Mike Wuerthele

tnet-primary said:

There is literally no reason for this to be an article on AI.  Because he used the term “iCloud” in his argument?   And the last three paragraphs of the article - general commentary on Apple’s work with government requests - have been covered, ad nauseam, in other pieces.  

Stay out of politics, please.

chadbag said:

Not sure why we care about HW comparisons.  The Macs run macOS.  The Surface Pro runs Windows.   Your software needs will more than likely guide you to the HW to buy.  

I personally have no need of any Windows based app except for some model railroad software that is Windows only.  An old HP low end $300 laptop I won in a raffle and VMware on my Intel based Macs handles that need.   Any MS Office needs that pop up are incidental and Mac accessible versions suffice.  

If I was running a business that revolves around constant high end use of Office or if I had specialty software that only ran on Windows the. I would look at Windows based HW.  

I couldn’t care less about Mac vs Windows based HW specs.  

mcdave said:

Time for Apple to collapse all components into SoCs, SiPs & sticks with software that only supports its set configurations.
Does Apple reserve the right to ignore botched repair attempts?

22july2013 said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

22july2013 said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

22july2013 said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

trinko said:

Aside from Congressional lack of information the basic problem is that Section 230 is being misused.

The intent was that if FB Twitter et al content neutral platforms, like the phone company, and didn't censor anything other than criminal acts, child porn etc, they couldn't be held liable for the content.

That makes sense.

The problem is that FB Twitter etc have become publishers who censor information that disagrees with their ideological agenda.  Given that's the case they should no more be immune to lawsuits about their content than the NYT is.  If the NYT were to publish a letter that said that I was a Nazi I could sue them and collect a fortune. But with the current policy FB can publish a comment calling me a Nazi and face no potential liability.

I'm more concerned with FB Twitter et al censoring information and using bogus fact checkers than I am about radicals, either Antifa or the Capital rioters, using them.  Hence I want FB and Twitter to face real legal liabilities for their viewpoint based censorship.

If silencing voices they don't like, but which aren't calling for criminal activity like the Capitol riot, starts to cost the Tech Titans hundreds of millions of dollars we can only hope that they will return to being content neutral platforms that only censor calls for criminal activity.

The bolded in no way makes a venue a publisher. For instance, AppleInsider is liable for content that we publish under the masthead.

What you folks say here in the forums, as long as we have a good faith moderation effort, we are not responsible for. If we chose to moderate the forums by an idealogical agenda, that STILL doesn't make us a publisher of what THE USER says in the forums.

If you want to convince the supreme court that companies don't have first amendment rights and overturn three decades of precedent, hey, go ahead, because that's what it's going to take to force an ideologically neutral standpoint. But until they don't have those rights, they may moderate as they see fit.

And, the proposals for 230 reform that both parties have put forth? It will mandate MORE moderation, not LESS. Anything even remotely questionable or in the slightest bit untrue will need to be purged. 

Generally I'm on your side, Mike, but if you aren't liable for content that's not under your masthead, then why do you need section 230 to absolve you of responsibility for user contributions? It makes no sense. If you aren't guilty then you don't need extra legal protection.

Because 230 is what grants that absolution for content not under our masthead.

Without it, there is no absolution for user-generated content at all. Basically, it provides the same protections that are codified for "Letters to the editor" in print media.

You contradict yourself. You said:

1. "as long as we have a good faith moderation effort, we are not responsible for [user content]," but you then said,
2. Without it [section 230], there is no absolution for user-generated content at all.
   

Do you see the contradiction? In (1) you said that you had to make a good faith effort, but in (2) you said you have absolution for all user content.

I'm not angry with you Mike, but this is a total contradiction. Either you need to perform good faith moderation even with 230 or you do not. Which is it? You have to have an answer. 

EDIT: I may see the reason for the confusion. Mike earlier said, "What you folks say here in the forums, as long as we have a good faith moderation effort, we are not responsible for." He did NOT say that this was a direct result of section 230. But maybe that's what he meant. If that's what he meant, then there isn't a contradiction. I was only able to take his statement at face value, and he made no mention that the good faith moderation effort was contingent on section 230. It's odd, I would have thought that the good faith effort statement was still true even before section 230. Otherwise websites would be responsible for everything anyone said even before they could moderate it. That of course makes no sense, so I have trouble believing anyone could think that is true.

