This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is MrWilson with a comment about Trump announcing all the things he’s going to spend his tariff tax revenue on:

Behold, the Party of Fiscal Responsibility Corruptibility!

In second place, it’s Thad with a comment about what’s going on with AI:

Also, the problem isn’t that AI costs too much, it’s that people fucking don’t want it.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment from Thad, this time about the media’s reporting on Trump’s unhinged rant about Rob Reiner:

I used to say the news media were stenographers.

Now I wish they were stenographers. At least stenographers would accurately report Trump’s words.

Our news media are reputation managers: they sanewash Trump’s incoherence and cruelty to make them sound rational and respectable.

Next, it’s Kinetic Gothic with another comment on said rant:

Trump is proving my first rule of TDS.

People who accuse someone of suffering from TDS will invariably be more unhinged than the person they’re accusing.

Over on the funny side, it’s another slow week for comments (actually pretty slow on both sides, which I chock up to the holiday season!) so once again we’ll forego the editor’s choice and just highlight the two comments that barely cracked the threshold for a funny badge. In first place, it’s zerosignal with a comment about the rhetoric around ICE ramping up activity in Minneapolis:

I went downtown to a Timberwolves game recently, and was murdered TWICE! Once on my way to dinner before the game, and once after the game walking to Ramp B.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about the role of an ad agency that makes gambling ads in Australia’s social media ban, in response to a comment about “playing with loaded dice”:

You can still load those dice over a VPN.

That’s all for this week, folks!

Five Years Ago

This week in 2020, USA Today published its latest bogus oped against Section 230 that misrepresented the law, a district court rejected CDT’s challenge of Trump’s ridiculous executive order about 230, and Trump appointed an unqualified 230-hater to a top DOJ role. Lindsay Graham threatened to repeal 230 if it wasn’t reformed, a prelude to the repeat of this attack happening now, while Brendan Carr was doing his own part in misrepresenting the debate about the law, and some smaller internet companies were saying they were open to 230 reform just to keep Facebook from being the only voice in the room. We also saw accusations that the FCC blew $9 billion delivering broadband to rich people who already had it, and that it was falsely inflating data on the availability of gigabit broadband.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2015, while the clueless press was being played to suggest encryption played a role in the San Bernardino attacks, Congress dropped all pretense and quietly turned CISA into a full-on surveillance bill that represented a massive threat to privacy (which of course didn’t stop its supporters from saying it was necessary to protect privacy). The White House broke its promise and threw its support behind the bill too, then Congress approved it as part of an omnibus bill that also contained a bunch of other nonsense. Meanwhile, Philips caused a stir with DRM on lightbulbs that locked purchasers our of third-party bulbs with a firmware upgrade, but after spending a day being kicked around by anyone and everyone online, they walked it back.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2010, we wrote about how the US government’s reaction to Wikileaks was doing a lot more harm than the leaks themselves, while the Congressional Research Service was complaining about having its access to the site blocked, Columbia Journalism School staff were warning Obama that prosecuting Wikileaks would set a dangerous precedent, and the government was considering trying to bring CFAA charges against Julian Assange. Meanwhile, the owners of a hip-hop blog whose domain was seized by Homeland Security were still trying to get answers about what they supposedly did wrong, the judge in the Limewire case was asking record labels to actually prove their supposed losses, and the US infamously became a book-banning country with a permanent injunction against an unauthorized sequel to Catcher In The Rye.

The relationship between journalism and AI has been off to an antagonistic start, with multiple court cases underway and plenty of discourse about what should happen next. There are various proposed approaches to setting up a better interplay between the two, but one person with an especially unique idea is Professor Jeff Jarvis, who joins the podcast this week to discuss the concept of an API for news that would help journalists embrace AI in a positive way.

You can also download this episode directly in MP3 format.

Follow the BestNetTech Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on BestNetTech.

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is drew repeating an important point about how ICE keeps deporting people while blowing off court rulings:

Nothing will change

Until the courts charge some people with contempt and issue some prison time.

In second place, it’s MrWilson with thoughts on the assertion that calling someone a Nazi is not a verifiable statement of fact:

Ironically, I’d actually dispute this. There are indeed a lot of poorly chosen usages of the terms, but they’re not all imprecise and many are verifiable according to several academic definitions.

