Uh huh. Hey, quick question: How many people are still posting to Twitter without paying for it? Do you think perhaps that might have something to do with the failure to stop bots?

Yeah, I mean, they managed to bamboozle people before into thinking it was worth something, so I suppose they could do it again.... but honestly I stopped posting there years ago. They could card everybody and it wouldn't change the fact that the mods are absolute bastards and stifle all real discussion. I'd rather go to a rowdier web forum somewhere and have a real conversation with someone who isn't trying to sell me on imperialist politics (but might call me a bundle of sticks).

........you promise?

Good. Screw "drive by traffic". If people aren't willing to pay then they were a net negative to begin with.

No. "We" do not need this. We need people suggesting this sort of authoritarian bullshit to fuck off back where they came from.

Unless whatever marketing or other crap they're shilling isn't worth even $60 a year then they'll go away.

Nobody who's botting is running just ONE account. Nobody who wants to be seen is running just ONE account. That's what makes charging a $5/mo fee per account effective. The bigger the network, the more people competing for attention, the more they have to buy, and the less effective it becomes. So yes, making them pay really is a good solution. Also, if it "kills traffic" then good riddance. I for one would be happy dealing with an internet with just 1/100th the traffic if it meant an end to screaming retards and bots.

I'm not giving you my ID, Spez, and no one else should either. You know what would really stop the bot problem? Throw up a paywall. If every account accrued a $5/mo fee then, miraculously, your AI problem would be solved simply because botting would be unprofitable. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to stay anonymous can do so insofar as you offer a multiplicity of payment options including money orders and bitcoin. Of course this is not what will happen because these bozos want to bring back insane ad rates and they think forcing everyone to identify themselves will make that possible ... because surely the bad guys won't just steal credentials or anything. I'm really going to enjoy watching reddit fucking implode.

They're going to fail miserably. Reason being that this has already been adjudicated when Facebook got caught hoovering up tons of books to train their own AI. In their case they had torrented a bunch of books so they committed copyright infringement, but the act of incorporating them as training data into an LLM was not copyright infringement, as that was fair use. The same happened with Anthropic where they downloaded a bunch of books and thus engaged in copyright infringement, but the incorporation into their LLM was not in and of itself. In this case because Anthropic had obtained a lawful copy (we are, after all, talking about FDL'd content) there is no copyright infringement whatsoever.

The Free Software Foundation doesn't actually care about software freedom. They care about protecting their gravy train just like the proprietary vendors they claim to oppose (until the check clears, anyway). This is just more proof of that.

Sounds like maybe your children shouldn't have a device at all, or else a dumbphone that is literally just a phone without any access to app stores. That makes a lot more sense than requiring everyone else to present ID to do anything online. After all, IT IS ABOUT PROTECTING THE CHILDREN, RIGHT?

(e) (1) “Covered application store” means a publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform that distributes and facilitates the download of applications from third-party developers to users of a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application.

No, you cannot. If you're distributing applications from third-party developers, you're covered. Also, just to head off the obvious: No, even if you're a first-party developer you're not off the hook because the bill still requires you to handle age signals.

In any case, no, it does not move "click here if you're over 18" to account creation with respect to an app or service, but to account creation with respect to a device. So mommy/daddy buys you a new iPhone 666 Buttplug (or whatever) and gets prompted how old you are and they set your age accordingly. If they're dumb enough to let their kid set up their device themselves that's a failure on their part and the rest of society shouldn't be made to pay for it. Likewise, expecting there to be some legal remedy that can stop a kid from grabbing an adult's device with an account already on it is asinine ... that's what passwords and keys are for.

Ultimately I wish parents would actually be parents to their children instead of expecting the rest of society to nerf itself... failing that, I'm going to start developing a lot of very pointed opinions about what you and your children are able to do on my internet, and you definitely won't like it.

I haven't read the actual bill yet; I'm just going by TFA's description of it.

You should probably try reading the actual bill. It's not that long.

All flights to and from Europe should be cancelled for the safety of european citizenry, and for the betterment of the environment. Yes, they really should lead by example. It's for the children... or something.

Alternatively, europeans can fuck off and stop trying to erode the quality of life of others on whatever dubious pretext crosses their minds.

Yes. End of story. Now, if you want to rewrite Section 230 so that companies that routinely act more like a publisher rather than a mere common carrier can be held liable for their acts of publishing, then by all means knock yourself out... but, of course, that's not what you or anyone else is saying, because this isn't about holding corporations liable for their actions, but silencing an unruly public that is no longer on board with your agenda.

Requiring maintenance does not mean that it cannot ever conform to its stated specification. Does the GNU Project have a formal specification so we can know when it's done? I mean, they haven't just been bilking people for forty years where we can never tell if they're making any tangible progress, RIGHT?

That software can always be improved does not mean it cannot be "done" in the sense of conforming to specification. Does the GNU Project HAVE a specification that we might know if and when it is done?