Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that an individual "planting a tree" is really nothing more than "feel good shit" that actually has little or no discernable impact on the global environment, how can Dell's Second Life promotion have anything other than a positive impact on its program to plant real tres?
Do we know that it is symmetrical on all axes? Maybe our view to the nebula just happens to coincide with the one axis that exhibits that sort of symmetry?
I think you guys are missing the point... the concern isn't that "criminal masterminds" will benefit from Vista's security. The concern is that complete morons will now be protected by Vista's security. There's a bit of a difference there.
It also says the government can try and execute you if you engage in speech that provides aid and comfort to enemies. You've gotta use a little bit of common sense.
"Terrorists won't use a particular type of attack on airplanes because they know that that particular type of attack won't work on airplanes... there is, therefore, no point in in seeing to it that specific types of attacks won't work on airplanes."
For the love of God, quit tagging everything with "fud". It isn't clever, nor is it usually accurate. Show some originality, break from the groupthink.
According to the very article cited by this post, which you apparently didn't read, YouTube claims that flagged videos are not automatically removed. They are sent to a queue, and no video is removed due to flagging until it is reviewed by a human being on the YouTube staff. So you are apparently incorrect... they ARE censoring content. They only removed the restriction after the WorldNetDaily article ran and brought a lot of bad PR.
Maryrose, of The YouTube Team, said if any video viewer flags a video as inappropriate, it is forwarded to a queue for the company's customer support team to review.
"Videos are NEVER automatically removed simply because they've been flagged," Maryrose said. "Every single flagged video is reviewed by someone at YouTube who then determines if the video contains material that is against our terms of use."
If it's proof of anything, its that we don't know what the heck we're talking about, and scientists claim to know crazy things, when in reality they are (dubious) educated guesses. But it's the best we can do for the time being.
If it is 18 billion lightyears old, how can the "width" be greater than 36 billion light years? If the universe is 180 billion ly wide, the matter in the universe would have had to travel outward at 5 times the speed of light.
I wasn't meaning to equate the severity of defrauding an old woman of her savings to the act of luring kids into pornographic websites--that is debatable. I was simply meaning to show that free speech wasn't being restricted. I view the necessity of the law, which seems to be targeted at an act which is very rare at best, as a separate issue. I was just responding to the apocolyptic, panicked tone that was coming from so many people on slashdot, most of which don't seem to have read the article.
Just look at the hyperbole in some peoples' posts... many of them even started comparing this to China's ban on political speech and whatnot. And, unfortunately, due to my frustration with the tendencies of so many on slashdot to make such absurd statements, I became unfairly combative to many of you before... for that I apologize.
I do agree that the impetus for such legistlation seems to be pretty weak (although I don't know the exact circumstances that led to it), but I don't think that it effectively restricts anyone's free speech rights.
The law specifically and explicitly requires an "intent to deceive", which the article mentions prominently. Did you follow the link and read the article?
If someone's trying to trick kids to come to a porn site, so what?... I mean WTF is the big deal if kids see a little porn?... Does it "damage" them somehow?
You're obfuscating... the point is that the law doesn't violate anyone's rights. It just says that is is illegal to intentionally deceive certain people in a specific way, to be added to the zillion other ways of deceiving people which are currently illegal. An abstract discussion about the dangers or benefits of porn is off topic.
The fact that some porn star might be named "Barbara," or "Barbie" for short, and there is a doll with the name Barbie should not make using the word "Barbie" to promote the site a felony, or any kind of criminal or civil infraction. Heck, even if some porn site were spoofing Barbie with real live models, it should be protected by the law as parody.
This quote shows that you haven't actually read the article. The law explicitly requires an "intent to deceive". If you are a porn star named Barbie, then this law does not prohibit you from using the word "Barbie" to promote the site. And the article mentions a spoof site exactly like the one you mention, which wuold appear to be just fine under this law, because it is not intentionally deceptive.
Your logical propositions are contradictory. Any further conclusion is invalid.
That isn't true... I worded my point in an unfortunate manner, but that doesn't make it less true. There is no speech being banned by this law, there are no words being forbidden to you. What is being banned is not speech at all, but a specific intentionally deceptive act which happens to involve a form of speech.
My previous example (somewhere or another) stands... this is no less a restriction on speech than are laws forbidding you from deceiving an old woman into giving you her life savings. Say "Barbie" all you want, just don't do it with the intent to trick little kids into looking at porn.
