X's Lawsuit Against Media Matters Can Go Forward

From yesterday's opinion by Judge Reed O'Connor (N.D. Tex.) in X Corp. v. Media Matters for America:

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants knowingly and maliciously fabricated side-by-side images of various advertisers' posts on Plaintiff's social media platform X depicted next to neo-Nazi or other extremist content, and portrayed these designed images as if they were what the average user experiences on the X platform. Plaintiff asserts that Defendants proceeded with this course of action in an effort to publicly portray X as a social media platform dominated by neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism, and thereby alienate major advertisers, publishers, and users away from the X platform, intending to harm it….

As the Court must accept all well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, for the reasons that follow, Defendants' Motion [to Dismiss] is DENIED….

[1.] Tortious Interference with Contract

To allege a prima facie case of tortious interference with existing contractual relations, a plaintiff must plead "(1) an existing contract subject to interference, (2) a willful and intentional act of interference with the contract, (3) that proximately caused the plaintiff's injury, and (4) caused actual damages or loss."

Plaintiff has provided sufficient allegations to survive dismissal. Plaintiff has factually alleged: the existence of contracts subject to interference; intentional acts of interference; and proximate causation. It cannot reasonably be disputed that Plaintiff has named parties who contracted for paid ads on X. Media Matters' reporting has acknowledged as much….

Next, Defendants argue that because there was no breach of contract there can be no interference. This misstates Texas law, since "termination of an at-will contract can give rise to a tortious interference claim, even if that termination was not a breach." Therefore, Plaintiff has plausibly alleged interference to their advertising contracts. Additionally, at this stage the pleading adequately alleges facts that support the inference the actions were done with the requisite intent.

Finally, Plaintiff plausibly alleges that Defendants proximately caused their harm. Proximate cause requires proof of both cause-in-fact and foreseeability. Defendants present a compelling alternative version of events to Plaintiff's. However, the Court will not "choose among competing inferences" at this stage. Accordingly, Plaintiff's Amended Complaint alleges sufficient facts to state a claim of tortious interference with contract….

[2.] Business Disparagement

The elements of a business disparagement claim are: "(1) the defendant published false and disparaging information about it, (2) with malice, (3) without privilege, (4) resulting in special damages to the plaintiff." Defendants argue this claim does not survive because: (1) Defendants' statements were true; (2) Defendants did not act with actual malice; and (3) Plaintiff has failed to allege special damages.

First, construing the facts pled by Plaintiff in the light most favorable to it, that Defendants manipulated and intended to deceive Plaintiff's advertisers is sufficient to support the first element. Plaintiff alleges Defendants acted with malice and without privilege by asserting Defendants' reporting was false and the "frequency and tenor of Media Matters' statements disparaging X and the safety of advertising on the X platform" supports an inference of actual malice. And finally, Plaintiff has pled a plausible claim regarding special damages in that Defendants tortious acts undermined "advertisers' faith in X Corp.'s abilities to monitor and curate content."

Understandably, many of these facts are disputed. While Defendants again point to other explanations, the Court will not decide between the two inferences at this stage.

[3.] Tortious Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage

Finally, Defendants argue that Plaintiff has not alleged an independent tortious act, which is an essential element of its tortious interference with prospective economic advantage claim. However, business disparagement is independently tortious. To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim a plaintiff need only allege that the defendant has "do[ne] something independently unlawful or tortious," that would be "actionable under a recognized tort." Plaintiff has done that….

There's also more in the opinion on personal jurisdiction and venue. X is represented by Judd E. Stone II, Christopher D. Hilton, Ari Cuenin & Alexander M. Dvorscak of Stone | Hilton PLLC and John C. Sullivan of S|L Law PLLC.

Comments

[ravenshrike]

Discovery's gonna be fuuunnnn.

[Drewski]

Is it? Or will X use dilatory tactics and barely-colorable arguments to run up MM's legal bills, then voluntarily dismiss if they're forced to produce something damning?

[David Nieporent]

Discovery is never fun. The only people who ever say anything like this are non-lawyers who are social media spectators to a lawsuit.

[ravenshrike]

Discovery is rarely fun because generally any times it would be fun the party with egg on it's face settles before it becomes public. In both the Carano lawsuit and MM lawsuit, such will not happen.

[Life of Brian]

The article links to the prior order on MM's motion to compel -- the MTD order is here.

[Eugene Volokh]

Whoops, fixed, thanks!

[SimonP]

Passed along without comment, hm?

[mulched]

Looks like it. You'll have to write your own. Or maybe some fan fic, what you think Prof. Volokh would have written about the case.

[Kazinski]

Nobody reached any merits here, so what's to comment on?

All the judge said is basically "the facts as alleged will get you to discovery, and trual".

But feel free to put your EV hat on and tell us all everything he should have, but seldom does, say. Because while we here in the comments will tell everyone what we think, EV will only tell us what he knows, but that's just what I think.

[SimonP]

Ted, I don't need you to explain what surviving a motion to dismiss means or entails.

And I'm not going to bother explaining to you why this trend of Trump-appointed judges allowing SLAPP cases to proceed to discovery is an alarming trend in free speech case law, for those still interested in robust protections for free speech. Because of course you're signaling your bad faith quite clearly here - you want MM to lose, and Twitter to win.

Eugene often comments when he thinks judges get the law wrong. He chooses not to, here. He has a funny tendency not to comment negatively on anti-free speech developments in Texas.

[Ed Grinberg]

And I’m not going to bother explaining to you why this trend of Trump-appointed judges allowing SLAPP cases to proceed to discovery is an alarming trend in free speech case law, for those still interested in robust protections for free speech. Because of course you’re signaling your bad faith quite clearly here – you want MM to lose, and Twitter to win.

Hang on a second. Couldn’t someone “interested in robust protections for free speech” still “want MM to lose, and Twitter to win” if MM actually did defame (i.e., falsely disparage) Twitter?! Talk about bad faith…

[SimonP]

Are you unable to discern for yourself how spurious lawsuits alleging "defamation" can operate to inhibit free speech, particularly when they are deliberately brought before judges who will not hold plaintiffs to the exacting standards required to survive motions to dismiss and and win motions for summary judgment? Or am I going to have to spell that out for you?

Just ask yourself to what end of the spectrum your intuitions snap if we were to suggest a different hypothetical: Bill Ackman funds an effort to publicly identify a protester who appears at a pro-Palestinian protest, intimating (without direct evidence) that the protester approves of putatively anti-Semitic chants at the protest. The protester, a law student, subsequently has an offer of employment revoked by the law firm they were planning on joining after graduation. Is that a tort?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Maybe! Seems like an explanation of how that works could make for interesting reading.

[jimc5499]

I get it. It's only good if the ruling favors your side. Media Matters has been slandering Conservatives for years. I believe that they were responsible for producing the bullshit that denied Rush Limbaugh the chance to buy into an NFL franchise.

[SimonP]

Blah, blah, blah.

[Stephen Goldstein]

AS IANAL so I could very well be wrong but wouldn't it be up to the defendant to have the case dismissed "as a matter of law?"

MM, apparently, raised, as I count them, three issues none of which survived, pending findings of facts by a jury.

Had MM raised a SLAPP issue in their motion to dismiss the judge would have dealt with it, right?

Meanwhile, does Texas have a SLAPP law? I certainly don't know. Do you?

Anyway, that's what I think.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Had MM raised a SLAPP issue in their motion to dismiss the judge would have dealt with it, right?

Meanwhile, does Texas have a SLAPP law? I certainly don’t know. Do you?

Texas does have an anti-SLAPP law, but as I note below, it can’t be used in federal courts in Texas. So the only way the judge could have “dealt with it” would have been rejecting the argument.

[SimonP]

The problem here is ultimately that you shouldn't be able to get into the venue of your choice, and past a motion to dismiss, by making conclusory and vague allegations in your complaint that may or may not be borne out by discovery. But on several elements required to assert personal jurisdiction, proper venue, and sufficiency of the claim, that's all that the Twitter complaint does. And then the judge's opinion in several places just does the same, repeating the elements of the torts as sufficiently pled, with nothing more to explain the reasoning. A reviewing court would have a hard time parsing how O'Connor got to his conclusions. Not that the Fifth Circuit would even try.

That's the situation in the Fifth Circuit right now. We have case law directing judges on how they should evaluate these claims. But on point after point, we see them thumbing the scale in favor of conservative claimants. Apparently if you're a website that sends newsletters mentioning Twitter to anyone who requests it, you've subjected yourself to the personal jurisdiction of the Northern District of Texas, and venue is proper.

Law students who have been smeared by David Bernstein on the VC should take note.

[Kazinski]

X(Twitter) announced a while ago it was closing it’s SF headquarters by September 13th and moving to Texas. And has changed or is changing it's state of incorporation to Texas.

Texas seems like it’s a completely appropriate venue for the lawsuit.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Good job letting everyone here know that you don't know a goddamn thing about the law, Kaz.

Why don't you explain (in detail, for everyone's amusement) what the rules are for establishing personal jurisdiction between parties in different States. I'll even give you a hint: one of the statutes involved will have a hyphen in its name.

Idiot.

[Sarcastr0]

Personal jurisdiction is not one of the most intuitive areas of the law. 'The party that brought the suit said they're going to move there' isn't even intuitively a reason to extend jurisdiction.

[Kazinski]

No, actually they have already mostly moved. There former SF headquarters is closing Sept 13, that's not when they are starting the move.