This was said at the tail end of the last page, but it bears repeating. There is no contradiction. Like I said, 230 is what provides the protection for publications like AppleInsider assuming moderation of comments, to not be a publisher of user-generated comments. 

Before most of the self-published Internet began, the first lawsuits started cropping up, In 1992, the lawsuits about user-generated content began, most notably against Prodigy, but there were a few against other services like AOL and the like. Oakmont versus Prodigy was among the first, and was the highest-profile.

In case you didn't see my refutation of Crawley, I'll repeat it here. The Stratton Oakmont case is inapplicable because they were not "making a good faith effort to remove illegal user content." You are doing that. Do you see the difference now? It's a huge difference. That's not a technicality, that's a massive difference. I've been asking over and over again if anyone can cite any case where a good faith effort to remove illegal content was insufficient for protecting a web site operator against legal attacks over that content, and nobody has cited a case.

22july2013 said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

22july2013 said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

trinko said:

Aside from Congressional lack of information the basic problem is that Section 230 is being misused.

The intent was that if FB Twitter et al content neutral platforms, like the phone company, and didn't censor anything other than criminal acts, child porn etc, they couldn't be held liable for the content.

That makes sense.

The problem is that FB Twitter etc have become publishers who censor information that disagrees with their ideological agenda.  Given that's the case they should no more be immune to lawsuits about their content than the NYT is.  If the NYT were to publish a letter that said that I was a Nazi I could sue them and collect a fortune. But with the current policy FB can publish a comment calling me a Nazi and face no potential liability.

I'm more concerned with FB Twitter et al censoring information and using bogus fact checkers than I am about radicals, either Antifa or the Capital rioters, using them.  Hence I want FB and Twitter to face real legal liabilities for their viewpoint based censorship.

If silencing voices they don't like, but which aren't calling for criminal activity like the Capitol riot, starts to cost the Tech Titans hundreds of millions of dollars we can only hope that they will return to being content neutral platforms that only censor calls for criminal activity.

The bolded in no way makes a venue a publisher. For instance, AppleInsider is liable for content that we publish under the masthead.

What you folks say here in the forums, as long as we have a good faith moderation effort, we are not responsible for. If we chose to moderate the forums by an idealogical agenda, that STILL doesn't make us a publisher of what THE USER says in the forums.

If you want to convince the supreme court that companies don't have first amendment rights and overturn three decades of precedent, hey, go ahead, because that's what it's going to take to force an ideologically neutral standpoint. But until they don't have those rights, they may moderate as they see fit.

And, the proposals for 230 reform that both parties have put forth? It will mandate MORE moderation, not LESS. Anything even remotely questionable or in the slightest bit untrue will need to be purged. 

Generally I'm on your side, Mike, but if you aren't liable for content that's not under your masthead, then why do you need section 230 to absolve you of responsibility for user contributions? It makes no sense. If you aren't guilty then you don't need extra legal protection.

Because 230 is what grants that absolution for content not under our masthead.

Without it, there is no absolution for user-generated content at all. Basically, it provides the same protections that are codified for "Letters to the editor" in print media.

You contradict yourself. You said:

1. "as long as we have a good faith moderation effort, we are not responsible for [user content]," but you then said,
2. Without it [section 230], there is no absolution for user-generated content at all.
   

Do you see the contradiction? In (1) you said that you had to make a good faith effort, but in (2) you said you have absolution for all user content.

I'm not angry with you Mike, but this is a total contradiction. Either you need to perform good faith moderation even with 230 or you do not. Which is it? You have to have an answer. 

EDIT: I may see the reason for the confusion. Mike earlier said, "What you folks say here in the forums, as long as we have a good faith moderation effort, we are not responsible for." He did NOT say that this was a direct result of section 230. But maybe that's what he meant. If that's what he meant, then there isn't a contradiction. I was only able to take his statement at face value, and he made no mention that the good faith moderation effort was contingent on section 230. It's odd, I would have thought that the good faith effort statement was still true even before section 230. Otherwise websites would be responsible for everything anyone said even before they could moderate it. That of course makes no sense, so I have trouble believing anyone could think that is true.