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FOX News, after their scandal with Dominion, should have been broken down or even shutdown.

They deliberately disinformed the public, there is blatant evidence that the news anchors were aware that they were lying. Not just bending facts a little or opining, but knowingly and purposefully lying.

The pretext of freedom of expression, and more narrowly freedom of press should not *continue* to apply to businesses/individuals which are found liable/guilty of such destructive behavior for the society they operate in.

The same should apply to people like Alex Jones, you had your chance to use freedom and you have wasted it, move on to another profession.


Rupert Murdoch is personally responsible for incalculable harm to prosperity and democracy across the West.

Oh the Murdoch Empire is a more than deft hand at escaping any meaningful comeuppance. As I recall, in a court case brought against them by Prince Harry, they just folded and accepted they were guilty.

I believe that admission was because ending the trial and eating the judgement, was less damaging than allowing the light of discovery and trial ingress into their workings.


People love being lied to like that, though.

Can you stretch your imagination to a scenario in which a hostile administration, eager to shut down critical reporting, might declare that various outlets are engaging in fake news and must thus be shut down? Let's be glad a precedent wasn't set.

While I do agree with you (and unlike the other reply, I want to acknowledge that this bad-faith kind of thing happened with Louisiana declaring law enforcement a protected class), my hope was that this would have happened via Dominion's civil lawsuit, which could have been structured to name anchors & reporters individually as well as the larger Fox News organization.

Afraid of precedent? Your comment gave me a chuckle, but not in the way you think.

I can, and I've specifically said "guilty/liable", meaning that people will go to the highest court available to them to defend their rights. If in the last instance they are still found guilty/liable, they should suffer the consequences I've mentioned. These legal decisions, by multiple courts/juries, if you can't trust them anymore you have already lost in terms of democracy/republic.

I still believe the SCOTUS is trying to uphold the principles in the Constitution, for now. And there are already limits on what one can say in public, yelling fire in a theater when there's no fire is not far from what FOX is doing. Lying at this scale to cause panic based on such lies has demonstrable deleterious effects on society. The effect is delayed due to the scale of the target groups, but the principle is the same and courts/juries are able to observe this when it happens.


> still believe the SCOTUS is trying to uphold the principles in the Constitution, for now

Republicans on court are very clearly pusuing agenda that has nothing to do with that.


I agree some of their decisions are politically biased but they have taken some decisions against Trump too. It's clearly unbalanced, and that's mainly because Republicans used every dirty trick in the book to prevent Obama from picking a Justice he was supposed to.

The upcoming decision about tariffs might flip me completely on this issue, I see zero legal reason for global tariffs to be within the power of any individual, including the President. If the Court presents any argument in favor of them, I don't think I will consider it legitimate anymore.


"Yelling fire in a theater" was the reasoning used to shut down anti-war protesters 100 years ago and, IIRC, charge them with sedition. It's not a good example.

If you are alluding the Holmes’ judgement, he spoke not simply about free speech, but about actions in service to a market place of ideas.

His argument was in defense of the process to uncover truth.

Given that Fox has clearly said they cannot be taken seriously, and that they were from inception created to muddy the waters and wage war for political gain, they are an enemy to the process that was envisioned back in that era.

If someone is demonstrably selling false goods, and multiple sources have evidenced this, as has a court of law, should that all be dismissed because every single individual in America has not taken the time to look at the evidence?

At some point you abdicate roles and responsibilities to others, so that they can do the job of ensuring that a fair debate takes place.


You forgot the /s

Switzerland has something like this for "eWaste", it's called the ARC [1] (Advance Recycling Contribution). For any electronic device you purchase a small tax is collected and used for the recycling and collection of the future waste it will generate.

The collection mandatorily happens in the shops that sell electronic devices, you don't have to return them to the exact store where it was purchased, as long as they sell similar devices they cannot refuse to take it back (without paying anything more). It works pretty well, even if shop owners/workers aren't always pleasant when you return something.

[1] https://www.erecycling.ch/en/privatpersonen/blog/vRB-Vorgezo...


Same here in the Netherlands. But only for larger appliances. Washing machines for instance. Smaller ones you have to be able to send for free but there are too many exceptions. My internet provider switched out the modems and simply said "it's yours now, for free!" Meaning: we don't want to pay for disposing of our inventory. I send it to their free postage address they use for broken items with a brick, since they are charged per kg.

Every trash collection site (afvalpunt) has a container for electronics too, that’s where the smaller stuff should go.