So they already have a significant precence in Texas now, and by the time the trial starts in April the move will be completed for half a year. Texas is the absolute most natural place for X, even if MM isn't happy about it

[Sarcastr0]

Not till after the events at issue in the case, Kaz. You can’t move to create jurisdiction.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Don't you also have to BE in the new state for a while to establish residency?

[David Nieporent]

Don’t you also have to BE in the new state for a while to establish residency?

Not sure what "establishing residency" has to do with this discussion, but no.

[SimonP]

Teddy, you can read the opinion linked in the OP, which helpfully outlines the applicable legal standard for determining whether personal jurisdiction over MM exists and whether venue for the claim is proper. The court's analysis is thin and conclusory, but you might notice that it says nothing about whether Twitter is headquartered anywhere in Texas.

And your simple laziness evident in "has changed or is changing it's [sic] state of incorporation" is noted. Am I the only one who googles simple factual assertions before making them?

[David Nieporent]

I am pretty sure that Rush Limbaugh produced the bullshit that denied Rush Limbaugh the chance to buy into an NFL franchise.

[Life of Brian]

this trend of Trump-appointed judges allowing SLAPP cases to proceed to discovery is an alarming trend in free speech case law

Of course as I know you know, the motion to dismiss process this case just went through is the filter that's intended to determine which cases are actually SLAPP and which are not. What in your view did the judge get wrong such that this actually is a SLAPP case?

[SimonP]

What in your view did the judge get wrong such that this actually is a SLAPP case?

Gosh, it sure is hard to tell! The judge's "analysis" is bizarrely thin and conclusory.

And, no, motions to dismiss are not "the filter that's intended to determine which cases are actually SLAPP and which are not." The whole point of anti-SLAPP laws is to address the fact that SLAPP can survive initial motions to dismiss and lead to extensive, expensive litigation. It just so happens that Texas's anti-SLAPP law has an odd status in the Fifth Circuit. It must be some kind of coincidence that Musk is so interested in moving much of his business there, isn't it?

[David Nieporent]

What's the "odd status"? There's a circuit split, with — last I checked — most circuits to have ruled on the issue holding that state anti-SLAPP laws don't apply in federal court.

[SimonP]

Why do you suppose there's a circuit split, Chip?

[David Nieporent]

Still not my name. And because different judges apply Shady Grove differently in the anti-SLAPP context. But it's not because the 5th Circuit is 5th Circuiting things up, as you implied.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Of course as I know you know, the motion to dismiss process this case just went through is the filter that’s intended to determine which cases are actually SLAPP and which are not.

It did not, in fact, go through that process, because the Fifth Circuit has held that state anti-SLAPP procedures don’t apply in federal diversity jurisdiction cases.

[Magister]

Eugene's explanation of "can go forward" posts was that the matter is often subsequently settled (just from the expense to the defendants of going forward), and there may be precedents that are made at this stage. But what precedent is illustrated here? What legal reasoning is illustrated here that wouldn't be in less politically charged cases? Defendant misstating Texas law about no interference without a breach of contract doesn't seem a precedent, since the decision quotes something to rebut it, but maybe the case does demonstrate some interesting legal reasoning that I don't perceive. If so, I would like to hear why this is legally interesting, and maybe Eugene knows that lawyers would all get it without his additional comment -- so maybe some lawyer can point out the legal interest.

Otherwise, would this be the lamentable "lathering the rubes" kind of post, with Elon Musk's X slapping down Media Matters? Posting where the court is "accepting all well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true" just leads some of the commenters here to treat the result as if it were a final judgement of the facts. For example, I would have liked to hear more about the "compelling alternate version of events" that the Defendants presented; can someone provide a link to other documents in this case?

[Kazinski]

So you are telling us that we shouldn't pay attention because MM might lose?

There may be no new legal ground broken by the decision to allow the case to go to trial, but seems to me an interesting question of whether intentionally engineering an intended result using a platforms algorithms, is actually defamation, and tortious interference. Seems underhanded to be sure, but is it a tort?

[Magister]

I can see why some exotic cases (the man who had sex with his new girlfriend on a mattress that was on top of the body of his previous girlfriend) are reported, just for the lurid details. Other cases relate to Eugene's interest in First Amendment law and pseudonymous litigation.

Certainly this court ruling is a little better than the usual partisan sites that conservative commenters here favor, but a judge who's "a "go-to" favorite for conservative lawyers, as he reliably rules against Democratic policies and for Republican policies" is not that much better. But a comparison to the outcome of another case, X Corp. v. Center for Countering Digital Hate, Inc. that I don't think got a post at the Volokh Conspiracy, would be interesting, at least to understand how the claims in the two cases differ:

Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose. Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.

[Orbital Mechanic]

Musk was naive in the extreme in what he tried to do when he took control of Twitter. Many people told him in print and probably privately what would happen if he implemented this "totally free speech" policy and by and large they were right.

The point, easy enough to understand, is that moderation is the product of social media platforms. Without it the trolls and crazies take over and it isn't a left-or-right thing.

Of course Musk, having a fairly impressive record of being able to do things experts said he couldn't do, ignored them. Also at the time he was (maybe still is) in thrall to Ron DeSantis' "anti-woke" rhetoric and agenda and he was absolutely not going to do anything woke if he could help it.

And the result was that respected content creators became expected to pay a monthly fee to be on equal terms with "catturd2" and the like. And yes the Nazis, racists, nihilists, trolls, creeps, and mentally ill all came back in force and their "content" would appear next to any advertiser's content.

To some people's complete surprise the conservative large and small corporate advertisers said it isn't worth it. Did they bail because Media Matters reported on it? Did Media Matters lie in their report? Unless you can prove those two things there is no point to this lawsuit except to deflect blame for the debacle.

I happen to be an admirer of Elon Musk, but he should never have taken on this project even if he was forced to pay a billion to get out of it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Regardless, if Media Matters fabricated screen shots, as is alleged, that's actionable.

What I find interesting is not only Musk but Zuckerberg's recent confession. It's like they already know that Trump is going to win.

[Brett Bellmore]

They didn't precisely fabricate screen shots. They engaged in a prolonged and extensive pattern of X use that engineered the screen shots.

The algorithm is designed to serve up content you want to see, and advertisements likely to appeal to you. (You can opt out of this algorithm applying to you, and only see what you want to see, by the way.) So if you spend 8 hours a day alternating between retweeting Aryan Nation posts, and tracking down Menorah related content and clicking on Menorah advertisements, eventually it's going to serve up a Menorah advertisement next to an Aryan Nation post. Then, quick, you take a screen shot, and pass it off as a routine event.

You might be the only person on all of Twitter who will see that combination, but it did happen. In this case, IIRC, X was able to confirm that only two accounts saw the combination complained about: One was the reporter, and the other... might have been Media Matters, too.

It's explained on page 3.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, leave Media Matters aside for a moment.

If X permits pro-Nazi content and advertising, why shouldn't a competing platform be at liberty to point out to anyone—especially including would-be advertisers—the advantage that the competing platform does not support Nazis? Why not pitch would-be advertisers with a forthright assertion:

"If you put your ads on X, your ad payments will go in part to support Nazis. Sometimes, your ads may even appear juxtaposed to Nazi content. If your target audience becomes aware you do that, they may disapprove of you."

If a platform allows access to Nazis, on what basis should right wingers in government (or anyone in government) be empowered to legally ban using that pitch commercially?

Now go back to Media Matters. If competitive advantage is sufficient to justify that pitch, why would anyone suppose it ought to be punished legally in First Amendment-protected public discourse?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Dude, they're not gonna kick off all the Left from X.

The screeching would be endless.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is not Media Matters pointing out that Twitter/X allows neo-Nazis to use its service: So does T-Mobile, and do people freak out about that?

The problem is that Media Matters set out to create the illusion that you'd encounter neo-Nazi content on X without having gone out of your way to encounter it. To create the illusion that you could just innocently be looking into ideas for your baby shower, and, WHAM, you're assailed by skinhead pedophiles, or whatever.

Now, on FB, this might actually happen, because FB is very much into pushing content regardless of whether you want to see it. But Twitter is just trying to show you what you WANT to see, and so you only see that crap if you're trying to see it.

So, Media Matters is pushing a lie. And why?

The ultimate problem is that the left is trying to recreate China's social credit score system in the West, they are absolutely determined that anybody they dislike must be denied access to all sorts of communications and financial services.

Musk, who tries to run his companies as close to being common carriers as he's able to get away with, is not onboard with that agenda, and so has a big crosshair painted on his back.

[jb]

The obvious difference between T-Mobile and Twitter is that T-Mobile is mostly funded by customer subscriptions and Twitter is mostly funded by advertisers.

Most advertisers don't want their ads next to neo-Nazi content *regardless of whether or not the user wants to see that content*. On the other hand, if I'm using my phone and a neo-Nazi is on a call, I'm not going to need to listen to their call so it doesn't really change my willingness to buy the service.

This is why the other social media platforms moderate content. Not because of some big liberal conspiracy, just because they want to make money which you can't do by saying "go fuck yourselves" to the people who write the checks that pay your bills.

[Michael Ejercito]

Most advertisers don’t want their ads next to neo-Nazi content *regardless of whether or not the user wants to see that content*. On the other hand, if I’m using my phone and a neo-Nazi is on a call, I’m not going to need to listen to their call so it doesn’t really change my willingness to buy the service.
The bosses themselves, or just some woke employees who are offended by the idea other people will read what they do not approve of?

