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Comment Two sides to every argument (Score 0, Flamebait) 58

This would be a good time to point out that every political argument has two sides and two points of view.

I've seen the arguments for both sides of this issue, and have come to the conclusion that there is merit for both. People should really look at the specific charges being made, with examples, before coming to any conclusion.

Every time someone tries to rein in the news media, it's received by shouts of first amendment, freedom of speech, chilling effects, and so on; and yet, this leads to insane situations. Google most egregious US media failures in the last 10 years for a list of incidents, and note how many of these affected major political events such as a presidential election or national policy.

Should a journalist be able to walk into a church during service and interrupt the proceedings, and not be held accountable because he's a journalist? Should a major news outlet be able to report something without at least a cursory check to see if it's accurate? Should an interview answer be swapped with the answer from a different question?

I've come to the conclusion that knee-jerk framing is on purpose, everyone wants to get "ahead" of an issue, and if an erroneous/misleading/false statement is made they will simply say "oops... I made a mistake" and there's no repurcussions... except that the lie went out to the audience and a small percentage got outraged in the right direction, regardless of whether the statement is true or not.

A "straw-man" argument is where you put your opponent's viewpoint in the most absurd terms and then attack the absurdity. A "strong-man" argument is where you put your opponent's viewpoint in the strongest possible terms and then try to attack it.

Choose the "strong-man" argument here. Find out what the administration is complaining about, and see if you can fault their logic.

Comment Re: Hopefully he sues for a few million. (Score 1) 222

Hard disagree.

There are mistakes that can happen - getting a phone number wrong, knocking on the wrong street number, stuff like that, sure.

But all of those mistakes need to be found and fixed DURING the investigation. This is the duty of the police officiers.

Not finding any evidence and STILL going to trial - that's on the prosecution. But I doubt that there would have been a conviction if police had not omitted things or outright lied in court. I doubt any courd would hand down a guilty verdict if all the police involved said that they found no evidence of anything.

Comment The evidence (Score 5, Informative) 49

Had a look at the criminal complaint just to find out where the perpetrators had gone wrong.

Sending anonymous tweets and E-mails, they purchased pre-paid debit cards to send packages to their home, various harassment techniques such as ordering a pizza "pay on delivery" at 4:30 AM, and so on and so on... how on Earth did the NPD ever figure this out?

Turns out the perpetrators flew from California to Boston area (Natick) to put a GPS on the Steiners' car, which they couldn't do because it was kept in a locked garage, so they rented vehicles to surveil the Steiners, their license plates were noted and given to Natick Police Department (NPD), and the rental agency was contacted.

Once the eBay operatives were identified, they tried various misdirects and obfustication techniques, but NPD a) verified their statements, and so figured out they were lying, and b) contacted eBay directly, which had a security team respond in good faith, and the whole plan unravelled.

One, single mistake is all that stood between a long campaign of harassment and getting found out. One good local police department who took the trouble to look deeply into the problem and figure out the truth despite a torrent of misdirection and obfustication.

I wonder how many more campaigns of harassment are ongoing, led by people who know how to conduct vehicle-based surveillance, or encouraged by ineffective or lazy policing.

Comment Re:And Nothing of Value was Included... (Score 1) 47

I got Google Play Music for my family back when that was a thing. It was the same price as Spotify, had the same catalog, and included any music on Youtube as well. The fact that it included ad free Youtube was just a bonus. These days that has morphed into Youtube Premium, and I still pay for it. I am mostly there for the music, but the ad free Youtube is not terrible.

The interesting thing is that it is pretty clear that most people just watch the ads. Youtube had $60 billion in yearly revenue last year. More than Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Brothers combined. Roughly $20 billion of that is credited to Youtube Premium which is bigger than any of its Hollywood competitors.

There's a reason that Peacock is being included with Youtube Premium and not the other way around. Youtube is worth something. Peacock, not so much.

