That’s all for this week, folks!