Comments on: Spectacular Failure

By: David Huff

David Huff — Mon, 07 May 2007 13:11:43 +0000

I’m not unsympathetic towards Mark’s position, but what about the value of “Internet-enabled” forms of communication WRT protesting dumbass laws (*cough* DMCA *cough*) or various forms of anti-consumer, corporate stupidity (recall the Sony DRM = rootkit fiasco last year) ?

The origin of the Internet (and yes, I’m old enough to remember that ;) was a gov’t funded project paid for by our tax dollars. So I think that we as citizens have a vested interest in not treating it as a 100% “private venture” – it’s not completely like “standing in JC Penney’s handing out flyers.”

By: Mark Steel

Mark Steel — Sun, 06 May 2007 16:57:45 +0000

If you’re standing in JC Penney’s handing out flyers containing copyrighted information, you’d end up in a mess. There’s no difference if you’re doing it on Digg.

By: Nate

Nate — Sun, 06 May 2007 02:37:43 +0000

But Mark, yelling an expletive or threatening bodily harm is not the same as disseminating copyrighted information. And the Internet is not a public place — it’s a collection of millions of privately owned hosts, some of which allow public access (in one form or another). Content providers are sued because it’s easier to (try to) cut the head off completely.

By: The Bears Are Roaring: Blog Roundup at Bears Necessity

The Bears Are Roaring: Blog Roundup at Bears Necessity — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:20:48 +0000

[...] scot hacker’s foobar blog » Spectacular Failure Digg vs. Diggers, the Diggers won, and you don’t give a shit either way. [...]

By: Mark Steel

Mark Steel — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:52:26 +0000

I understand that. What I’m saying is, if someone’s in a Supermarket and starts mouthing off threatening to kill people, or selling porn at the end of the Milk aisle, the Supermarket would ask them to leave.

And the other patrons wouldn’t sue the Supermarket.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the realm of the Internet, there’s too much separation of thought. People don’t take the above into consideration. No, instead they sue the content providers instead of the pricks causing a problem.

See where I’m going with that?

Like I said — I’ll blog about it later. I don’t wanna write it all here. ;-)

By: shacker

shacker — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:50:09 +0000

Well, there’s “public” as in a public park, and then there’s “public” as in a supermarket. The first belongs to the people, the second does not. These are very different animals. A web site owned by someone is under no obligation to allow any and all types of content to remain on its pages!

By: Mark Steel

Mark Steel — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:33:59 +0000

Yeah, I’ll blog it … There’s a huge loophole in Law, though. Plenty of things are “illegal.” Yelling “F#&@!” on a crowded sidewalk, for instance, is illegal. Trading porn in a bar is illegal. Baiting and threatening violence against someone, stalking, is illegal.

But for some reason, people and Laws don’t say, “The Internet is also a public place.”

There’s a gigantic seperation between “public” and “internet.” What is “cyber” is considered to be above most laws.

That’s all..

By: shacker

shacker — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:32:43 +0000

Mark, can you say more about this? Not quite sure what you’re getting at.

By: Mark Steel

Mark Steel — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:16:21 +0000

I’ll end up blogging about this soon enough… but…

For some reason, everyone keeps separating the idea of “public” and “internet.” If that little loophole was closed, the problem would go away.