If pro-Nazi, pro-Hamas, or pro-Communist content on X was really driving their target market away, it would make no difference whether or not their ad appeared above or below their post. I doubt there is anyone who is going to boycott Ford Motor Company because an advertisement appeared above a tweet celebrating the October 7th attacks. Any Ford fans who left X because of pro-Nazi, pro-Hamas, or pro-Communist tweets are not going to see the ads on X at all, having actually left the platform.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Ejercito — Good question. It's the bosses. Definitely the bosses. The bosses at the platforms, and even more so the bosses at advertising agencies and would-be independent advertisers. And both groups of bosses do not care much whether odious content pushes itself forward uncalled for, or whether some busybody is able to call the presence of odious content to their attention—and, of course, to the attention of bystanders who oppose whatever particular odium is getting publicized.

Either way, the bosses run away as fast as they can. And they cannot be taught not to run away, or legally forced to stick around, because there will always be more-responsible media operators who understand the competitive advantage to keep the odious content off the platforms, both to keep the advertisers happy, and to ease the task to curate audiences.

Always remember, on every platform, the customers are the advertisers; the Joe Keyboard types who imagine they are customers are mistaken. Their attention is only raw material, available in unlimited supply. Capacity to focus that attention on a pre-curated audience assembled by the publisher is the actual product for sale.

It is failure to understand that one key, enduring, unalterable fact which accounts for internet utopianism. Means of publication are expensive to operate. Audience curation is an expensive and never-ending fact of commercial media life. Those two indispensable publishing activities take place out of sight of a typical Joe Keyboard, who consequently cherishes a mistaken notion that the platform exists to serve his interests. It does not.

And if Joe Keyboard, cherishing that delusion, could accomplish some way—the typical way advocated is government force—to alter the publishers' priorities, and the advertisers' priorities, what will infallibly result is to dismantle the means of publication.

That is why the demands of Joe Keyboard types remain forever utopian. To achieve the demands would be to defeat the means to deliver what is demanded. Publishers get that. Would-be advertisers get that. Internet utopians remain clueless about it.

This fight will continue at whatever frustrating length it takes for internet utopians to wise up. Meanwhile, giantistic platform operators will continue to both dis-serve the Joe Keyboard types, and to horribly disrupt the public life of the nation.

Platform operators currently operate the tightest choke points ever imposed on public communication since pre-Enlightenment religious authorities achieved capacity to censor almost everything. Complaining about that is not even slightly related to doing something to correct it. The public has to learn first what to complain about.

[David Nieporent]

I doubt there is anyone who is going to boycott Ford Motor Company because an advertisement appeared above a tweet celebrating the October 7th attacks.

Whether you doubt it or not is irrelevant. The New York Times would not run a Macy's Labor Day sale ad next to a story about the Rwandan genocide. It's not because anyone thinks Macy's supports genocide; it's not because Macy's is worried that anyone will think Macy's supports genocide. It's because advertisers do not want their material near offensive content. Not even if the story is condemning that offensive content. This has been, for many many many decades preceding Twitter, the way the industry works.

[jb]

It's cool that you think that, but since you aren't an advertising executive, it turns out it doesn't matter what you think.

Advertisers are very clear that they don't want their ads next to that sort of content, they told Elon that, and they took their dollars elsewhere when he told them to fuck off. The chain of events here is well documented; no need for randos on the Internet to guess what advertisers want.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Because, Stephen, this is the same rationale that NBC News had with the exploding gas tanks on GM pickups.

At that time, at least 300 people had died as a result of exploding gas tanks on these trucks -- a REAL (documented) issue unlike the hypothetical of nazi ads -- so NBC News put a couple of lit model rocket engines on top of the gas tank to make sure it would explode after impact.

GM sued for defamation (and NBC settled) -- and I think what Media Matters did here is far more egregious because there was no independent documentation of this actually happening on its own, and evidence suggests that it never did.

Now is X accepting paid advertisement from Nazis -- I don't think so. (The Nazis don't have that kind of money for starters.)
So this is like going to Walmart or McDonalds and saying "we are going to organize a boycott of you if you permit Nazis to purchase your products."

Do you REALLY want to have a second shooting Civil War THAT badly?!?

Citation: https://automotivehistory.org/gm-sues-nbc-over-exploding-gas-tanks/

[Estragon]

“Do you REALLY want to have a second shooting Civil War THAT badly?!?”

You are such a do-nothing, all-talk loser! Cmon. Go full LaVoy. I dare you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I am not saying that *I* want one -- instead I am warning that the left is inexorably pushing us into one. Cancel culture inherently destabilizes a country and it isn't the right that is engaging in it.

[Estragon]

And this comment is a perfect example of why I do not fear this civil war you are yearning for. Your movement is comprised of whining keyboard warriors who are just waiting for someone else to ask you to fire up the snowplows, someone else to do your dirty work for you.

To the extent you huckleberries had anyone willing to take action, they were cosplaying weirdos like Stewie Rhodes who are more likely to overthrow a buffet than the federal government. You had your shot, and sent your best people. And now a lot (not all!!) of them are in prison, and deservedly so. Trump figuratively pissing on graves at Arlington, getting rebuked by the army, and then BLAMING THE FAMILIES for a “setup” is the icing on this particular fantasy. Why don’t you go LaVoy and leave the rest of us in peace?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Jan 6th was our "best" people?

All Jan 6th did was show us that there are two different systems of law in this country, and that means that there won't be another peaceful protest.

It's Heels Up who pissed on the graves and put those folk into those graves and Trump never said the stuff that his enemies allege -- fired employees often speak badly of the boss.

I neither know nor care who LaVoy is, but why don't you give him a BJ, we all know you want to...

And the British press -- with the objectivity of 3000 miles of ocean -- who are saying we are ALREADY IN a Second Civil War...

[Estragon]

“I neither know nor care who LaVoy is, but why don’t you give him a BJ, we all know you want to…”

Wow, Grandpa Ed is salty today… no “fire truck you”??

I give this argle bargle a 8.5/10. Did you notice you’re the only one sticking with “heels up”?

Bless your heart

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Heels Up" is a more polite version of "Dumb Cunt."

[SimonP]

It sounds like a Veritas operation. ACORN should have sued for the same torts that Musk is suing for here.

[Joe_dallas]

Veritas wasnt manufacturing fake videos of what acorn was doing

[Joe_dallas]

correction - the accuracy of the videos is in dispute

[damikesc]

The full videos were released.

Did, uh, Media Matters do anything similar?

[Social Justice is neither]

For PV the only dispute came from those who refused to review the released unedited recordings. Much like here with people refusing to understand the issue because they hate free speech if it means opinions they don't like or people they don't like can speak.

[SimonP]

Veritas was sending people under false pretenses, with the intention of goading ACORN employees into saying things that Veritas could excerpt and spin in a way that would be embarrassing to ACORN. They attempted to do the same thing with Planned Parenthood. It's their whole M.O.

You can sit here and defend their tactics by saying, "Well, those people actually said those things when they were prompted." But that's all MM is being alleged to have done here, with Twitter. How is it different?

[Drewski]

Because it amuses me to watch you build your conspiracies, I'll note that an independent CBS investigation found similarly problematic ads besides extremist content, leading to the World Bank pulling ads from X. If the only people who saw this were from Media Matters, how is it that CBS also saw this phenomenon? CBS also noted that they received this content merely by subscribing to a single, extremist account (one that praises Hitler).

[Dr. Ed 2]

" they received this content merely by subscribing to a single, extremist account (one that praises Hitler)."

Because normal people subscribe to accounts that praise Hitler....

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"CBS also noted that they received this content merely by subscribing to a single, extremist account (one that praises Hitler)."

They got problematic content by subscribing to a pro-Hitler account? That sounds shocking.

[Drewski]

They got major advertisers alongside the extremist content, which X and Brett both claim doesn't really happen. Try to keep up with the plot.

[JasonT20]

"They didn’t precisely fabricate screen shots. They engaged in a prolonged and extensive pattern of X use that engineered the screen shots."

Fixed it for you. If the screenshots are completely accurate to what was on their screens, then they did not fabricate them, at all. Your point that they "engineered" them to appear is fair. Is that false, for purposes of defamation? I wouldn't think so, unless MM explicitly presented the screenshots as being something a typical user that wasn't trying to game the algorithm would be likely to see.

[Lee Moore]

fabricate :

1. To make; create.
2. To construct by combining or assembling diverse, typically standardized parts. "fabricate small boats."
3. To concoct in order to deceive. "fabricated a convincing excuse."

When you take a photo, you're fabricating it in sense 1 and 2.

When you stage a photo, so as to make Mr A appear taller than Mr B, when the contrary is the case, it's a perfectly genuine photo and a fabrication in sense 1 and 2. But it's also a fabrication in sense 3 - you have concocted the items in the image in a way as to deceive the viewer. There are other ways to fabricate an image besides doctoring it after it has been taken. You can doctor the scene to be imaged. Which is what happened here.

In short, priming the algorithm to produce a screenshot that would never have arisen absent your priming is still fabrication, even if it's a perfectly genuine screenshot.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Lee Moore — Think that through. Capacity to prime an algorithm to juxtapose odious content with an advertiser’s product will remain a major concern for the advertiser. People hostile to the advertiser, and people who want to compete with the advertiser, can seize on that capacity to damage advertisers’ interests. A different publisher which excludes odious content solves the problem. Why risk buying trouble when all you want to buy is advertising?

