

House Judiciary Committee Refuses To Hear Industry Concerns About SOPA - d0ne
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111110/13455416712/house-judiciary-committee-refuses-to-hear-wider-tech-industry-concerns-about-sopa.shtml

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tptacek
Techdirt doing procedural reporting about congress.

Do yourself a favor and search for [ycombinator tzs techdirt] (actually, if
you have a little time, you can leave the "techdirt" out of that query,
because 'tzs is awesome) and get a feel for Techdirt's track record on stuff
like this.

You can very safely assume that procedural shenanigans for this bill will be
covered in excruciating detail by sites that haven't obliterated their own
credibility, like the EFF. Meanwhile, all this posting did is get a bunch of
people to spend time talking about how "congress is bought and sold" and the
system needs to be replaced and something about Obama and boom look at that I
flagged this story.

Really: go read 'tzs comments; they're fantastic.

~~~
Natsu
You want the EFF's coverage? I think it was already on HN, but here you go:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/sopa-hollywood-
finally...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/sopa-hollywood-finally-gets-
chance-break-internet)

Ars Technica also has a discussion of its constitutionality, as debated by
famous constitutional scholars, which might interest those with a legal bent:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/famous-
holly...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/famous-hollywood-
backed-first-amendment-lawyer-says-sopa-is-a-ok.ars)

~~~
tptacek
Both of those: credible sources.

Techdirt? Not so much.

~~~
Natsu
I hope that provides more value to the story.

I take this all as an indication that the industry, especially with the hire
of someone like Abrams, is seriously pushing the issue and plans to make it an
issue in the next election if they don't get what they want before then.

~~~
KleinmanB
If this is so devastating why doesnt Google do a "mock seizure" in which there
search engine is seized by the government. They cant out influence Hollywood,
but they sure can cause a ruckus online.

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duncan_bayne
It's cute that people still get worked up about stuff like this, as though
they're honestly surprised that legislators are bought and sold.

Here's the thing: the system is broken, and it impossible to fix. It will
fail, though, and that's when there's an opportunity to replace it with
something better (or, something far far worse).

~~~
gbelote
While you may be right in that the system won't be fixed, the correct response
is to not get worked up about it and sit around waiting for the system to
fail. It's not like government will disband and people will look around and
say "Ok, that didn't work. Anyone have any other ideas?"

Keep getting worked up, and keep making noise about it. More people need to
care more.

~~~
yuhong
Yea, it is not impossible to fix if people would simply wake up in time for
the next election.

~~~
knieveltech
Yeah? Wake up and vote for...who? Neither side of our current two party system
has made noteworthy improvements. So...it's election day....I'm wide
awake...and who am I supposed to be voting for?

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anigbrowl
Mike Masnick is turning into the Matt Taibbi of copyright. I'm not a supporter
of this legislation, but nor am I a supporter of this uninformative tabloid
journalism. If Mike Masnick wanted you to be fully informed then he'd explain
what the procedural future of this bill is if the judiciary committee _does_
give it the nod (which would not exactly be surprising, because the House
judiciary committee is headed by Lamar Smith and is thus going to give the nod
to _any_ bill of which he's a sponsor). He could point out how it's then got
to survive debate and a floor vote in the House, how it would then have to be
reviewed by a Senate committee and debated and voted on there, and how the
reconciliation process would come into play if the committees don't agree.

But there's none of this, just another 'from the _snarky-joke-about-
bureaucracy_ department' subheadline, and another article suggesting certain
and imminent doom to follow immediately after the committee hearing. It's pure
gutter journalism, and the only redeeming feature is that most of us happen to
agree with the author's stated position. I don't even know if this is
Masnick's actual position or not; he comes across very much as a journalist
who has mastered the art of identifying a market and telling the people in it
what they want to hear. He always appeals to the emotion, and never provides
context.

This is called 'point of view' journalism. Here's an explanation by a well-
established practitioner called Matt Labash on a journalism industry website;
he was discussing it in the context of conservative/liberal politics, but the
fact is that this is a style employed across the political spectrum:

 _[on why point-of-view articles sell so well] Because they feed the rage. We
bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true
somewhat. We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view
journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about
objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the
knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which
it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's
a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not
being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm
glad we found it actually._

Please don't interpret this as a critique of conservatism in particular; it's
populism that I hold in low regard. Nthing Tom's suggestion below that you
look to the EFF for informed and informative argument against this
legislation. Call me a an elitist snob if you like, but I am sick to the back
teeth of this linkbaity rubbish passing itself off as journalism. Shallow
uninformed coverage like this makes it _easier_ to marginalize the interests
of consumers and open-internet advocates, because the average Joe does not
have the patience to listen to someone running around with hair on fire.

~~~
BadassFractal
I was actually interested in reading Taibbi's book on the financial crisis,
would you actually recommend against that?

~~~
tptacek
I think Felix Salmon at Reuters sums Taibbi up nicely: "you don’t read a
Taibbi rant for an evenhanded look at both sides of a complex story. It’s more
a forcefully-put case for the prosecution: some of his charges might not
stick, but he’ll throw a few chancers in as well for good measure".

To that I'd only add that Taibbi seems deeply incurious. Other journalists
will attempt to explain the motivations and mechanics behind a particular
trade or instrument. Taibbi will respond, "I talked to some of the principals
in this story and there's no way you can come to any conclusion other than
that this a giant fraud". Which may be right as far as it goes, but it doesn't
help you understand what's actually happening.

I think people like us are trained to be very wary of anyone attempting to
conceal facts, even if they're right. We can think for ourselves.

So many excellent people have done real legwork (defined partially as "hurting
their brains to understand things like how a trust holding 250MM of mortgages
is tranched and why a hedge fund wants one of those tranches and a bank
another"), it seems a shame that everyone's paying attention to the journalist
who's really just got a talent for telling people what they want to hear.

Even if that's what you really want, Michael Lewis does a better job of it.
For that matter, you really ought to read _Liar's Poker_ if you haven't
already. Some of the acronyms have changed, but the underlying game is the
same.

For the record, I appreciate and enjoy Taibbi's writing on politics.

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redthrowaway
Seems like the only hope for stopping this is a presidential veto. Time to
step up the pressure on Obama and push for it. He's not exactly an ally, but
congress is a foregone conclusion.

~~~
andrewpi
Obama has hired a good number of former RIAA officials to work in his
administration, so I'm pretty doubtful of a veto.

~~~
redthrowaway
As am I, unfortunately. Still, a presidential veto, however unlikely, still
seams more realistic than the bill being defeated in congress.

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Vivtek
_What kind of democracy is that?_

The best money can buy, son.

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jackgavigan
Wait. Are we in favour of industry lobbyists now? I'm confused... ;-)

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koenigdavidmj
Surprise surprise. This is going to get ramrodded through.

~~~
shareme
People seem to forget that the other previous laws were modified by court
decisions to something more reasonable as its less likely to buy off Supreme
Court Judges than congress people..

The main fight is not in congress people its those first few Supreme court
cases bought before the court by industry big firms like Google, Amazon, etc

