Rock Paper Shotgun reports:
As reported by PennLive, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has affirmed the district court's decision that a Pennsylvania man was not discriminated against by being "muted" in an online game.
Amro Elansari filed his original complaint against developer Jagex in July 2019, claiming they "violated his rights to free speech and due process of law." The suit was dismissed by the district court, a decision that has now been upheld by the appeals court for the 3rd Circuit.
Elansari was "muted" in an unnamed online game in March of 2019, according to his "largely handwritten" complaint, says PennLive. Given his suit names Jagex and that Elansari "claimed he had 2,000 hours invested in the game when he was booted out," it seems to follow that he had his account muted in some version of RuneScape.
...
The appeals court says that Elansari has not named a "state actor" for his Fourteenth Amendment claim. His complaint under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was also dismissed with no evidence of a "public accommodations discrimination."
(Score: 2, Touché) by NPC-131072 on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:15PM (3 children)
#FreeAristarcus
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday January 26 2020, @09:10AM (2 children)
Did you not read the title, dimwit? Let me point out the important phrase:
Now, pop over to Ari's journal [soylentnews.org] and you can read about whatever he wishes to write about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:20PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:24PM
If you thought ari was shrill now, just wait until he fat fingers his journal.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:27PM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:33PM
They're semi-famous already? Sounds like for all the wrong reasons. Must be "fun" being a litigious sort of person.
(Score: 5, Funny) by SomeGuy on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:37PM
"Dear U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit:
HAX!
HAX!
HAX!"
[You have been muted by the server. Reason: STFU noob.]"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:54PM
The Streisand Effect strikes again. Gotta love it.
Too bad he can't mute the Internet. Well, too bad for him, but not for everyone else. Going to court because you were muted in a game you "invested more than 2,000 hours in?" Sounds like they did him a solid if you're so "invested " in the game that you go to court, lose, appeal, lose ...
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Ken_g6 on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:12PM (22 children)
...wants to block decisions like this by revoking section 230 [arstechnica.com] of the Communications Decency Act.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:28PM (6 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ken_g6 on Sunday January 26 2020, @04:31AM (5 children)
As I understand it, without section 230, a company can be held liable for its users' comments if it moderates them. This leaves a company two choices: No moderation or complete moderation - vetting every comment.
If I'm misunderstanding, please set us straight.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @05:46PM (4 children)
At that point, you'll see a drastic reduction in posts that violate laws. It was the whole "anonymous posting is freedom of speech, and removing that infringes on freedom of speech" argument that required section 230 in the first place. It was the wrong decision. Just ban anonymous posts on the internet. You still are free to say anything you want, including making death threats and posting kiddie porn - but you'll also pay the consequences. Free speech doesn't mean free from consequences.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Monday January 27 2020, @02:21AM (1 child)
Well, duh! You'll see a drastic reduction in ANY kind of post that might be considered controversial. Many people will stop speaking their opinions and say nothing at all.
The chilling effects of such policies are a boon to any government, group, or person that wishes to silence others that disagree with them. You forget that simply criticizing the government can land you in jail.
A Moroccan court sentenced a rapper to a year in prison for insulting police. [moroccoworldnews.com]
Insulting the king in Thailand could put you away for three to fifteen years, per count. [wikipedia.org]
So sure, let's force everyone to put their real names on everything they've ever said. Let's sink people's careers decades after they said something stupid as a teenager. Let's punish people for daring to have a contrary opinion to the public at large. Silencing them isn't enough!</sarcasm>
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday January 27 2020, @03:07AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 27 2020, @04:22PM (1 child)
That's just nuts, essentially, you'd be punishing the non-disruptive users.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday January 27 2020, @05:34PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Funny) by NickM on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:31PM (14 children)
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:52PM (2 children)
Sadly, it often comes down to which one will be easier to reign in. Usually the Dems are more responsive to public outcry, Trump isn't going to allow any sort of outrage from the poor and middle class halt his giveaways to the wealthy.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:27AM (1 child)
Trump isn't going to allow any sort of outrage from the poor and middle class halt his giveaways to the wealthy.
Why would there be any outrage (from GOP voters)? Trump's poor and middle class supporters love everything he does, including his giveaways to the wealthy. There's no outrage there at all. There's outrage from the Dem voters, but he doesn't care about them. Trump could declare himself dictator and his voters will back him.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:22AM
At this point Trump nearly is a dictator. Certainly he is above the law.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:43AM (10 children)
Where do I go to nominate this at the best typo of 2020?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:55AM (2 children)
Americans are loud and stinky assholes. A bidet would improve them. I am in favour.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:43AM (1 child)
A bidet is indeed very useful for cleaning a stinky asshole, but the problem in America is that Americans just won't use them, and prefer to smear their feces around with wadded-up paper.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday January 27 2020, @03:12AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NickM on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:11AM
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:30AM (5 children)
I doubt that's a typo, unless NickM is typing on a Dvorak keyboard. (On QWERTY, t and n are two rows apart, nowhere near each other. On Dvorak, they're directly adjacent, on the right-hand home row.)
The big problem with this misspelling, however, if you want to use it intentionally, is that, while it works great for text, it just doesn't work for speech because Biden and bidet aren't really pronounced similarly, so people probably won't get it.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:02AM (4 children)
*cough* autocorrect *cough*
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by NickM on Sunday January 26 2020, @04:09AM (1 child)
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @05:50PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 26 2020, @05:52PM (1 child)
Yeah, I keep forgetting that there's actually people who use their phones to type comment on message boards like this. Personally I can't stand it. Typing a few sentences on a phone is an exercise in frustration for me because it's so slow, and autocorrect is so horrible. I'm debating turning off autocorrect completely and seeing how that works out, but it is really helpful for fixing common mistypes (which are so easy because the screen is relatively small, even on my phablet-sized phone), but when it screws up, it's such a PITA because it frequently won't even allow me to type something correctly without continuing to type more stuff, then going back and correcting the "autocorrected" word. It's amazing that after well over a decade of smartphones being commonplace that they haven't figured out how to make autocorrect work well yet.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday January 27 2020, @03:18AM
There's always a way to game the machine. Even one that's all fucké.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:56AM
Shut up, khallow!!! Now constitutional!