More generally, this kind of issue is one of serval which stand in the way of internet utopians’ dreams to be endowed with a power to publish without limit. They demand to publish anything at all, without liability, at no cost, world-wide, anonymously, without prior editing, and without post-publication moderation or take-downs.

Not one person in history, anywhere, has ever enjoyed such limitless publishing power. No conspiracy stands against that ambition now. The reason internet utopians cannot get what they want is because to deliver what they want is impossible.

Any attempt to accomplish it—for instance by government fiat—will, without fail, dismantle the means necessary to do the publications demanded. Internet utopians do not realize it, but what they want is something no free market method can deliver. Any government attempt to order it done would be unavailing—requiring cooperation from advertisers free to withhold it—and while failing would drag down free-market publishing as collateral damage.

Even a government willing to fund the entire unlimited cost of such a proposal would accomplish no more than a government-controlled media industry. All free market participants would be driven out by availability of public-funded government competition.

There is no way around any of that. It is built into the way commercial publishing works, and must work if it is to continue.

[Scooter]

Pretty similar to those "Person in the Street Interviews" that the likes of Colbert, Kimmel and Stewart enjoy doing. Interview 500 people and pick out the 6 that sound brain damaged as if they're a representative sample. The Low IQ / Low EQ consumer falls for it. Every. Single. Time.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Regardless, if Media Matters fabricated screen shots, as is alleged,

Remember folks, he doesn’t make stuff up!

[Drewski]

This one isn't really Ed's fault. He's pretty suggestible. Judge O'Connor used that language, going above and beyond accepting the pleadings as true and recharacterizing them as much worse than even X claimed - then accepting his own allegation as true for purposes of the motion. (Disclaimer: I haven't read the pleadings so perhaps X did accuse MM of "fabrication" and O'Connor forgot to mention this in the opinion.)

[Kazinski]

Any responsible owner of a social media platform would censor what the government told them to censor, no questions asked.

[AmosArch]

Its funny all you #buildyourowntwitter 'social media platforms should be able to do what they want because we are pro free enterprise in this and only this area of industry' lefties and bureaucrats changed your tune real quick once Musk got into the game.

[Kazinski]

Might be a fun project and go back and do a comments search and find a few instances.

Do you know who else was all for free enterprise as long as the owners did exactly as they were told?

[AmosArch]

The search on this place sucks. But here is a tiny taste of the lines they were spouting premusk.

1. What you can do with your free speech as a cultural value is create your own app store. You're asking Google and Apple too accept liability for what users of their platform post. If they have to do that, they will control the content that gets posted. Who's stopping you from creating your own devices, apps and app store? Nobody. Go for it.

2. The post and fox news are absolutely light weight versions of the national enquirer. Regardless, Twitter can do what Twitter likes. You can start your own Twitter if you like. Twitters rights are as precious as fox news's.

3. The internet isn't censored, individual privately owned sites may be, but you're perfectly free to hop on the internet and make your own site about anything you want, including illegal things, so long as it's not directly facilitating or participating in the illegal activities.

4. If the politicians want their own platform where they aren’t going to be “censored” and the people have ease of access to such information … create one! If people don’t like that platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or Google are censoring content … don’t use them or use them less. Spend your time and money with a platform that more aligns with your desires and beliefs. There isn’t one out there? Well, nothing is stopping you from creating your own version

[Brett Bellmore]

"but you’re perfectly free to hop on the internet and make your own site about anything you want, including illegal things, so long as it’s not directly facilitating or participating in the illegal activities."

At which point your ISP will drop you, the servers you rented will be shut down, the major credit card companies will stop processing your transactions, your security company will open up a hole so your user base can be hacked, and the big DNS companies will stop resolving your URL.

Other than that, nothing's stopping you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett, couldn't an intrepid attorney make a LOT of money bringing suits under the Sherman Act against the aforementioned players?

I'm thinking intentionally setting up such a site knowing that these players would do as you suggest, and planning to get rich on a "sue & settle" approach,

And the thing that most people don't realize about the Nazis, the Klan and those folk are that (a) there are very few of them and (b) they are pathetic losers that people would feel sorry for if they knew the reality of their lives.

Personally, I'd love to give them the widest exposure possible because their messages only have traction in secrecy. Put it out in public and they make Heels Up look both articulate and intelligent by comparison.

They really aren't very bright, and there really aren't very many of them. Look at the purported plot to kidnap the Michigan Governor -- the FBI had to babysit them and lead them like 3-year-olds. Not exactly the type of people you need to be afraid of...

[damikesc]

I doubt an attorney would even try.

Social media colluded to blacklist Alex Jones on the same day. No lawsuits were filed on that.

[David Nieporent]

Brett, couldn’t an intrepid attorney make a LOT of money bringing suits under the Sherman Act against the aforementioned players?

I don't know what's funnier: Dr. Ed's moronic idea or the fact that he's asking expert antitrust litigator Brett Bellmore to vet it.

[Joe_dallas]

AmosArch 6 hours ago
"2. The post and fox news are absolutely light weight versions of the national enquirer."

Lets pretend the NYT, WP, NPR, etc are not left wing versions of the national enquirer.

[Drewski]

Because you're pretty stupid, I'll explain: Amos was constructing strawman arguments that he imagines "leftists" made here, not advancing those arguments himself. Congratulations on punching a scarecrow, though. You sure showed it.

[AmosArch]

These aren't imaginary these are real quotes. Not from this site since as far as I can tell they don't really let you search comments. But it is a sample of what the left was arguing premusk.

[Malika]

A very tiny, unsourced sample. Have you never heard of the fallacy of generalization?

[Noscitur a sociis]

What aspects of those takes do you see as inconsistent with anything anyone is saying about this case?

[jb]

I don't see anyone arguing that Twitter should be regulated by the government or lose their 230 protections, just that Elon fucked around and found out. Turns out that maybe the other platforms were onto something with their moderation practices since (most) advertisers don't want their ads next to toxic content.

[Michael Ejercito]

Why would they not want their ads next to toxic content?

Is the toxic content driving away their target market?

[NOVA Lawyer]

FFS. If you have to ask, you don't understand anything about brand management.

[Stephen Lathrop]

By George, you've got it! Yes! The toxic content is driving away their target market. Which is not folks like you, but their advertisers. Which the part you have yet to get.

[Social Justice is neither]

I'm sure they said the same in the USSR, that is if they were allowed to say anything at all.

[jb]

Bad bot. Try to at least make sense next time.

[Stephen Lathrop]

jb — I have said that Section 230 should be repealed unconditionally, for everyone. Those who say that Section 230 is the law which built today's internet are correct. Problem is, we now see that the only people happy with today's internet are operators of the giantistic platforms which Section 230 enabled.

[Commenter_XY]

I happen to be an admirer of Elon Musk, but he should never have taken on this project even if he was forced to pay a billion to get out of it.

I wonder if he thinks the same thing....should I have bought X (formerly Twitter)?

[Mr. Bumble]

Well, he certainly has enough "fuck you money" to do what he wants and if he breaks MM and David Brock anyone who cares about free speech should be thankful that he did.

[Michael Ejercito]

Michael Tracey pointed this out.

https://x.com/mtracey/status/1600171051287126016?lang=en

The hysteria around "harmful content" on Twitter always seems to leave out that Twitter has afforded users a fully customizable block button since the inception of the service

In other words, all users are self-moderators.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I didn't read any of Media Matters' reports, but solely judging from Xitter's complaint (linked above), MM didn't say the ads/Nazi shit juxtaposition was typical, just that it was possible.

And it was, as Xitter admitted in its own complaint.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Someone needs to go to some writing CLEs or take a legal writing class. Why on earth would you format it so the explanations of the 12(b)(2), (3), and (6) standards are all in a row and THEN do the analysis on each of those after that. Hasn’t he ever heard of IRAC or CREAC? What C- clerks is he employing? Christ what a stupid fucking hack.

[Kleppe]

Cope, seethe, etc.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I actually have to cope with terrible legal writers all the time. Fortunately, I’m typically not seething because, more often than not, it’s to my advantage that people aren’t good at it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Answer honestly: Are licensed lawyers inherently better legal writers than random college graduates would be? If law schools are not teaching them how to write *well*, then what is the advantage of requiring them to have attended law school?

[Noscitur a sociis]

I don’t know what you mean by “inherently” here. The worst lawyers surely produce worse legal writing than the very non-lawyers are capable of. But someone who completes law school and gets admitted to practice is almost certainly going to produce better legal writing than they would have beforehand, which seems like the better gauge of its value.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"someone who completes law school and gets admitted to practice is almost certainly going to produce better legal writing than they would have beforehand"

Is there any evidence of this?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Are you asking if there is any evidence that law school teaches people to be good legal writers compared to someone who isn’t taught that?

[Dr. Ed 2]

I'm asking if it is possible that some non-lawyers (e.g. legal secretaries) might be better legal writers than some actual lawyers.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Of course it's possible, even likely. It's less likely they will both be better legal writers and understand the law better. Law school generally doesn't do a great job of teaching legal writing (though I can't say currently, historically). They barely even were starting to try when I went. What they did do was try to teach the law and how to analyze the law.

It may come as a surprise, and it's often surprising to me, that a person might know the law and even be able to analyze it, but not be able to write in a particularly organized or logical way about it.

