Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, both our winners on the insightful side come from our post about a facts-free op-ed defending the bipartisan bill to repeal Section 230. In first place, it’s Stephen T. Stone reiterating a rule that holds true:

Once more, with feeling:

No one can oppose Section 230 without lying about it.

In second place, it’s Strawb with a reply to the claim that Section 230 allows “blatant viewpoint discrimination”:

No, that’s the First Amendment. But keep telling Mike how he “doesn’t understand the law”.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Dan B about Ajit Pai supporting the TikTok ban:

What makes this weird, to me, is that this isn’t even good politics for him.

Trump is (currently) against the ban, as are a plurality of independent voters. On top of that, there are solid, non-crazy legal arguments that the ban is unconstitutional. So this would have been an opportunity for Pai to simultaneously suck up to Trump, help the Republicans’ chances in 2024, and… do the right thing.

Next, it’s Drew Wilson with a comment about the potential (or not-so-potential) sale of TikTok:

I’m with Mike on this. The likelihood TikTok getting sold is very low at this point. TikTok made it very clear that they aren’t selling. They have their litigation effort (along with creator litigation next to them) fully ahead of them at this point. It makes WAY more sense that both TikTok and the creators that use the platform to focus on the lawsuits they filed. If it’s looking unlikely that the lawsuit is going to win and they change their mind on selling afterwards, then we’ll talk, but that’s a LONG way down the road and, what’s more, that’s a very big “if”.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous comment from last week’s winners post, responding to the winning insightful comment from that week, which was itself a reply to a comment throwing around some legal nonsense and included the line “the irony is that your hallucinated ‘facts’ are more offensive than ChatGPT’s”:

Hey, good news. Humans are still better at hallucinating than AI. Who’da thunk it.

In second place, it’s Boba Fatt with a comment about the bogus takedowns of “Fuck the LAPD” shirts:

I predict a new T-shirt design

now with “and the LAPDF, too”

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from i havent had coffee yet confessing a misreading of the headline on our post about “the streaming sector”:

I first read the title as “Screaming Sector Continues Its…” and assumed it was about maga/conservatives.

Finally, it’s an anonymous comment about the latest nonsense from the mayor of New York City:

Someone should just switch Eric Adams with Eric André one night just to see what happens.

That’s all for this week, folks!