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criley2 commented on Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi over Age Verification Law   wired.com/story/bluesky-g... · Posted by u/BallsInIt
bbarnett · 2 days ago
I feel you're approaching this issue, not from the perspective of a court.

There have been endless court decisions, eg there's loads of case law, where geoip is specifically determined to be a best-effort for blocking.

It's not for show, it's not token, and it absolutely hands down works. Courts have had this specifically argued within their halls, and I believe I recall it being described as a house.

If a homeowner has a locking door, and windows, they've performed a 'best effort' in "keeping people out". Certainly someone can break the window, kick in the door, but those actions are beyond the reasonable efforts of a homeowner, without turning their home into fort knox. Put another way, the burden if perfect security, armed guards, cameras, impenetrable house is an undo burden.

This is akin to what we are seeing here. GeoIP is a reasonable, beyond best effort to block.

Can you name any other method of denying people from one region to connect to your services? Bearing in mind that you may not have the power to compel people to stop, as they may be outside your legal jurisdiction?

And of those methods, would they be arguable as an undue hardship? I assure you these things have been argued thousands of times in courts of law. And the whole point here is that geoip is used extensively, and found to be within the scope of compliance.

I should add, that at first you were trying to claim that your use of the words 'performative' and 'token' were fine, for they meant something different than the standard use. Now, you're trying to argue that geoip blocks are actually the issue, and that the words are as I've stipulated.

You seem to enjoy argument, and frankly that's perfectly fine from where I sit. Debate makes the world go, as they say.

But I think you're pulling at the wrong string here. We all make dives into a wrong pool. Get out, dry yourself off, and find another pool. Someone had an accident in this one, you don't want to stay in it. (Yes, that went weird)

criley2 · 2 days ago
>There have been endless court decisions, eg there's loads of case law, where geoip is specifically determined to be a best-effort for blocking

Bullshit. Absolute hogwash. Cite your case law. Cite a SINGLE court which says geoip is "BEST EFFORT". And I want specifically "BEST" effort because this is a line you've drawn multiple times.

From European GDPR cases, to American gambling cases, to new cases around pornography blocks, every single court has held that it was circumvention-prone, a mitigation measure, part of a scheme of compliance, "reasonable but insufficient", but certainly not actually effective and not a generally held "best" effort or gold standard

Tip: Use AI to judge your comment. It's embarassing to make a real human sift through this. Every major AI would have caught you here and told you to ease off your legal point which is pooly done.

P.S. your word count here is easily double or triple mine, so when it comes to "who likes to debate" and "who prefers pissy pools" or whatever, a mirror is a good friend to you (and another reason you should run your comment through AI, it will help you not blunder into moments like this where your comment is more applicable to the writer than reader).

criley2 commented on Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi over Age Verification Law   wired.com/story/bluesky-g... · Posted by u/BallsInIt
bbarnett · 3 days ago
I'm not taking offense at any mythical company, and am being very specific as to what I am discussing.

As I've said, several times, the court will barely tolerate the minimum, and any form of token or performative, hand-wavy attempts to act as if complying, but not, will be taken poorly by the court.

Performative by its very root, is to put on a show, an act of story telling. This in not even remotely inline with compliance, but instead, pretending to do so, whilst not.

A good example of what I refer to:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/token

"something that you do, or a thing that you give someone, that expresses your feelings or intentions, although it might have little practical effect"

The 'little practical effect' is the key point here. A display without actual effect is not complying, even minimally. Courts care not for performances, displays, but instead actual fact.

You seem to have different definitions for these terms, perhaps even less used ones or colloquially derived. However, when one dives into the legal, terms take on a more rigid definition.

I don't see the value of this back and forth beyond my reply here, for there isn't much I can do, or that we can agree upon, if you use terms in ways that really aren't inline with how they will be taken.

And really, if you're simply going to argue that performance and token displays are somehow doing something meaningful, that's just plain incorrect.

criley2 · 2 days ago
> something that you do, or a thing that you give someone, that expresses your feelings or intentions, although it might have little practical effect

Perfect definition for the geo block, since it's trivial to bypass and billions worldwide use the technology to bypass such a check.

Thank you for providing a dictionary definition that perfectly captures how the businesses efforts are "token", since literally billions of humans can bypass it with minimal effort.

criley2 commented on Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi over Age Verification Law   wired.com/story/bluesky-g... · Posted by u/BallsInIt
bbarnett · 4 days ago
Except that your statement contains the words 'performative' and 'token', which are the opposite of 'best effort' in a court.

