jstn:
LOL
This would be funnier if it weren’t so truly pathetic.
Taken paragraph by paragraph:
- Neither of the bills in question is about “parties working cooperatively together”. Instead, it’s about a whole host of the companies that form the foundation of the web, and the public at large, being forced to surrender their own rights as the government that is supposed to be protecting those same peoples rights instead capitulates to a few influential industries and their no-longer-relevent business models. (run-on sentence, yes. But it’s a free internet - so I can do that.)
- Further, there doesn’t seem to any evidence at all that there is “a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.” It’s opposite actually. As Tim O’Reilly put it: “In the entire discussion, I’ve seen no discussion of credible evidence of this economic harm. There’s no question in my mind that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying creative content without paying for it, and even that some criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there actual economic harm?” And that’s just it - the very foundational premise of this entire debate is assumed. This is frankly terrifying as a precedent for establishing law in this country.
- The only “abuse of the power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today” seems to coming from the very people responsible for this document. It’s frankly anathema to the free market ideals these same legislators and CEO’s claim to hold dear that they would push for a federal law protecting their own business model given, again, the complete lack of any evidence of actual harm.
- In terms of “a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts” I’ll simply refer to the preceding bullet and note that I’m beginning to think this might actually have been written by the Onion.
- Finally, I can’t think of anything “gimmick”-y about exercising one’s first amendment rights. And yes, this blackout IS “designed to punish elected and administration officials” - that’s what protests, and elections, are for. Perhaps the senator has forgotten who he’s there to work for?
(via irunfrombears)
