Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, after we expressed some serious concerns about Senator Blumenthal's comments on SESTA, Uriel-238 won most insightful comment of the week by summarizing and questioning the train of thought:

Legislator: This is my bill to stop evil people.

Analyst: This doesn't stop evil people at all. It simply wrecks a chunk of the economy.

Legislator: Evil people use that chunk.

Analyst: Way, way more good people use that chunk. And they'll suffer badly without that chunk. Also it won't stop the evil people from finding another chunk.

Legislator: Well, this is my bill to stop evil people. Until you write a better bill to stop evil people, I'm going to put my support behind this one.

Where do we get the idea that passing a bad law is better than passing no law? These are the motions of a drowning man climbing on and dunking nearby swimmers in desperation.

Meanwhile, over in the UK, Theresa May was making her own insane comments about how internet companies need to remove extremist content within two hours. Anonymous Anonymous Coward won second place for insightful with a short list of just some of the problems with this idea:

I would suggest putting May in the position of finding and analyzing things that might be 'extremist', but it is likely that ANYTHING that did not start out with praise for May and/or her ideals would be deleted without further examination.

Then there is the concept of what constitutes 'extremism'. Extreme could be left or right or up or down or any other label so long as one takes the time to go further than others. What definition will she put into law?

Further, is she employing the concept that what is law in Briton should be law everywhere?

And finally time. Some laws have the ability to be...well let's say intensive (aka very very long) and might take more than two hours to even read, let alone analyze. Is May purporting that all Internet companies hire super fast readers, or people that can watch video at 4 or more times regular speed, and still comprehend it...comprehensively... and have the full faith and credit to NOT take down something that may not be 'extreme'? Or is she going to rely on black box algorithms?

Maybe May should be asked about how she will clean up the messes she is making.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more response to May's impossible demand. Aerinai offered a proposal in response:

I am completely fine with them passing this law... just they also need to pass a few other laws as well.

Law Number 1: This law will find mismanagement of public funds (i.e. graft, kickbacks, improper expenditures, etc.) within the same requisite amount of time within the government. The government heads will then be held responsible any time any of these activities occur and are not caught within 2 hours.

Law Number 2: I also want NHS to be able to identify medical fraud within 2 hours, otherwise the employees will be subject to criminal penalties...

Law Number 3: I want lawmakers to have all of their facts checked and a retraction for their false statements to be done within 2 hours and failure to issue such retraction will result in criminal and civil penalties.

I mean... if asking Google to censor 'extremist' content in 2 hours is fine, these should be a piece of cake as well!

Next, we have a response from Mike Godwin to the strained accusation that Google is behind his opposition to SESTA:

Mr. Anonymous omits facts that undercut whatever point he thinks he's making about me.

(1) I worked for EFF from 1990 to 1999. Google didn't exist then.

(2) I worked for CDT from 1999 to 2003. Google didn't fund CDT then.

(3) I worked for Public Knowledge from 2003-2005. Google didn't fund Public Knowledge.

(4) I worked for Yale University from 2005-2007. Google didn't fund my