When I call Trump or Musk a fascist, I’m referencing my knowledge of Eco, Britt, and other standards covered in academia on the subject. We can check off the list of criteria easily. It’s not loose wording. It’s not a substitute for “people I don’t like” or “people I disagree with politically.” Not everyone I disagree with is a fascist. Every fascist is a person I disagree with. If the Hugo Boss fits, then it’s an accurate term.

Ironically people claiming that calling a fascist a fascist is defamation are twisting the meaning of the word defamation to mean “label I don’t like,” rather than “intentionally maliciously untrue label.” And more often, fascists are anti-intellectuals so they don’t even understand what fascism is academically speaking, so they’re not in a position to dispute if the definition is accurate.

Although I wouldn’t say that’s quite the same thing as a “verifiable fact” as distinct from a reasonable and well-supported opinion, it’s a good point and one that’s succinctly summed up by Thad in our first editor’s choice for insightful:

Motherfucker gonna sieg heil and endorse great replacement theory and then get mad when people call him a nazi.

Next, it’s Arianity with a comment about the notion that Rep. Haley Stevens filing articles of impeachment against RFK Jr. is just a way to raise her profile and build voter turnout:

Not only do I not care, this is a good thing and is how representative politics is supposed to work. Doing good things that voters want to raise your profile is literally how politics is supposed to align incentives!

Hopefully it pays off, both because she deserves it and as a reminder to others that actually doing your job comes with benefits. The most remarkable thing has been Dems complete lack of self interest in the face of their constituents begging them to use the limited tools they have.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is n00bdragon with a comment about Greg Abbott’s fears that the release of his communications with Elon Musk would reveal “intimate and embarrassing” exchanges:

Call me old fashioned but the sorts of people that I send “intimate and embarrassing” messages to are pretty much limited to my wife.

Is Mr. Abbott meaning to imply that he and Mr. Musk know each other in the biblical fashion?

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment even more succinctly summing up the points made by MrWilson and Thad about calling someone a Nazi:

If not Nazi, why Nazi shaped?

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from BernardoVerda about a currently popular theory for explaining the state of our culture and the discourse:

Well… “Everyone is 12 now” would explain why more than half of Americans can’t read or write at the 6th grade level.

Finally, it’s an anonymous comment about the EU hitting ExTwitter with a massive fine:

Odds are that $140M is more that what Twitter actually worth right is now.

That’s all for this week, folks!

Five Years Ago

This week in 2020, the ACLU told congress not to add a terrible copyright bill to the must-pass government funding bill, Senator Tillis was trying to slide a dangerous felony streaming bill in as well (the details of which showed it was a weird gift to Hollywood at the expense of taxpayers), and Trump was doubling down again on his threat to veto the NDAA if it didn’t include a repeal of Section 230 (among other things). Meanwhile, as a parting shot on her way out of congress, Tulsi Gabbard introduced yet another attack on Section 230, while Biden’s top tech advisor trotted out his own dangerous ideas for “reforming” 230.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2015, it was Hillary Clinton doubling down on attacks on tech, in this case demanding a “solution” for encryption and a clampdown on free speech, while Mitch McConnell was asking Obama to spell out a law that would ban encryption so the Senate could deliver it, Rep. McCaul was proposing a “commission” to “force” Silicon Valley to undermine encryption, and James Comey was teaming up with Dianne Feinstein to mislead the public about encryption and promise new legislation. Meanwhile, in the wake of the shutdown of the NSA’s Section 215 program, Senators were calling for mandatory data retention for telcos, the Associated Press was making disingenuous claims about the program, and it turned out the NSA would still be accessing the old phone metadata it collected.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2010, the Wikileaks fallout continued. The more people tried to kill it, the more it spread. Twitter decided not to block it as a trending topic but stayed silent on whether it would shut down its account, while Senator Lieberman was saying the NY Times should be investigated for publishing Wikileaks documents (and we pointed out how strange it would have been if the paper had ignored them), and the State Department repeated its bizarre demand for Wikileaks to “return” leaked cables. Visa and Mastercard cut the site off after its latest leak was about them, the Defense Department appeared to be blocking any website with Wikileaks in the title, and amidst all this the State Department was going ahead with… hosting World Press Freedom Day.