This is a very, very reasonable law which does nothing to erode your free speech rights, and I have yet to hear any reasonable objections to it from anyone who appears to have read the law, or even the article. Someone further down in the comments posted the actual text of the law if you'd like to read it.
Well, the law makes it very clear that it is only illegal to use language that is meant to appeal to children with the intent to deceive. That seems to be confusing a lot of you. No speech is being limited, no words are being banned... it's a specific act that is beling outlawed: the act of attracting children to pornographic websites through deception involving intentionally deceptive keywords.
It is called "the slippery slope" in case you haven't heard of it.
Yes, I've heard of it. It is a very widely known logical fallacy.:-)
I agree with the slippery slope idea in the abstract. This bill, though, does not ban any speech. It only bans speech that is used specifically on porn websites with the intent to deceive. There is nothing in this bill that threatens your free speech.
Should we make it legal to con little old ladies into giving away their entire life savings? Why not? Where do you see a difference, beyond the magnitude of the damage done? Both involve speech which has been determined to be illegal because it is intended to deceive.
I think it just makes you guys feel smart and important to get apocalyptic and pissed about everything.
Save for some failure in the system (e.g. - a road surface collapse blocks a path), data transfer can NEVER "clog up", it can only slow more and more as new data/cars enter the system.
To the general public, an imposed/enforced/practical limit on bandwidth is perfectly analogous to a pipe with a maximum capacity (no need to get into flux and whatnot for the general audience). When people start talking about allocating or measuring bandwidth for certain types of data, pipes work.
You're thinking of this from a really technical POV, and from that POV I agree with you. Unfortunately, these sorts of legislative debates have a public, nontechnical component... and in that regard pipes get the point across sufficiently. I think that the 4 way stop description--while much more technically accurate--would confuse people.
Ultimately, though, I don't care how you describe it. I was just pointing out that I think the Senator's references to pipes could have been used differently so that it was actually a suffiecient description of the debate for the general public's consumption.
If her name is Barbie, then the meta tags cannot arguably be untruthful. Period. Maybe she did name herself that to trick kids to going to her website... if someone is going to chose a career path so far fetched, more power to them I suppose... this discussion is about meta tags that are designed to mislead kids into visiting porn websites. It is very narrow and scope, and does not concern broad free-speech rights.
No, [pipes] are not [pretty good metaphors for descibing the net neutrality debate to the public]. You cannot jam up electrons in a piece of wire like hair in PVC, and when you put too much refuse in your sink disposal, it does not spit all but one of it back out, then start taking them back in one at a time until it's all gone.
Do you actually understand what the "net neutrality" debate is about?
WOW.... I don't think you can compare laws governing meta tags to wire fraud laws.
I guess that you (and a couple of the others who responded to that post) didn't read the whole thread. The OP,to which I was replying, argued that it was a silly law because it couldn't be enforced. I simply illustrated the stupidity of that position. Many laws that can't be enforced internationally are successfully enforced domestically, and many laws that originally couldn't be forced internationally are enforced internationally now with the cooperation of foreign governments. That's why I labeled the argument as a non-sequitor, because it is.
If the site is the first listed in Google's index for the word "Barbie" then you just made Congress's case to some extent.:-)
And, I think that you are actually missing the point. The government isn't making it illegal to use keywords that don't perfectly reflect the content of the site... that's just a "whatever" thing. What is illegal is trying to trick kids to come to a porn site. It is very narrow and scope, and doesn't infringe on anyone's free speech rights, unless they are trying to trick kids to come to a porn site. If the keywords are legitimate with respect to the site's content, then it isn't illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that an individual "planting a tree" is really nothing more than "feel good shit" that actually has little or no discernable impact on the global environment, how can Dell's Second Life promotion have anything other than a positive impact on its program to plant real tres?
Do we know that it is symmetrical on all axes? Maybe our view to the nebula just happens to coincide with the one axis that exhibits that sort of symmetry?
I think you guys are missing the point... the concern isn't that "criminal masterminds" will benefit from Vista's security. The concern is that complete morons will now be protected by Vista's security. There's a bit of a difference there.
It also says the government can try and execute you if you engage in speech that provides aid and comfort to enemies. You've gotta use a little bit of common sense.