Law schools focus on teaching what the law is and how to analyze it. They don't typically teach how to be a good writer (legal or generally) as, I think, the assumption is you should have learned how to write essays and the like in undergrad and legal writing isn't that much different than a persuasive essay. If you have the skills for one, you should be able to manage the other.

It turns out that lots of people are really bad writers. Many lawyers too. The joke is often that lawyers chose law school because they were bad at math, but I'm not sure many were any better at writing.

[LawTalkingGuy]

But for anecdotal evidence, like many students who took poli-sci or history courses in college I would occasionally write papers on legal topics. My writing ability after law school is much better than it was after undergrad. Both generally and in the specific context of writing about the law.

[Dr. Ed 2]

My writing ability after having written a doctoral dissertation is better than when I was an undergrad -- writing inherently improves ones writing ability.

What I am asking -- as an educator -- is if law school inherently improves legal writing of specific individuals more than other things do -- AND if the cadre of law school graduates are inherently better writers than other cadres.

[Drewski]

Law school often produces solid legal writers. Judges and partners then ruin those skills, with the help of boilerplate language. Legal professionals, on the whole, are some of the most highly-paid and worst writers in the world.

You may think this is my crotchety opinion but in fact this is science, of a sort. Researchers on the topic won an Ig Nobel Prize for their study of terrible writing. It even has charts! So it must be science.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Again, I don’t know what work you’re trying to have “inherently” do in these formulations. But to answer some of the related questions you seem to be posing:

1. The median and average lawyer can produce much, much, much better legal writing than the median and average person. The difference narrows, but is still significant if you restrict it to other highly-educated professionals in writing-heavy careers.

2. The worst lawyers can be pretty bad, and non-lawyers can certainly learn to do a serviceable job, so (as I would have thought would be fairly obvious) some non-lawyers are certainly better legal writers than some actual lawyers.

3. Most law schools don’t do as good a job at teaching some of the core competencies of lawyering as they could or should. But for any given person, completing law school is about the best way to improve legal writing than any other plausible way of spending those three years.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I agree with 1 and 2 without reservation. On 3, I agree that most law schools don't do as good a job at teaching some of the core competencies of lawyering as they could or should.

I suppose, in a sense, it's true that law school is about the best way to improve legal writing than any other plausible way of spending those three years. Mainly because there aren't any plausible paths (other than maybe working as a paralegal in a position where you would actually get to do a bunch of legal writing) that offer any more than the limited amount of instruction in legal writing that law school offers.

And law school is, perhaps, the best plausible option despite the fact that law school really doesn't do much to improve legal writing beyond exposing students to well-written cases and teaching them black letter law and how to analyze cases. That is not the same as teaching someone how to write a good legal brief.

A useful component of learning to write a novel is to read other, well-written novels. But just reading great novels and analyzing them as an English major isn't going to make anyone a good novelist, much less a great one. The improvement in legal writing during law school is similarly minor, I think, as the improvement in writing novels from just reading and analyzing them. Without practice writing (whether legal or fiction....or legal fiction!), there won't be much improvement and there isn't a lot of legal writing with feedback in law school. (Exams are not the same as practice writing a brief or whatever.)

A semester's worth of a focused legal writing program would do more than 3 years of law school, unless law school now includes an intensive semester long legal writing course. In my experience, law school really did little to directly teach or improve one's legal writing.

[Dr. Ed 2]

We teach engineering and nursing as 4-year undergrad program.

Europe teaches law as an undergrad program.

I think we should too...

[NOVA Lawyer]

Nobody cares about your opinions on teaching law.

You demonstrated above that you have the logical reasoning skills of a somewhat slow middle-schooler. (How, you asked, can it be that a judge is a bad writer, but law schools improve students' writing?)

[hobie]

Good lawyers are better legal writers. College students and bad lawyers write with their emotions, make grandiose statements, and fluff things up with way too many citations. Good legal writing is terse, boring. Like a users manual for installing an oven

[NOVA Lawyer]

I disagree that, generally, good legal writing is “terse, boring.” Terse, sure. But not boring. That serves no end, in most cases. You are absolutely correct, however, that people often think that writing with emotions and making grandiose statements and adding fluff is what makes something not boring. It isn’t. There is a third way.

Of course, how boring legal writing should be definitely varies by how routine it is, but I would always prefer to submit an interesting, though terse, clear, and matter-of-fact brief than a boring one. There are situations were boring is fine, but almost never when your goal is to persuade. The problem is that just making a brief not boring does not necessarily improve it. And I think that’s what you are getting at.

Plenty of boring briefs are better than not-boring ones. But the best briefs are rarely, if ever, boring. Humans are reading them, so varied sentence lengths, interesting formulations (which is where some people reach for Virginia Woolf or F. Scott Fitzgerald sentences, which isn't the right way to make it not boring), etc. are useful to grab and direct the reader's attention to the key points.

A deed, on the other hand, is definitely going to be boring. If you mean that sort of thing, rather than persuasive writing, then those are best boring. But persuasive writing is definitely better if it isn't boring.

[LawTalkingGuy]

There are definitely ways to enliven dry subject matter. Word choice, sentence structure, good transitions, and formatting go a long way. But I think it’s good to remember that a writer ultimately has limited control over what the reader finds boring. A lawyer can submit a highly persuasive and readable brief on prescriptive easements. But if the judge, who may even be presupposed to finding most legal minutiae interesting, finds property law extremely boring, the lawyer is fighting a hopeless battle. The trick is to avoid being memorable in a bad way.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"The trick is to avoid being memorable in a bad way."

That's certainly to be avoided.

"But if the judge, who may even be presupposed to finding most legal minutiae interesting, finds property law extremely boring, the lawyer is fighting a hopeless battle."

I disagree. The object isn't to entertain the judge, it's to be more persuasive. The judge may find your brief dry and boring, no matter how well-written, because of the subject matter, but if it's better written, it will likely be less boring than the other precisely because it makes it easier to understand the minutiae. Good writing, about even dry topics, is clear, readable, and relatable to the audience (in this case a judge).

Consider an academic article about the physics of size segregation of particulate matter by shaking. You could name your article that. Or: Why Brazil nuts are on top: size segregation of particulate matter by shaking.

One title is both better and less boring, even though the subject is not any more exciting than prescriptive easements.

[hobie]

Yes, for sure. You have to slip in persuasion. What I meant by boring is that to the average lay person - like Dr. Ed or a college student - a brief or motion that lacks grand declarations of 'This is Unamerican' or eye-rolling citations of the Constitution itself would seem mundane. But, in my opinion, nothing insults the court more than to waste their time with shit like that. On point citations and case law with brief description of relevance has rarely failed me.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I absolutely agree that any good brief will be boring to the Dr. Eds of the world and many an average college student. I absolutely agree that nothing wastes the court’s time more than shit like “this is Unamerican” or other bombastic, hyperbolic fluff rather than argument. Yes, one point citation to case law with brief description of relevance can be eloquent and devastating.

One of the best lessons I got on improving my writing was an early motion for summary judgment. It was Virginia, so such motions are rarely granted. There was a significant amount of evidence and the page limit was 5 pages. I had what I thought was a very good 10 page motion (including statement of undisputed facts which took up at least a couple pages maybe more in the original), but needed the judge’s approval to submit a longer motion. He insulted me, I felt, in the conference on that request telling me I must be new to Virginia, the motion would be denied anyway, so, no, you can’t file a longer motion.

I shortened it to five pages. It was better. I now thought I had an excellent motion. The other side didn’t even oppose it and the judge granted dismissal of their counterclaims.

I still think he was kind of an asshole about it, but he definitely was right on that occasion, that if the motion was any good it could be said in five pages rather than ten. Cut out anything that isn’t strictly necessary, because judges have to read a lot of motions/briefs and don’t have a lot of time or patience for your purple prose.

Definitely, make it clear, concise, and professional, but as interesting as those three criteria permit. In fact, I would argue, the better you do those three things, the less actually boring it generally is.

[hobie]

Word

[Kazinski]

If lawyers are such good legal writers, then why are so many seemingly using chatgpt, or other AI?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Lawyers, generally, are not necessarily such good writers, which is beside the point.

“I apologize for the length of this letter, I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” – attributed to Mark Twain

Even lawyers who are good writers (I assume) use AI. But not because AI writes better briefs. They are using it to try to write good enough briefs in a shorter amount of time (so more time for other briefs or client development or whatever). It’s not much of a mystery.

[Kazinski]

Ueah I agree with you for once.

But I also think its easier to start with something thats already written then make it better, than start from scratch, assuming it starts at a high enough baseline.

[Sarcastr0]

Good and fast writing are orthogonal abilities.

[Noscitur a sociis]

What a strange question. The lawyers who are using ChatGPT aren’t doing it to make their writing better. They’re doing it to make their writing easier.

[LawTalkingGuy]

A good legal education can give future lawyers the skills necessary to be good writers. But it can’t make them use them. The pressures and expectations of practice make it difficult for many lawyers to use all the skills they were taught.

[Kazinski]

"Christ what a stupid fucking hack."

That's your honor to you.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I’m not admitted to his court or the bar of his state of residence. I don’t ever plan on appearing in front of him or interacting with him personally or professionally. I won’t ever need to refer to him or his opinions in my professional capacity. So he is not and will not ever be “his honor” to me. He’ll just be some stupid fucking hack who can’t write for shit.

[Dr. Ed 2]

BUT a law school graduate who "can't write for shit."

Do you see my point?