The new year is approaching fast, and you know what that means: new material is entering the public domain in the US, and we’ll be celebrating it with the eighth installment of our public domain game jam. What’s more, this is an extra special year because the ever-growing public domain is hitting a new decade: it’s time for Gaming Like It’s 1930!

As in past years, we’re calling on designers of all stripes to create both analog and digital games that build on works entering the public domain. There are plenty of interesting works to draw on, including:

• Written works by Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Langston Hughes, Olaf Stapledon, Sigmund Freud, William Faulkner
• Art by Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Grant Wood, M. C. Escher, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian
• Films All Quiet on the Western Front, Animal Crackers, Hell’s Angels, and the first Looney Toons
• Music by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, and Son House
• Other characters including Nancy Drew and The Little Engine That Could

The jam will begin on January 1st and run through the end of the month, accepting submissions of both analog and digital games based on works from 1930. Whether you’ve participated before or not, we encourage everyone to get involved!

Even if you don’t have any experience, it’s never been easier to try your hand at game design. There are lots of great tools available that let anyone build a simple digital game, like interactive fiction engine Twine and the storytelling platform Story Synth from Randy Lubin, our game design partner and co-host of this jam (check out his guide to building a Story Synth game in an hour here on BestNetTech). And an analog game can be as simple as a single page of rules. For inspiration, you can have a look at last year’s winners and our series of winner spotlight posts that take a look at each year’s winning entries in more detail.

At the end of the jam we’ll be choosing winners in six categories, and awarding a choice of prizes from BestNetTech and Diegetic Games. You can read the full rules and other details, and sign up to participate, on the game jam page over on Itch.io. We’ll be back with more reminder posts as the jam draws nearer, including a look at one card game submission from last year that has since been released for purchase and is getting great reviews (so stay tuned for that!)

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is rkhalloran with a comment about keeping kids safe online:

The correct answer is ACTUALLY PARENT YOUR KIDS.

This is the digital version of finding “nudie mags” under your kid’s bed then trying to sue Playboy/Penthouse/… for the kid getting ahold of them (yes I know they’ve stopped publishing in print).

In second place, it’s MrWilson with a comment about the Republican Kansas mayor who is facing charges and deportation for voter fraud:

Beyond the leopards-face-eating angle of the story, it’s important to also note this prime example of “voter fraud” being perpetrated by a conservative Trump voter. The accusation-confession that undocumented immigrants are committing voter fraud for Democratic candidates continues to underwhelm upon review of available evidence.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from GHB on the child online safety issue:

These people assume that other people should be the child’s parents.

I don’t agree that the internet should be a friggen daycare for the young. They’re just advocating that everyone online should be the child’s parent.

Next, it’s Heart of Dawn with a comment about misdirected AI doomerism:

AI, especially under the current LLM approach will never go full Skynet and eradicate humanity with killer robots.

No, it’s so, so very much dumber than that.

It’s going to kill a lot of people by sucking vast amounts resources and polluting the environment, and then even more by poisoning the legal, medical, educational, and social systems we rely on with bigoted (remember it’s trained on the internet) and misinformed slop. And that’s before people like Musk deliberately twist them to suit their own ends.

GenAI needs to be massively reigned in but not on the way, and not for the reasons StopAI insist. To paraphrase Milo Rossi, you don’t need something shadowy to get mad at, you can get mad at what’s actually there.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is CitizenArrest with another comment about Congress’s internet-censorship-for-child-safety plans:

Reporting suspicious behavior

Dear Congress,

We’ve noticed you thinking about children…

In second place, it’s Flakbait with a comment about Congress finally planning to look into Trump’s boat strike killing spree:

Congressional investigation

Oh, thank God! Congress is on it! We’re saved!

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the Trump phone’s failure to materialize:

1. Bubba excitedly buys Trump T1 the day it’s announced.
2. Bubba is still waiting six months later for his mobile to be delivered.
3. Bubba twelve months later forgets that he purchased the T1 gets all excited when the Trump T2 is announced.
4. Bubba buys T2 at inflated price.
5. Rinse and repeat steps 1 – 4 as each new Model T is announced.

