Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side Rico R. with a comment about the Surgeon General’s call for a warning label on social media:

Bullying somewhere does not make that place bad for kids

Surgeon General Warning: Enrolling your child in a public school can increase issues with your child’s mental health due to peer pressure and bullying. Homeschooling is advised.

See how ridiculous that sounds? I was bullied WAY more in school than I was on social media growing up, and yet I don’t see the Surgeon General demanding warnings on school enrollment forms.

And if some troll says, “School is mandatory, but social media is not,” let me ask you why is school mandatory? Because of its net benefit to society. A good quality education is important. Yet, whenever someone points out how social media can be beneficial to teens (i.e., helps them express themselves, get help when needed, feel like they belong, etc.) and research backs up that this is the case, such studies are hand-waved away as irrelevant.

Social media isn’t the boogeyman many claim it is. It reflects real life, and real life has good and bad things about it. It can build people up or bring people down. So can social media. So don’t write it off as “all bad” for kids.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about the fictional crime wave:

There’s another factor underlying this

A lot of the people wailing about “a historic crime wave” don’t care about preventing crime – at all. They care about pandering to their base (in the US: old racist white people in suburbs who think cities are hellholes) and ensuring that their supporters (like police unions) are well-funded.

Unsurprisingly, these are the same people who vociferously oppose every proposal to stop crime well before it happens. They campaign/vote against school lunches, education programs for the unemployed, housing for the homeless, lead paint/pipe removal (yes, it’s linked to crime rates), youth recreational programs, substance abuse help, mental health counseling, offender rehabilitation, etc. – every possible thing that could actually help people so that they’re not so desperate that they resort to crime.

So every time you hear someone trumpeting “law and order”, know that what you’re really hearing is a vicious, sadistic thug who is willing to doom tens of millions of people to miserable lives in order to pander to the wealthy and privileged.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment about the Surgeon General’s concerns, this time from an anonymous commenter:

In my experience, it largely seems to be ostensible adults who are brain damaged from social media.

Next, it’s That One Guy with a comment about the attacks on the Internet Archive:

Names to remember and avoid

Hatchette Harper Collins John Wiley Penguin Random House

Any time those publishers try to claim that they have no problem with libraries the only response should be pointing to their actions here, where they’ve made crystal clear that if they could they would absolutely destroy the very concept of libraries and require anyone who wants to read a book to buy their own copy to do so.

Those publishers are friends to neither readers or authors, and should be avoided by both as a result.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous comment about a reference we made to people who cry libel every time they are insulted:

Giving them way too much credit here, Tim. As often as not, they cry “slander” rather than “libel” when encountering written words that upset them.

In second place, it’s tanj with a comment about New York’s “save the children” bill:

Blame Canada

He’s blaming The Internet when he should be blaming Canada.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with one more comment from tanj, this time about all the dastardly pirates defending the Internet Archive:

You pirates also think the purpose of copyright is to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authord and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries rather than enriching publishers.

Finally, it’s an anonymous comment about the lawsuit against Martin Shkreli over the Wu Tang album:

Watch your step, Shkreli, Protect ya neck, kid.

That’s all for this week, folks!