[LawTalkingGuy]

No. Because this is a blog comments section. Not something I’m writing professionally.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I believe Dr. Ed’s point is that if you think Judge O’Connor is a terrible writer even though he went to law school, you are implicitly conceding that attending law school doesn’t improve people’s writing skills.

Identifying the flaw in this argument is left as an exercise for the reader. (Good LSAT practice!)

[Dr. Ed 2]

But he was also admitted to a law school, which -- in theory -- had standards as to basic aptitude.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I’m going to have mercy and spell it out for you Dr. Ed.

Let’s assume that Judge O’Connor was a terrible writer coming out of undergrad. One of the worst. But, he managed to have good grades, maybe he graduated with an engineering degree and could avoid most classes that required writing. Being a logical thinker, this hypothetical Judge O’Connor did well on the LSAT which doesn’t require being good at writing to score highly. Then he went to law school and improved his writing significantly, from terrible to merely bad. And, so, he is now a judge who is a bad writer, but law school improved his writing.

That is one example how it could both be true that law school improves writing but you also read bad writing by judges and lawyers. I don’t want to start a shooting civil war or anything, but you really should have been able to see that your logical argument (person who is now bad at writing previously went to law school, therefore law school doesn’t improve writing) was fatally flawed.

Maybe the question you should be asking, instead of what law school does to improve writing, is how you can get better at logical reasoning.

[Dr. Ed 2]

My point was that he should not have been admitted.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Your point is stupid, particularly given that it is based on a single data point.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A single skill (not data point) that is quite relevant to the profession.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Making broad-based conclusions regarding the judge's writing skill based on one opinion, and it’s not clear you’ve even read the opinion, is, in fact, making your point based on a single point of data.

You have again demonstrated that you don’t really understand words or logic at all.

(I don’t deny that the judge may be a partisan hack who is a terrible writer (I'm agnostic on the latter question), but Dr. Ed, as is his tendency around here, makes wide-ranging, unjustified conclusions based on extrapolation from scant, if any, evidence.)

[Sarcastr0]

Buzz is the personal jurisdiction finding was a stretch.

[Kazinski]

Is that the comment SimonP was looking for from EV?

Doesn't seem very satisfying.

[Michael P]

The buzz? But what about the vibes?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Can you link to the DailyKos thread where you picked that up from? I'd like to look into it more.

[Spinach Chin]

"And yes the Nazis, racists, nihilists, trolls, creeps, and mentally ill all came back in force and their “content” would appear next to any advertiser’s content."

None of this happened. At least, not in quantities particularly different to any other platform. The flight of advertisers was a direct result of a campaign against Musk and Twitter specifically designed to scare advertisers off. It wasn't based in reality.

And I sincerely doubt Musk will stop at MM...

[Stephen Lathrop]

Spinach Chin — Although major advertisers as a class are keen to avoid controversy, they otherwise tend to stick like glue to media which have been working for them. So your comment does not make much sense.

On the other hand, after Musk went overtly right-wing with X, it became easy to predict X's controversial content would increase. Thus, any media competitor would have been remiss not to highlight for advertisers that advertisers' messages were both appearing in unhelpful contexts, and also funding socially unpopular causes. The ad sales pitch writes itself:

"See, this is the wholesome context your message joins if you choose my platform, and this is the swill you risk seeing opposite your own message if you support X."

Do you suggest states should be empowered to punish legally that kind of competition?

[Brett Bellmore]

Keep in mind that all that is meant by "overtly right-wing" is "ceased to be overtly left-wing". It's not like he banned the left from Twitter, he just unbanned the right.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Do you suggest states should be empowered to punish legally that kind of competition?

[Brett Bellmore]

When it's pursued by pushing lies, you mean?

[Stephen Lathrop]

I told you when, in a reply to your previous comment. Do you suggest states should be empowered to punish legally that kind of competition?

[damikesc]

And it is also not like sites like Instagram, which advertisers are not "scared" of, are not fairly laden with CP and the like all over it.

[Michael Ejercito]

I never saw any ADULT nudes on InstaGram, let alone kiddie porn.

Was your experience different?

[Kazinski]

i don't use Instagram, so I don't see much of anything on Instagram thats not posted as a link.

But do you really they would post material that could get them arrested publicly where you and everyone could see it and report it, or would it be in private groups or DM's?

[jb]

LOL. Cool alternate reality you're living in there. Conservative content does great on all the social media; you guys just love anecdotes that let you feel oppressed instead of actual data. From https://press.foxnews.com/2024/06/fox-news-digital-leads-news-brands-with-multiplatform-minutes-and-views-while-seeing-month-over-month-growth-in-both-categories

FOX News was once again the most engaged brand on social media in the competitive set in May, with 26.4 million total social interactions, marking the 117th consecutive month FOX News has placed on top, according to Emplifi. FOX News drove 7.8 million interactions on Facebook, 16.8 million Instagram interactions and 1.9 million X interactions. On YouTube, FOX News secured 175.3 million video views, according to Shareablee.

[David Nieporent]

The right was never banned from Twitter.

[Kazinski]

No, not completely, but Trump was banned.

The NY Post had their account suspended until they bent the knee and deleted their post promoting a completely true story.

The Babylon Bee was banned for satire.

MTG, Jordan Peterson, Project Veritas...

Far beyond happenstance or coincidence.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, and one could point to plenty of leftists who were also banned.

None of them as prominent because that particular flavor of dirtbag leftist is more marginalized than on the post-Trump vice-signaling right, where they're the model conservative.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Who knew that making a list of 'things' somehow proves a conspiracy of unjust treatment!

They violated twitter's policies and received punishment for doing so. Excluding 'leftist' twits who also received punishment for breaking Twitter policies doesn't somehow turn the policy-breaking into a partisan attack against conservatives.

You're a fucking idiot, Kazinski.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And Brett, while they would never EVER admit it, the advertisers are quite happy to take money from the right wing.

If they could get away with it, they would advertise explicitly to the right wing as they are businessmen, they want to sell product, and they really don't care who they sell it to.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Four words Stephen: Exploding GM Gas Tanks.....

I think those who LIE about a company ought to be held accountable for LYING about it -- be it a staged video of something that had actually been documented to have happened a few hundred times on its own, or something that is documented to have NEVER happened before.

If MM told the truth -- "Klansmen who repeatedly search for your product will *eventually* see ads for it" -- well, most rational people would reluctantly concede that "well, their money is green, too."

[AmosArch]

*YAWN* The more interesting Twitter story is the judgeking in Brazil throwing a colossal tantrum over musk. Twitter is apparently so dangerous you have to be fined 9k a day for daring to use it. And he even tried to ban all VPNs from the country just to eradicate any trace of it before being forced to walk things back.

[Kazinski]

Don’t forget he also ordered Starlink shutdown over the entire country, even though SpaceX and X are completely separate corporate entities.

And that Starlink is a primary communication link over large parts of Brazil for the military, schools, and the people.

I hope the next step for Elon is developing an offensive capability for SpaceX. I think just being able to precision guide 1 kilo steel spheres to a 20 meter square target at terminal velocity would be all he’d need.

[AmosArch]

I hope the next step for Elon is developing an offensive capability for SpaceX.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Well there's Starshield.

[Estragon]

“I think just being able to precision guide 1 kilo steel spheres to a 20 meter square target at terminal velocity would be all he’d need.”

Sorry— just to clarify, what would this capability be “needed” for? Would this affect the legal case in Brazil somehow, in your estimation? Please elaborate.

[Brett Bellmore]

You know, I could see, a long time from now, a future SpaceX that's moved most of its operations into orbit and beyond, and in effect become its own nation-state. It seems a likely consequence if Musk does succeed in colonizing Mars. In that case they'd need, and especially, be able to get away with having, their own military.

But that's not going to happen for decades, even Musk time.

The moment Musk puts any kind of offensive power into orbit not at the specific direction of the US, it's game over for SpaceX if they're still based in the US, or even critically dependent on US based assets.

[Estragon]

Why are so many posts on this ostensibly legal blog seemingly informed solely by science fiction movies? Musk will be long dead before anyone sets foot on mars— this wankery is pointless.

Why would the ability to kill someone from orbit affect Brazilian legal proceedings, Kaz?

[Mr. Bumble]

Musk's plan is to upload his consciousness to an android to escape mortality and continue on indefinitely.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't know that he'll be long dead; Musk is 53, and he can afford excellent medical care. While Mars might not be colonized in the next twenty years, Musk can probably pull off a manned landing in that time.

Assuming somebody calls off the bureaucratic dogs, anyway.

[Estragon]

Don’t you guys have some sci-fi musk fanboy forum you can go post this stuff on? Why would the ability to send down 1 kilo spheres from orbit affect Brazilian legal proceedings? Anyone want to take a stab?

[r]

This discussion of raining metal spheres from orbit to assassinate disfavored judges is more reality-based and relevant than about 25% of the comments I see on this site.

And by the way, it should be metal rods, not spheres, to minimize burn-up through re-entry. i.e. the destruction of London in one of the god-awful GI Joe movies.

[Estragon]

“raining metal spheres from orbit to assassinate disfavored judges is more reality-based and relevant”

Thank you for your candor. Your enthusiasm for mastubatory sci-fi fantasy is noted.

Would you view that as a positive or negative thing? Anything to add, Kaz, or does this about cover it?

[Kazinski]

Well maybe he could just brick Chinese spy satellites and use them.

And I would add that Estragon is an unimaginative scold.