What you just said, basically, is this:
"Terrorists won't use a particular type of attack on airplanes because they know that that particular type of attack won't work on airplanes... there is, therefore, no point in in seeing to it that specific types of attacks won't work on airplanes."
Is that what you just said when you said that 4 and 2 were the same? Sweet.
For the love of God, quit tagging everything with "fud". It isn't clever, nor is it usually accurate. Show some originality, break from the groupthink.
If it's proof of anything, its that we don't know what the heck we're talking about, and scientists claim to know crazy things, when in reality they are (dubious) educated guesses. But it's the best we can do for the time being.
Nevermind... many others have asked this.
If it is 18 billion lightyears old, how can the "width" be greater than 36 billion light years? If the universe is 180 billion ly wide, the matter in the universe would have had to travel outward at 5 times the speed of light.
I wasn't meaning to equate the severity of defrauding an old woman of her savings to the act of luring kids into pornographic websites--that is debatable. I was simply meaning to show that free speech wasn't being restricted. I view the necessity of the law, which seems to be targeted at an act which is very rare at best, as a separate issue. I was just responding to the apocolyptic, panicked tone that was coming from so many people on slashdot, most of which don't seem to have read the article.
Just look at the hyperbole in some peoples' posts... many of them even started comparing this to China's ban on political speech and whatnot. And, unfortunately, due to my frustration with the tendencies of so many on slashdot to make such absurd statements, I became unfairly combative to many of you before... for that I apologize.
I do agree that the impetus for such legistlation seems to be pretty weak (although I don't know the exact circumstances that led to it), but I don't think that it effectively restricts anyone's free speech rights.
The law specifically and explicitly requires an "intent to deceive", which the article mentions prominently. Did you follow the link and read the article?
My previous example (somewhere or another) stands... this is no less a restriction on speech than are laws forbidding you from deceiving an old woman into giving you her life savings. Say "Barbie" all you want, just don't do it with the intent to trick little kids into looking at porn.
This is a very, very reasonable law which does nothing to erode your free speech rights, and I have yet to hear any reasonable objections to it from anyone who appears to have read the law, or even the article. Someone further down in the comments posted the actual text of the law if you'd like to read it.
Well, the law makes it very clear that it is only illegal to use language that is meant to appeal to children with the intent to deceive. That seems to be confusing a lot of you. No speech is being limited, no words are being banned... it's a specific act that is beling outlawed: the act of attracting children to pornographic websites through deception involving intentionally deceptive keywords.
I agree with the slippery slope idea in the abstract. This bill, though, does not ban any speech. It only bans speech that is used specifically on porn websites with the intent to deceive. There is nothing in this bill that threatens your free speech.
Should we make it legal to con little old ladies into giving away their entire life savings? Why not? Where do you see a difference, beyond the magnitude of the damage done? Both involve speech which has been determined to be illegal because it is intended to deceive.
I think it just makes you guys feel smart and important to get apocalyptic and pissed about everything.
You're thinking of this from a really technical POV, and from that POV I agree with you. Unfortunately, these sorts of legislative debates have a public, nontechnical component... and in that regard pipes get the point across sufficiently. I think that the 4 way stop description--while much more technically accurate--would confuse people.
Ultimately, though, I don't care how you describe it. I was just pointing out that I think the Senator's references to pipes could have been used differently so that it was actually a suffiecient description of the debate for the general public's consumption.
Then this shouldn't concern you. If it is purely hypothetical, and basically criminalizes something that noone wants to do, then don't worry about it.
That was a retarded point, and an obvious logical fallacy.
This particular law is more akin to making it illegal to lure kids into a car with candy with the intent to rape them.
If her name is Barbie, then the meta tags cannot arguably be untruthful. Period. Maybe she did name herself that to trick kids to going to her website... if someone is going to chose a career path so far fetched, more power to them I suppose... this discussion is about meta tags that are designed to mislead kids into visiting porn websites. It is very narrow and scope, and does not concern broad free-speech rights.
If the site is the first listed in Google's index for the word "Barbie" then you just made Congress's case to some extent. :-)
And, I think that you are actually missing the point. The government isn't making it illegal to use keywords that don't perfectly reflect the content of the site... that's just a "whatever" thing. What is illegal is trying to trick kids to come to a porn site. It is very narrow and scope, and doesn't infringe on anyone's free speech rights, unless they are trying to trick kids to come to a porn site. If the keywords are legitimate with respect to the site's content, then it isn't illegal.