We have it in California, just for monitors for some reason, but on Jan 1 a new law covering battery-embedded devices took effect. That new one specifically doesn't tax vapes (???)

https://cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/covered-electronic-waste...


Probably originated for disposal of CRTs, due to all that leaded glass.

Big tobacco strikes again!

> For any electronic device you purchase a small tax is collected and used for the recycling and collection of the future waste it will generate.

I call bullshit on these initiatives. It is a tax, period. The government collects money and it does... stuff. It is not a deposit, so it doesn't incentivize people to return the thing, and it is too general to de-incentivize particularly bad products like disposable vapes.

The tax can be used on recycling efforts, and it probably is, however you don't need a specific tax for that. These investments can come from other sources of government income: VAT, income tax, tariffs, etc... I don't think people are paying a "presidential private jet tax" and yet, the president has his jet, and hopefully, all government effort for the environment is not just financed by a small, specific tax. Saying a tax is for this or that is little more than a PR move, they could do the same by increasing VAT, and I believe it would work better, but that's unpopular.

> The collection mandatorily happens in the shops that sell electronic devices

That is more concrete.


I'd say we moreso produce waste than manage it as humans. We seem actually pretty bad at managing it unfortunately.


In a business/formal context it would be normal to introduce yourself like this in the countries you've mentioned.

Do people introduce themselves like that in informal contexts in the USA? If so that's indeed a bit weird, and more a topic you would start talking about for small talk or if someone asked about it.


I would find it strange if someone introduced themselves to me with their business title. I sometimes ask "what do you do for a living?" as small talk, but that's solicited.


Even when it's solicited, I think it's weird. I don't tell people what I do for a living when I introduce myself. And when they ask, I tell them I'm an exotic dancer. It's a silly joke (since I'm a fat 50 year old) that tends to break the ice and lighten up the conversation. In general, I think small-talking about what you do for a living is not really interesting to people, and just allows them to silently put you somewhere on their mental totem pole of importance. Better to talk about actual interests.


> Better to talk about actual interests.

For many people, what they do for work is by far their biggest interest.

Many people have few to zero hobbies. They fill their days with work and then distraction.


Depends on where. In big city yes


Americans don't usually have friends. Just "contacts". Working age "parties" are often just cloaked networking events.


Not sure why this is being downvoted. It is very much true in my opinion, especially so for the big coastal metro areas.


Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"? The people who came up with these wars against abstract ennemies knew exactly what they were doing, fighting against another country/government is very limiting, once the war is settled you need another reason to start a war. When you go to war with an idea/concept you can continue your forever wars and raise taxes for/increase investment in the War related industries as long as you need to prop up your economy and get reelected.

Trump got reelected with slogans like "no new war" and in less than a year he started at least one (arguably I'd say two with the 12 days wars as Israel knew ut couldn't win this one without American bombers) also makes me think none if this is a "mistake", just a long term plan to keep power.


This is about oil and resources and maybe a proxy attack on China more than anything. A friend of mine called this as soon as that huge oil deposit was discovered off a small neighboring country’s coast. He said, “Venezuela is going to try to claim it, and the US will take them out.” I thought he was full of shit when he said it, but now I’m pretty sure he nailed it.


Oh yeah these are the true motives, I was talking about the usual pretext that they need to sell it on TV and these days on social media too.


It even has a name: 'the resource curse'.


> Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"?

"Good" news! The War on Drugs and The War on Terror have been combined with the invention of the concept of "narcoterrorism"!


Trump pardoned the largest opiates by mail operator in world history on his first or second day in office (Ross Ulbricht).


> My choice is “no” not “ask again later”…

My choice is uBlock Origin and enabling the Cookie Notices filter lists and other Annoyances filter lists (which block the Mobile app banners and such). Works pretty well.

Obviously using Firefox, since Chrome doesn't let me filter content my own computer renders locally these days...


Couldn’t agree more. Also FF user and Ublock Origin works great. On mobile (iOS in my case) it’s not that easy though. I’m using safari with AdGuard which works for some annoyances, but by far not all.


Brave on iOS seems to work well. Ideally I would use Firefox on iOS but last time it didn’t seem to be as good.


I have been having some success with wipr 2. The developer is respectful of privacy, so the blocking is split into regular content blockers (Apple claims cannot send data) and one extra (could send data). I enabled only the regular content blockers.


Ublock light is pretty good on Safari


Not compared to the uBlock Origin. You can't even import a filter list. Main reason I use Firefox.


Something that [1] AdGuard Browser Extension can do, it make you wonder why uBOL can't include such a feature.

[1] https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-browser-extension-v5-2.h...