[Estragon]

Who’s scolding? So many posts by you huckleberries, and only L. Moore can give me a straight answer.

[Mr. Bumble]

It should be Tesla's Death Ray.

[Lee Moore]

Estragon is just sealioning his way towards saying "Golly gosh how shocking ! To threaten a judge with violence ! Even in jest that's ... searches The Book of Norms .....shocking ! Pass the smelling salts !"

But a judge is a guy (or gal) who has the power to visit the awful violence of the state upon you. He can order you into his court to answer questions, he can order your property seized, he can order you put into prison. We tolerate such people, mostly, because they are constrained by a bundle of rules that limit the practical scope of the megalomania that so often attends so much discretionary power to visit violence on us.

But a rogue judge, such as this Brazilian fellow, is no more than a mugger, a footpad. A thug acting under color of law is still a thug. Donning judicial garb doesn't change that. Anyone has a moral right to resist the depredations of such a judge - countering force with force.

The answer to the old question - quis custodiet ipsos custodes - is "those who can punch them on the nose."

[Estragon]

I’m going to ignore the misuse of “sealioning” (is this the new gaslighting?) here and thank you for your candor in answering my question in a straightforward manner,— something your fellow travelers above seem to be having trouble with. I disagree that billionaires assassinating people from orbit is an ideal, or natural, state of affairs, either in this country or globally. It is indeed a strange position to take on an ostensibly legal blog. But murder fantasies aren’t exactly in short supply around here these days. Thank you, and have a blessed day. And… I guess— stay on Musk’s good side in case this tech is as close as Kaz believes?

[Estragon]

“A thug acting under color of law is still a thug. Donning judicial garb doesn’t change that. Anyone has a moral right to resist the depredations of such a judge – countering force with force.”

Ps- would you support a repeal of 18 USC 1503?

[grb]

Lee Moore : “A thug acting under color of law is still a thug”

Which makes me wonder L. Moore’s opinion on a thug acting under color of immunity. Particularly when much of that immunity is made from whole cloth, Constitution-wise.

(Masturbatory fantasies raining spheres from orbit ain’t the answer there either)

[SimonP]

Lee - Estragon is doing the thankless work of drawing out intimations of political violence so that people here calling for it can properly be identified as such. We know about Dr. Ed and Frank. Now we have Kaz and, I suppose, you.

It's helpful to keep in mind that, while some of us here are interested in debating issues with those who disagree, and assume they are dealing with mature adults of a similar persuasion, some of us are just this side of openly advocating for politically-motivated violence, and keep that part of their beliefs quiet in this corner of the internet.

[Lee Moore]

Estragon : I disagree that billionaires assassinating people from orbit is an ideal, or natural, state of affairs, either in this country or globally. It is indeed a strange position to take on an ostensibly legal blog.

We will have to agree to differ :

”On the morning of 3 February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People’s Court when United States Army Air Forces bombers attacked Berlin, led by the B-17 of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal. Government and Nazi Party buildings were hit, including the Reich Chancellery the Gestapo headquarters, the Party Chancellery and the People’s Court. Hearing the air raid sirens, Freisler hastily adjourned the court and ordered that the prisoners be taken to an air raid shelter, but stayed behind to gather files before leaving. A bomb struck the court building at 11:08 causing a partial internal collapse, and a masonry column came loose whilst Freisler was distracted by his documents. The column came crashing down on Freisler, causing him to be crushed and killed instantly. Due to the column collapsing, a large portion of the courtroom also landed on Freisler’s corpse.”

This seems to me to be a refreshing apt conclusion to Herr Freisler’s career as a “judge.”

[NOVA Lawyer]

Lee Moore,

Dishonestly conflating World War II with assassinating a foreign judge whose ruling on he doesn't like doesn't change who you've revealed yourself to be.

If your views entail assassinating political/judicial actors in democracies who do something you don't like, you're evil.

[Armchair]

NoVa believes that a threat of Unicorns and Dragons assassinating political figures should be taken seriously, and we should be equipping our politicians with anti-Unicorn charms.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I suppose you fairly warned us. You’ve got the wit of a piece of furniture!

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett -- don't forget that the East India Company had its own military -- at one point having 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time.

OTOH, International law states that the STATE from which a spacecraft is launched is responsible for it.

[Estragon]

What affect on Brazilian legal proceedings do you think the ability to bombard from orbit would have? Do you view that as desirable, from a policy perspective?

[Dr. Ed 2]

This is the same issue as Radio Free Europe -- electronic signals sent from outside the jurisdiction of a state.

[Armchair]

1) "Sorry— just to clarify, what would this capability be “needed” for? "That's called a "joke" Or dark humor.

2) "Would this affect the legal case in Brazil somehow, in your estimation? Please elaborate."
In terms of another piece of dark humor, a number of 1 kilo steel spheres suddenly impacting the courthouse in Brazil at terminal velocity might affect the legal case. But that's dark humor, not to be taken seriously.

[NOVA Lawyer]

1. ““That’s called a “joke” Or dark humor.” Humor, add it to the list of things neither Lee Moore nor Armchair understand.

2. “But that’s dark humor, not to be taken seriously.” You seem to understand humor about as well as J.D. Vance. Jokes and humor require more than masturbatory violent fantasies. Presumably you think otherwise, but Dr. Ed is not as good a comedian as Dave Chappelle.

Who can forget this Vance knee slapper: “Democrats say that it is racist to believe—well, they say it’s racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I’m sure they’re gonna call that racist too.” Hilarious!

[Armchair]

In other news, when liberal is told that something that is outside the bounds of current reality, and is generally considered science fiction is a joke, they treat it with utter seriousness as a real threat.

Next you’ll believe that unicorns are a serious threat to global warming.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Example?

Calling something a violent masturbatory fantasy is not treating something as a real threat. The "fantasy" part should tip you off.

But I see with your final "joke", you really did go to the JD Vance school of stand-up comedy.

Please don't try to be funny. It's painfully bad.

[Armchair]

Watch out for the unicorn farts NoVa... They'll cause global warming.

Better kill them all now!

[NOVA Lawyer]

Get help.

[Kazinski]

"Jokes and humor require more than masturbatory violent fantasies."

Why?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/aug/10/chris-riddell-on-elon-musk-as-a-bond-villain-cartoon

[NOVA Lawyer]

Kazinski, you have shown yourself in this thread to lack even rudimentary logical reasoning. Now you demonstrate a lack of vocabulary.

The cartoon has a number of elements that you may or may not find funny, but they go well beyond (in both depth and subtlety): What if we just killed judges who make rulings we don't like? Or, liberals thinks everything is racist, I just drank Mountain Dew, I bet they think that's racist.

I'm seriously beginning to think you are not at all smart.

[Kazinski]

Never really claimed to be all that smart, from my experience the people who spend a lot of time claiming how smart they are usually end up disappointments, cause they don’t have a lick of common sense, no sense of humor either.

I’ll bet you’re real smart though Nova.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Smart enough to see your link was to something with actual humorous elements, unlike the “joke” you chose to enter this thread to defend. Maybe, at this time in America especially, it’s just not terribly funny (if it ever could be) to say: what if we just kill [politician you don’t like].

[Estragon]

It’s like they’re all turning into “Dr” Ed

[NOVA Lawyer]

It is. They are deteriorating by the day. It's sad to watch.

[Estragon]

“That’s called a “joke” Or dark humor.”

Well that’s interesting because there are a lot of your fellow travelers here that seem to be taking this pretty seriously.

Also, once again, we have the strange conservative view of humor. What exactly is HAHA LOL funny about this? Explain it to me. Is it funny in the same way Paul Pelosi getting hit in the head with a hammer is funny? I’m genuinely asking.

To the extent this is a “joke” I would suggest it’s actually a great example of what we call “kidding on the square.”

[Armchair]

Hey Estragon,

What do you get when give a liberal a penny for his thoughts?
-Change.

How do you confuse a liberal?
You can't...they're born that way.

Do you know why we don't have unicorns anymore?
Liberals killed them all. They thought their farts caused global warming.

[Estragon]

Thank you Louis— short but pointless.

-Spengler

[Stephen Lathrop]

Estragon — When right wingers think of Paul Pelosi, they think of him as a duck, and it becomes funny. Remember Lincoln: "Stunned like a duck, hit upon the head."

[Michael P]

The whole “rods from god” idea sounds appealing, but conservation of energy applies: you won’t get more energy out of dropping one than you spent launching it into space. At the Earth’s equator, that is less than 63 MJ/kg (the Earth’s standard gravitational parameter divided by its equatorial radius) — about 13 times as much as TNT (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table). Conventional weapons are easier than dropping rocks from orbit.

And starting from an actual orbit rather than infinity drops that theoretical 63 MJ/kg by an awful lot.

[Dr. Ed 2]

True -- and you're also going to lose energy from atmospheric friction. Friction (and the related heat) is why they had to use Titanium on the SR-71 and why these rods would also have to be made out of it.

You also are not going to get anything resembling targeting accuracy with these things. There are too many unpredictable variables in the atmosphere, it would be like the Apollo capsules where your possible impact area is measured in square miles -- not so good if you are trying to hit a specific building...

Furthermore, they are also going to be red hot which itself is going to create targeting variance, and remember that they aren't coming straight down -- they are going sideways (relative to the target) at the same speed the satellite was.

The Space Shuttle could land on a runway because it had a human pilot steering it. Smart bombs adjust their tail fins for accuracy -- tail fins would burn up here. There is no way to ensure that one of these rods landed within a few miles of where you wanted it to land.

