Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side That One Guy with a comment about Congress ignoring bills to protect the press:

Gee, I wonder why they’d fear honest reporting so much…

When the head of your party is a convicted felon and a core pillar of said party is that any criticism against either you or it is an illegal attack and should be treated as such ‘journalists holding the government accountable’ and ‘traitors and criminals’ become the same thing.

When reality and truth are seen and treated as crimes ‘journalists’ is just another name for ‘traitor’.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment in a thread about what the election of Trump says about voters:

Yeah, Hitler “got” the German people in the 1930s also. They wanted an authoritarian leader who promised to hurt other people for their benefit. Ask all the dead German soldiers and the citizens of Dresden how that worked out. Ask all the Jewish people, gay people, and communists if they think they just didn’t understand the people who voted for fascism enough.

We understand Trump voters. But there’s a breaking point where you can’t appeal to them without engaging in false narratives and morally corrupt approaches. If “understanding” them means becoming like Trump, I’d rather lose.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got an anonymous comment about Senator Tom Cotton’s comment about members of the press not being better than anyone else:

This is also true with a lot of profession, starting with being a Senator.

Next, it’s Ehud Gavron with a comment about liability on second parties and beyond:

Far reaching implications.

My company was providing hosting services to Backpage’s servers in our datacenter. We had no content input. 1 level removed

Those server required power, which is provided by the electric utility company. 2-removed

When their techs installed servers or updated them, they’d occasionally make use of the water in the restroom and drinking fountain, which is provided by the water utility. 2-removed

The electric utility and water utility make use of fossil fuels to power their generators and pumps. Those are provided by refined fuel and natural gas companies. 3-removed

Those companies have service vehicles provided by generally Ford or Mercedes. 4-removed

Chase Bank or equivalent provided banking services allowing those companies to purchase/finance their vehicles. 5-removed

At that point does it become too remote to be in some way participatory in the CONTENT that allegedly was sex traficking? I have to agree with “very very stupid” that anyone other than Backpage (the company) should be in any way held liable for unlawful actions related to that content.

We could take this to its illogical extreme and get higher than ten levels removed. It’s absurd.

E

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is MrWilson with a comment about our Kickstarter for the new card game, One Billion Users (which you can still buy now that the campaign has succeeded):

I’m not even interested in playing the game, but I pledged just to spite the trolls. Fortunately, I have friends who might enjoy it.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment apparently from one of the winners in last week’s anonymous sweep of the comments:

I don’t always sign in, but when I forget to, I get voted most insightful…

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with the comment from Stephen T. Stone which that comment was replying to:

Congrats to all the nameless winners⁠—long may you be remembered!

Finally, it’s an anonymous comment about ExTwitter and TikTok:

One is a propaganda farm run by corrupt foreign influence.

The other is Tiktok.

That’s all for this week, folks!