Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Our first place winner on the insightful side this week is Gary with a comment about Georgia's ongoing attempt to lock up its laws with copyright:

Anyone that is actually and intentionally blocked from seeing the Georgia laws should get a free pass when it comes to breaking those laws, eh?

"Your honor, I actively petitioned the state beforehand to see if I was complying with the state law and was rebuffed."

In second place, it's Mason Wheeler with a linguistic take on EU regulation:

This is why we shouldn't use the passive voice

The "right to be forgotten".

Forgotten by whom? By people other than yourself.

Put into the proper active voice, this is the "right to compel others to forget about you." Which sounds ridiculously dystopian, like something out of a Philip K. Dick story.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from PaulT about the copyright lessons to be learned from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's dancing video:

This is an interesting illustration of how indefinable the losses to culture could be due to overreaching copyright. Nobody would have considered that the video when originally posted might have a life of its own, let alone one that reached into the first day of the 2019 congress, but here we are.

But, the questions nags at me - what more did we lose because record labels are capable of understanding human behaviour over and above the immediate profits they think they see in front of them? I suspect that culture is poorer, because other videos got killed before they had a chance to go viral, young artists put off from pursing their work or deprive from important inspirations.

The art and politics are both relatively minor in direct relation to this video, but it's worth thinking - if Newhouse's video was taken down earlier, we may not be reading this thread. What else, perhaps of far greater input - has been robbed? Sadly, we will never know.

Next, we head to our post about Google deeming one of our other posts "dangerous and derogatory" because of some user comments, which is the source of all our remaining winners and editor's choices this week. First up, it's Scote pointing out one frustrating piece of fallout from Google scanning user comments:

This is why BoingBoing has comments on a seperate page

BoingBoing and some other sites now banish comments to a page with its own URL so the main page doesn't get dinged by Google for the comments.

I prefer comments on the same page. Techdirt articles and comments are integral to one another, so I'd be sad to see the same happen here. I wish Google would get its s*** together instead.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous commenter who attempted to weaponize Google's system:

Ooo! Dangerous or Derogatory comments can shut down that delicious ad revenue kickbacks you get from Google because you are a Google shill?

Well here we go! time to trip that tag!

You should run with scissors!

Operate a motor vehicle after drinking powerful cough syrup!

Don't vaccinate!

Don't eat your vegetables!

Close your eyes and cover your ears before crossing the street!

That comment brought out "google shill" as a joke, but in second place we've got Gwiz with a response to someone who likes to level the accusation seriously:

Let me get this straight. If you accept a gift or a one time sponsorship from someone, you are considered a "shill" for them until the end of time, even if you constantly call them out for doing stupid shit?

If we use your (faulty) logic, we would have to assume that YOU are a Techdirt shill, since you freely accept Techdirt's "gift" of allowing you to publish your comments here.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a pair of commenters who continued to riff on the pattern set by the first place winner with more dangerous and derogatory comments. First, it's an anonymous addition:

Allow the commonors to have a voice!

Text with multiple people while you drive!

Be friends with someone who lives in Iran!

Attempt to bribe a cardboard cutout!

Am I on the right track?

And finally, it's Thad making still more trouble:

Talk with your mouth full
Bite the hand that feeds you
Bite off more than you can chew
What can you do?
You can dare to be stupid!

That's all for this week, folks!