Comment Re:Predictable. (Score 1) 47

Things have changed dramatically since the heyday when everyone had a cable subscription. I used to work for SlingTV (and then Dish), and I had a front row seat as the whole industry imploded. Every year the television networks and movie studios would sit down and renegotiate their contracts. Despite the fact that viewership was always down at least 10% year over year they always wanted price increases. If the cable providers pushed back (as Dish often did) they would lose access to channels, invariably during football season when it mattered most.

You see, as technology started allowing people to purchase their entertainment piecemeal it soon became clear what parts they were willing to pay for, and which parts they weren't willing to pay for. Hollywood thought that people paid for cable subscriptions to watch their scripted television. It turns out that, for most people anyway, the part of television that they were willing to pay for was live sports.

That's why Disney won't sell you ESPN unless you bundle it with everything else that they sell, and that's also why Disney is suing SlingTV for reselling access on a daily basis. SlingTV's "sports pass" allows you to pay for just the games that you want at a ridiculous price. Disney should be stoked, but instead it has sued because it wants to force sports fans to continue to pay for their other channels.

Almost no one is watching traditional scripted television these days. The few hits that the networks do have tends to be reality TV stuff like "Dancing with the Stars," where the audience can watch people compete in real time. Youtube (not YoutubeTV) has at least half again as many viewers as their next highest competitor (Netflix), at any time during the day, on traditional 10 foot devices (your living room TV). That's not counting people watching Youtube on their phones or their computers. Youtube is killing scripted content on living room televisions, during prime time. During the day its an order of magnitude worse.

Take a look at nielsen.com and take a look for yourself. It's absolutely grim. Look at the shows that are doing relatively well, they are all either sports or sports commentary. That's literally the only reason that anyone watches anything besides YouTube and Netflix.

Apple spent over $20 billion building up a content catalog. At their height they were spending nearly $5 billion a year making shows. They made some great shows and got rave reviews. Amazon spends $1 billion a year for the rights to Thursday night football. That is arguably the worst football game of the week. However, Prime generally gets as many viewers for a single game as Apple has total subscribers, including all of the free subscriptions that Apple gives away. It's not just Apple that is shifting away from scripted television either. Take a look at any of the streaming sites (including Netflix) and you will see that all of their recent moves have been to try and compete for the sports market. That's definitely what YouTube is doing by bundling Peacock.

Hollywood is currently circling the drain. Everyone is up for sale right now. No one is watching scripted television. They certainly aren't paying for it.

Comment Re:Who would have thought (Score 1) 226

The "pattern" is called police doing their work

You can call a piece of coal "off-white, tending towards darkish", or you can call it "black". Both are technically not incorrect. Only one of them is not intentionally misleading.

The whole shit is obviously intended to chill critique. If you are seriously offended by someone calling you an incompetent ass, then politics isn't for you, go get a real job.

And the police really have more important things to do than scaring pensioners who got a bit emotional online. (one of the most famous raids was in 2024 against a 64-year old guy who had called a minister "Schwachkopf" (english: dimwit).

Tell me you think that justifies sending the police to someone's home. Seriously, these people need to get a grip. You can call me dimwit all day and I wouldn't dream of sending the police after you.

But calling them "raids" is completely dishonest

What else would you call it when police arrives at your home at 6 am to search it because you posted something online? (like they would find a reddit posting in your sock drawer, I mean come on, seriously?)

During the ""Aktionstage gegen Hasspostings" (Action Days Against Hate Speech), around a hundred or so such raids are conducted on the same day, and a substantial portion of those is for insulting politicians.

Comment Re:Can anyone from Germany (Score 1) 226

The details are clickbait, and the take questionable, but there is enough truth in it. From my perspective (I'm Germany, but I currently live elsewhere, but still follow German politics closely):

One, there is a considerable crisis in the German manufacturing industry. And the current government has pushed through (with questionable methods) and insane military spending bill while at the same time complaining everywhere else that there is no money and they need to cut this and that and everything else.

Two, there is a strong US influence in european politics, and especially in Germany. A long list of recent and current high-ranking German politicians has direct connections to US think tanks or corporations, and an even larger number found employ with these or US universities, etc. after they were voted out. One would have to be incredibly naive to think that they're hired for their competence or out of charity.

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