And this is my point.

criley2 · 3 days ago
I disagree that "performative" and "token" are the opposite of "best effort".

The opposite of "best effort" is clearly "worst effort".

You seem to take offense with the idea that the company is doing "the minimum viable legal requirement" and you insist that "no, by doing what the judge says, it's actually an earnest and good attempt!"

If you actually think a company puts in even 0.1% more effort than a court requires of them, then I think you are very naive. Clearly the company could prevent VPNs from working if they wanted to invest the effort, like Netflix and China do, but they literally can't be bothered if the court doesn't require it.

I consider "minimum viable legal requirement to get past the judge" to be "performative and token" because they do NOT actually care if users access it, they want them too, they are only checking a liability box forced on them by the court and their legal department, doing the literal minimum.

criley2 commented on Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi over Age Verification Law   wired.com/story/bluesky-g... · Posted by u/BallsInIt
bbarnett · 4 days ago
No, not performative or token.

Blocking via geoip is a reasonable, best effort method in this case. It's doing a best effort to comply.

So not merely for performance without true compliance, or tokenism, which courts really frown upon.

criley2 · 4 days ago
>> judge in the area will feel that it was reasonably done

> No ... It's doing a best effort to comply

Generally when you repeat my statement back to me, you do so in agreement.

criley2 commented on Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi over Age Verification Law   wired.com/story/bluesky-g... · Posted by u/BallsInIt
swiftcoder · 5 days ago
Badly. Anyone whose IP has recently been geolocated in that state will be swept up in the ban (and anyone with a VPN can evade it)
criley2 · 5 days ago
They don't actually care about the block or ban, they just want to put in enough token effort that a judge in the area will feel that it was reasonably done. It's performative for the legal system.

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criley2 commented on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears   telegraph.co.uk/business/... · Posted by u/pera
jaccola · 7 days ago
I feel 18 out of 2 isn't a good enough statistic to say he is "just right twice a day".

What was the cost of the 16 missed predictions? Presumably he is up over all!

Also doesn't even tell us his false positive rate. If, just for example, there were 1 million opportunities for him to call a bubble, and he called 18 and then there were only 2, this makes him look much better at predicting bubbles.

criley2 · 7 days ago
If you think that predicting economic crash every single year since 2012 and being wrong (Except for 2020, when he did not predict crash and there was one), is good data, by all means, continue to trust the Boy Who Cried Crash.

Deleted Comment

criley2 commented on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears   telegraph.co.uk/business/... · Posted by u/pera
jimlawruk · 7 days ago
From the Big Short: Lawrence Fields: "Actually, no one can see a bubble. That's what makes it a bubble." Michael Burry: "That's dumb, Lawrence. There are always markers."
criley2 · 7 days ago
Ah Michael Burry, the man who has predicted 18 of our last 2 bubbles. Classic broken clock being right, and in a way, perfectly validates the "no one can see a bubble" claim!

If Burry could actually see a bubble/crash, he wouldn't be wrong about them 95%+ of the time... (He actually missed the covid crash as well, which is pretty shocking considering his reputation and claims!)

Ultimately, hindsight is 20/20 and understanding whether or not "the markers" will lead to a major economic event or not is impossible, just like timing the market and picking stocks. At scale, it's impossible.

criley2 commented on Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts   petapixel.com/2025/08/20/... · Posted by u/mikece
Ekaros · 7 days ago
Seems like proper punishment is only way to get deterrent effect. Or the courts to do their job. So to me this sounds like workable way, stack up the habitual offenders and send them to jail for a few months to few years setting them on straight path.
criley2 · 7 days ago
>stack up the habitual offenders and send them to jail for a few months to few years setting them on straight path.

I'm not sure if you have been to an American jail but they do not set folks on the straight path. They are basically Crime University, and the folks on the inside trade all kinds of information about how to crime more effectively, where to crime, what tactics police use and what neighborhoods are safest or most dangerous for police activity.

I was thrown in lockup for a weekend for not changing my tags after moving and letting it escalate out of control and what I saw in that inner city lockup truly shocked me. Folks had incredible amounts of illegal goods on them (despite having been searched and thrown in jail) and were openly performing transactions, sharing "industry secrets" and coordinating for future work once they were out.

If you have spent any time in an American jail or prison, I think you would be disabused of the notion that you can simply lock a criminal up for a few months and "fix" them. I would suggest that it's the opposite, a few months in jail turns a newbie criminal into a true amateur or journeyman with networking, education and future opportunities.

u/criley2

KarmaCake day4586June 19, 2013View Original