[Absaroka]

Just to geek out, here is a Rand study discussing the practicalities (toward the end). They estimate that the fuel weight to orbit as 50x the projectile, vs 40x to deliver conventional bombs in the Gulf War.

They don't directly discuss accuracy, but seem to think ships are a possible target, which would require some degree of accuracy. ICBM warheads can be steered a bit in the terminal phase, FWIW.

Jerry Pournelle originated the concept when working as an analyst at Boeing, before he changed careers to a sci-fi writer, so while the concept seems beloved by sci-fi writers, it was actually considered by the Air Force.

I don't think the ATF will let Musk have his own :-).

[Dr. Ed 2]

They were talking about taking out a moving railroad locomotive -- I'd like to see that done, particularly when the speed of the train is rarely a constant...

[Bruce Hayden]

Easy solution - construct it in space. How is that going to impact Interstate Commerce? Besides, how do space launchers violate US gun laws? They aren’t machine guns or sawed off shotguns, etc. maybe an All Other Weapon, but they aren’t nearly as closely regulated.

The other thing to keep in mind is that, from here on out, probably, the US government will likely need SpaceX much more than SpaceX will need the USG. NASA and Boing put two astronauts up to the ISS. SpaceX is likely bringing them back. They are, by far, the cheapest way to get payloads into space, and are expected to put roughly half of such into space this year. And that is likely to increase year by year in the foreseeable future. If the NSA, DOD, etc, need something in space pronto, SpaceX will very likely be the ones doing it.

This is, BTW, why the left’s attempts to shut down or greatly regulate free speech on Twitter and StarLink aren’t likely to go anywhere. If, say, the FCC jumps in, and tries to overregulate these companies, they can probably expect a call from SecDef, if not POTUS, strongly suggesting that they back off, and not endanger the timely launch of critical missions into space.

[Armchair]

True. But the other end of the argument applies. Getting the conventional weapon into place.

If you could magically put 13 tons of TNT or conventional weapons in the right place at the right time, without the need to put them in orbit to start, that would be great. But conventional measures (aircraft, truck, ship, etc) are susceptible to all sorts of strategies that seek to intercept the delivery.

Whereas, if they're already in orbit and just..waiting... Interception becomes much, much more difficult.

[Magister]

Detection of sizable objects in orbit is not difficult, and once it is clear that there are such orbital weapons, there would be a rush to destroy anything mildly suspicious in orbit. The value of non-weaponized satellites is sufficient that I expect such uses of space would be blocked by treaty and enforced by powerful nations that don't need orbiting TNT.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Not to mention the hazards created by the debris.

[Armchair]

"There would be a rush to destroy anything mildly suspicious in orbit. "
There's a rush...then there's the actual capability to do it. Brazil is not exactly well known for their amazing space program.

" blocked by treaty"
That treaty already exists. Is it enforced though? Well.....

[Magister]

I don't think current treaties address conventional weapons in space, but maybe. Orbiting a weapon of mass destruction seems like a really bad idea.

There are a lot of countries that can launch something into space, and the Russians have demonstrated destroying a satellite in orbit with a missile. Is there a satellite that weighs more than 14 tons? Does the US or anyone else track who launched what into orbit if it's that big? The US certainly doesn't need secret tons of TNT in orbit, and they'd probably oppose anyone else having those, if they really were a military advantage.

[Armchair]

"There are a lot of countries that can launch something into space"

There are only 11*. Only 11 countries have put something into orbit. (*The European Space Agency is really a combination of France and the UK, but I'm counting that as 2 countries). Of those 11, only 8 have real any capability beyond the most rudimentary, the other 3 have succeeded at less than 5 launches.

Brazil is not one of them.

[Magister]

They don't need to put something in orbit, only hit something already in orbit. But if one of the eleven starts putting tons of TNT in orbit, the others are going to just shrug? I was going by the number of countries that own satellites, but eleven is more than enough even if it's not a lot.

[Bruce Hayden]

Except that SpaceX controls half of the launch capacity on earth right now, and that is likely to increase in coming years as their heavy launch rockets become operational.

[Dr. Ed 2]

HOW did he shut down Starlink?

How difficult is it to get a dish and to tune it to Starlink's frequency?

[Bruce Hayden]

It’s not the frequency, but the encryption.

[Kazinski]

moved.

[Malika]

I think it’s important to note that so many of the right wing folks here went seamlessly from “Biden’s rhetoric about Trump’s existential threat led to the assassination attempt on Trump” to “hey, maybe Musk should assassinate this judge, and if you think that’s awful you can’t take a joke!”

You have to know these people are like color blind people pontificating on colors: they have some sense that these color differences exist for a lot of people, but they don’t themselves know what they are. So, desperate fanatics that they are, they are trying to engage in something like using the idea of color mismatches against their political enemies, but they have little idea how transparently weird they seem in wielding the language.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You have hit upon something. Many of the commenters here don't seem to grasp actual morality or ethics, they only use the language to try to score rhetorical points. But then are quickly revealed as vacuous partisans when they pivot from their outrage de jure to making a "jokes" that are exactly what outraged them moments ago, but with team jerseys reversed.

Nancy Pelosi's husband hit in the head with a hammer? Hilarious. Trump plays it for laughs at his rally, morally bankrupt individual that he is and the rubes lap it up.

Some insane person tries to assassinate Trump? Nothing to be joked about.

"Elon Musk should assassinate a judge!" More hilarity to the mouth breathers.

These fucking people.

[Armchair]

Come back when you get your unicorns....

[Dr. Ed 2]

You know, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch for a STATE to determine that banning X is an "act of war" and for a STATE to assassinate the judge. What happens next would be interesting (see WWI) but we've overthrown governments for United Fruit...

[NOVA Lawyer]

States, if you mean a U.S. state, cannot declare war, Dr. Ed, or assassinate political leaders of democracies. But your penchant for violent fantasies and apparent longing for war is again noted.

No doubt, Armchair will shortly be along to entertain us with “jokes” given how much comedic fodder all this assassination talk provides.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Sovereign State like the US.

And the US HAS assassinated political leaders before.

And it was the Alabama National Guard that flew air cover for the Bay of Pigs...

[NOVA Lawyer]

Of course, the United States has and has tried to assassinate political leaders. That says nothing about whether it is a good idea generally, in those particular instances, or, especially, of a judge whose ruling has just been upheld by the country's Supreme Court.

And, of course, President Gerald Ford signed in 1976 an executive order stating: “No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire in, political assassination.” So the U.S. doesn't make the same sorts of attempts it used to, at least not as frequently and brazenly.

[David Nieporent]

You know, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for a STATE to determine that banning X is an “act of war”

…if you’re retarded.

and for a STATE to assassinate the judge.

Note the made up claim has nothing to do with the second part of his statement, which is just his standard masturbating towards thoughts of murder. Even if it were an act of war, which of course it is not, assassinating a judge would not be a valid response.

[Armchair]

Yes, Elon Musk should genetically engineer a unicorn to go and hurt this judge....

Sometimes, liberals have zero sense.

[Kazinski]

That escalated quickly.

[Estragon]

Hey— you brought up the sci fi murder fantasy, bub!

What is it about Elon that gives you a thrill up the leg anyways? Something for you to ponder

[Bruce Hayden]

Because, maybe more than anyone on the planet, Musk is changing our future. SpaceX is the big one.

Years ago, I read an article about what it would take to get humanity permanently into space, and on the Moon and other planets. The Moon is important because it has a much lower/smaller gravity well, and you don’t have to launch through atmosphere. And, you may be able to forgo rockets completely through use of mass drivers, etc, given the potential availability of almost unlimited solar and/or nuclear generated electrical power. Ultimately, much of the materials needed to build in space is probably going to come from asteroids. Turns out that the limiting factor appeared to be the energy to get the initial critical mass into space, and particular, into orbit. And the easiest form to use was hydrocarbons. The worry was that we had a limited window to do so, and were using it up, powering our vehicles and heating our houses.

Musk is making all the right moves right now to bring this dream to reality. No one else is, or can. The goal is self replicating space infrastructure. And when we get there, if we do, we will have nearly unlimited energy available. For example, it turns out that AI utilizes immense quantities of electricity. That is becoming a problem, esp around DC. The solution is to put their computers in space, where energy can be nearly free (and cooling can become a non-issue).

[loki13]

Welp, I was hoping for some legal-like substance, and was disappointed.

I have say, the judge doesn't have the best rep for writing opinions. And I couldn't quite wrap my head around what he wrote in terms of personal jurisdiction and the pleadings.

That said, I am not fully conversant with the 5th Cir. law on the issue, so I can't quite tell if it is outcome-oriented, or if it's a fair reading of the law. It does seem ... weird ... that a non-Texas plaintiff is suing a non-Texas defendant in, um, Texas.

[Magister]

I was disappointed that nobody replied to my comment about X Corp. v. Center for Countering Digital Hate, Inc.

[Bruce Hayden]

Well, eventually your Hate Center will cross the line, and they will be squashed, like Media Matters is about to be.

My view is that MM is a dead man walking now, with that decision. They can’t hope to survive litigation against the richest man on the planet. Even if they survive discovery, they are very unlikely to survive the damages. The venue is such, that a lot of the jurors are likely predisposed to dislike MM - a lot, and like Musk. Would a $billion$ in damages be survivable?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Wouldn't they just close the doors on MM and re-open as something else down the street?