The issue was this particular prop was basically mascaraing as a piece of the constitution by limiting future legislation. No simple law is allowed to do that. It can change current powers, but has no force against future rules. It is a limit on the prop system, similar to how the law of one legislature cannot block a future law from a future legislature. To get that kind of force of law you need to get into the constitution. Yeah, it limit's the prop's power as the legislature could theoretically turn right around and gut the prop, but that's something you're supposed to punish with the ballot box. That said, this all seems like a technicality to me, some verbiage added to the prop that sounded good but wasn't passed by any good constitutional lawyers, rather than the actual core of the prop being bad.

Many have. The issue is by franchise rules, the franchises MUST use this particular model from this particular company. So, they don't have the option to use all that competition. McD's corporate, who set those rules, is very likely actually in on this, and getting some kind of kick back from the machine maker to produce this crappy product. We do know the two companies are quite close, and for other retailers the ice cream maker company has other models that work far better, so it is very specifically McD's with this issue.

If that is the case, then definitely. If they won't stand behind their interpretations, their interpretations are utter garbage, at least legally.

Then the defense should be able to quite easily produce an expert to refute the interpretation of the data.

We don't know if they can back it up yet as it hasn't gotten to court yet. This whole thing is about the defense trying to get it excluded from the case.

This definitely needs explaining, but it sounds an awful lot like the defense is trying to pull the defense 'well, this automated mechanism must be better than the humans and since it didn't conclude in support of the prosecution, it must be a frame up' which isn't that strong an argument. We all know how piss poor automated systems can be at times at getting things right, so automatically assuming they are superior, or that the human interpretation is a frame up just doesn't hold much water. Let the experts explain their reinterpretation in court and see if it is legit or not.

Honestly, it doesn't feel like companies actually do that well if a case gets beyond the first hurtle of dismissal, and this case in particular feels like one of the bad ones for them as the PR damage of being in court over sex trafficking is pretty bad, even if you do ultimately win. In fact, I would fully expect to see this settled very quickly at this point to avoid just that as getting dragged into the courts and the dangers of discovery, it can quickly turn very ugly.

A total monopoly is not a requirement to be guilty of anti-competitive practices. MS didn't have a total monopoly either (Apple, Linux, and numerous others existed you know). So appealing to that is not a valid legal argument. It particularly doesn't work because it is fairly easy to break that argument by simply changing what the nature of the product is. The product need not be 'generic cellphone' or even 'generic smartphone'. It can be 'phone running iOS verX' which is pretty important as that determines what code can run on it. It isn't like iOS fortnite can, without modification, run on Android or PC, so even the argument they are options isn't a particularly good one. As I said, their best argument is not to try and argue there is options (although I'm sure they will argue that), it is instead to play the angle that they are not competing with fortnite, so are not guilty of anti-competitive practices.

While I'm sure that is what Apple will argue, don't think it is anywhere near a silver bullet defense. Microsoft had the same kind of argument going for them, and even stronger, with their OS, yet it failed them in the courts. For MS, they just had one singular OS. You could install other OSs, you could use other hardware, you could even still could install other software. MS got bit because they used their market advantage to push their internet client. Apple has far more lock down than that. There main defense here actually will be they don't compete with Fortnite, as that's the only thing they got here the MS didn't, not really that other theoretical options exist.

Slightly different case. That was for existing students. This is for new ones.

It is the moderation equivalent of saying 'hey, you have cops, okay you can do what you please, we won't hold you to any standards at all.' You edit posts to promote/discourage a view... that's fine, You promote certain views and suppress others... that's fine too. You completely ignore your own rules to let certain views go by, all fine and dandy. You completely make up rules on the spot to suppress others views too, don't worry, you're totally in the clear. Hell, rules? Who needs those, just arbitrarily decide who posts or doesn't with no justification what so ever, you're okay there too. Doesn't matter what those views are, so long as you moderate you can do as you please. That's not what 230 was intended for, but that is what it has become. It has become the get out of jail free card for any moderation policy no matter how ridiculous, unbalanced, or dishonest. Honestly, it is time to see that it is on its death bed. Democrats want it gone. Republicans want it modified at the very least, but also there is strong rumbles to want it gone too mostly due to the strong monopolies a few companies have social media. EU wants it gone and are already starting to ignore the principle of it with various laws. Pretty much every other country has already acted as if it doesn't exists (for good reason, for them it doesn't and they is usually no equivalent). It was a nice first attempt, but everyone is finding all the exploits in it, and it is time to trash it and figure out something to replace it because the ship has already started sinking and its going down fast.

Actually, there is a case, it just isn't an easy one. Contrary to popular belief, private actors CAN be held to need to uphold the 1st amendment. The issue is they need to be shown to be large enough, or powerful enough, to be required to do so. The goto case was about a private city essentially that forbid door to door canvasing on the grounds the entire area was their private property, but this failed as they were too powerful to the control of the 1st amendment in that area. Here it is a matter if Youtube is large or powerful enough to be held to do so. The key here is to argue the competition just doesn't cut it, and Youtube has become the defacto public square. So it isn't shocking they aren't getting there as it is a tough case, but not an impossible one. I personally feel that the real way to go here is to limit the protections 230 provides, and require far greater transparency for moderation policies than is currently provided.

While it is true that legally it is a myth, because they were very specifically given an exemption, the question was not what is legal, but what should be. That's a wholly different question, so appealing to the legality of it is irrelevant. The real question is what advantages and disadvantages do both approaches have, particularly in our current global context where 230 is not a thing in Europe and the EU has already started invading the protections that 230 affords.

That analogy doesn't work, as in that case you have a direct copy. For the app, they are very likely just breaking the image down into essential usable element (ratios between various bits, colors, etc). This causes two problems with the argument. 1 it is systematic information gathered from the pic, not a creative expression. 2 it is effectively an interpretation of the pic, not a copy of it. The only legal barrier here is the TOS of the sites, but that's a pretty weak barrier.

What do you mean, go read the law? The whole point is the replace the law! If this is the extent of your logic, that's really weak. And as to your third point, BS, because even in the worst case that is was flatly removed with no replacement the internet existed with no 230 in place before 230 was a thing. The platforms already had a means of dealing with the situation, which was the same means that other carriers had, do nothing until they were required to by law.