Firefox on iOS has 0 support for Adblocking, making it hell to use.


That's not Firefox, that's Safari wearing a fake mustache


I’ve gotten good results from BlockBear, fwiw.


I've enjoyed https://github.com/cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic/ it fills out cookie banner automatically according to your preferences.

Obviously alongside ublock origin for the rest of the minefields


On iOS, Adguard does a decent job. It's the only way I would ever use the internet.


I also supplement it with the "Web Archives" extension to access paywalled and login-walled articles.


> strict ethical standards to not use the information (for what little that may be worth)

If it's worth so little to your eyes/comprehension you will have no problem citing a huge count of cases where lawyers do not respect their obligations towards the courts and their clients...

That snide remark is used to discredit a profession in passing, but the reason you won't find a lot of examples of this happening is because the trust clients have to put in lawyers and the legal system in general is what makes it work, and betraying that trust is a literal professional suicide (suspension, disbarment, reputational ruin, and often civil liability) for any lawyer... that's why "strict" doesn't mean anything "little" in this case.


> you will have no problem citing a huge count of cases where lawyers do not respect their obligations towards the courts and their clients...

There are almost 2000 disbarments annually in the US.

The california bar recieves 1 compliant for every 10 law licenses in the state every year.

There's a wikipedia page on notable disbarments.

Legal malpractice suites are on the rise.

If you are going to assert that legal malpractice is not legitimate concern, I think the burden of evidence is on you.


I’m not a lawyer, but I did watch every episode of Better Call Saul and I’d point out that a lawyer who generates one complaint likely generates multiple complaints so that 1 complaint/10 law licenses number is misleading about the scope of the issue. Similarly, 2000 disbarments sounds high until you realize that there are roughly 1.3 million lawyers. What’s more, when I was checking to see what reasons for disbarment might be, I found an article (https://law.usnews.com/law-firms/advice/articles/what-does-i...) which cited a number much lower (less than 500) and that pointed out that reasons other than professional misconduct can lead to disbarment including DUI and domestic violence. The following gives some reasons for disbarment:

> … disbarment is the presumptive form of discipline for an attorney who steals clients’ money, Best says.

> Disbarment is more likely when the attorney committed fraud or serious dishonesty, particularly in front of a tribunal or to a client. Similarly, priority may be given to cases where an attorney is convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, Levin says.

> Priorities also change in response to society’s changing values and when there’s a belief that tightening down on types of cases will help the profession as a whole, Best says.

> For example, in Massachusetts, there has been an increased focus on violations relating to the administration of justice, such as when prosecutors engage in racist behavior.

> And while, in the past, an attorney’s drunk driving or domestic violence would probably not have led to sanctions (because they were seen as unrelated to the attorney’s legal work), they now might result in discipline, Best says.


Well, also the lawyer would have to really badly fuck up for it to become public news that they had actually used the information.


You do realize that they get frozen only because of the fiat system regulations/laws?

These exchanges freeze accounts in fear of what governments might do to them if they weren't cautious/suspicious enough. They have no economical interest in freezing account otherwise, that's one less customer trading and paying them fees.


> You do realize that they get frozen only because of the fiat system regulations/laws?

Well, sometimes. Sometimes they get frozen because the exchange operator decides to take the money and run.


Which is why higher layers like the Lightning Network, Rootstock, Liquid offer to not store everything on chain and offer speed/features Bitcoin natively can't while resting on the higher security model of their base layer.


> It was supposed to be limited in supply unlike fiat, and yet Tether underpins the whole thing and they print that out of thin air all the time.

This is a joke right? Tether (USDT) is pegged to the dollar... and there is not really a limit to the USD printing machine, nobody ever claimed a stablecoin would have a limited supply. It's literally the main critique of the fiat system levied by crypto proponents.

The only asset which has made and still hold promises of not increasing its supply over its limit set through its consensus code is Bitcoin. And it is nowhere close to ever change... as a matter of fact if it changed, most people wouldn't call that fork Bitcoin.


The problem with Tether is that they are tight-lipped about their backing assets. No one knows if the peg is real, it's just "trust me bro"


Well they publish attestations from third-parties, but no full audits, so sure they could be much more transparent.

But the claim about USDT ever claiming that its supply wouldn't increase is pure fantasy. It literally makes no sense if you understand how the peg is maintained (technically by minting and burning tokens).


I took their comment to mean that tokens valuations are tied to stablecoins. Sufficiently tied enough as to be de facto properties of tokens themselves.


Also interesting that tether is the private largest holder of gold at 14 billion $ xaust


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