Finally, it’s Thad with a comment about our criticisms of NYC’s police oversight board:

No, see, you misunderstood.

It’s “oversight” definition 1, “an omission or error due to carelessness.”

That’s all for this week, folks!

Five Years Ago

This week in 2020, Donald Trump got angry about a trend on Twitter and went full force calling for a repeal of Section 230, renewing the effort to slip this into the must-pass military spending bill. Trump promised he was willing to defund the entire military if Congress didn’t agree, but Congress decided to ignore his threats and even Republicans threatened to override his veto as he doubled down. At the same time, of course, Congress itself was looking to sneak unconstitutional copyright reform into the same bill, and Nancy Pelosi sold out the public and agreed.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2015, France was using the state of emergency following the Paris terrorist attacks as an excuse to round up climate change activists, while former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer was using the San Bernadino shooting to call for more domestic surveillance. One appeals court issued a fantastic First Amendment ruling against a censorious Sheriff’s anti-internet crusade, while another allowed secret drone memos to remain secret, and one recipient of an FBI National Security Letter was finally able to reveal the details 11 years after receiving it. Also, the US government quietly returned two domain names that ICE had seized five years earlier.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2010, we were writing about that very domain seizure, pointing out how the evidence that they were all purely dedicated to infringement was unconvincing. But the even bigger topic was the war on Wikileaks, as Obama announced he was “considering” legal action against the site, Amazon bowed to pressure and refused to host it, Senator Liberman introduced a new kneejerk censorship bill, the Library of Congress blocked the site, and we wrote about how both both this drama and the domain seizures showed how private intermediaries were increasingly involved in government censorship.

Earlier today, we joined in announcing the Resonant Computing Manifesto: a call for restoring a culture of technology that empowers users and enriches their lives. The manifesto was created by a group led by Alex Komoroske, and today Alex joins the podcast for a deeper dive into what “resonant computing” means and what a better future might look like.

You can also download this episode directly in MP3 format.

Follow the BestNetTech Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on BestNetTech.

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is MrWilson with a comment about how fascism is happening live on TV:

Trump’s supporters, like Trump himself, if being honest (ha!) will reply, “I don’t care, I want this to happen.”

They’ve never cared about the Constitution except as a weapon to be used against others and as a get-out-of-responsibility free card to use when someone calls them out. Hence the hypocrisy that they defend their harassing and threatening language as “free speech” but call for the persecution and prosecution of the free speech with which they disagree.

They think of the Constitution the same way they do the bible and America itself. Their uneducated, unnuanced gut feeling about what it is and what it contains is more truthy to them than actually being aware of what’s in it and what its nature actually is.

In second place, it’s Thad with a reply to that comment:

Yep. The next time there’s a Democrat in office they’ll suddenly be Very Concerned about checks and balances and coequal branches of government again.

(That and the deficit.)

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from ThatOtherOtherGuy about the failure to prosecute James Comey:

The key difference…

If there was really a crime, veteran litigators would have been lining up to get the case, not resigning to avoid it.

Next, it’s frankcox with a comment about what’s missing when federal judges call out DHS, ICE, and CBP for their lies:

Perjury perjury everywhere…

All of these people lying in court, with proof that they lied, and not a single perjury charge in sight.

Over on the funny side, it appears we’re still in a bit of a drought when it comes to funny comments! There are slim pickings for the editor’s choice, so we’re just going to do the winners by votes (the second of which didn’t even get enough votes to earn a badge).

In first place, it’s MrWilson again with a reply to a weird comment claiming a post said stuff that it absolutely didn’t:

It’s weird that you just admitted to shitting your pants daily. At least that’s how I read it. Apparently it’s not necessary to base your perspectives on things people actually say and you can just fight strawmen all day at your own leisure.

In second place, it’s an anonymous reply pushing back on a comment about RFK Jr. being a brain-eating zombie:

Maybe. But he’s still not a zombie. A real zombie would die of starvation in Washington DC after all.

That’s all for this week, folks!