from the speaking-out dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment on our post about receiving a bogus DMCA takedown from CyberGhost over our previous post about receiving a bogus DMCA takedown from CyberGhost:

Sometimes the cover-up’s worse than the crime

I’m really struggling to think of a non-damning story about why they’d be so desperate to scrub any mention of the company and I’m coming up blank.

The first DMCA I could maybe buy as someone using a bot to spot potential ‘infringement’ and no-one at the company double-checking before filing the DMCA claim. Plenty of stories in TD’s archive about that sort of thing so it’s not like it would be the first time a company had done that. Still damning, but not necessarily malicious.

This second DMCA though… yeah, this just screams ‘We screwed up and rather than own it let’s try to bury the story’, which is not a good look for any company, never mind one that wants you to trust that they’re on the up and up when dealing with your privacy and private data.

In second place, it’s Pixelation with a comment about the end of the direct file program for income taxes:

Well, this helps people who aren’t rich. Of course Trump and the republicans would kill it.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Stephen T. Stone about the FBI getting back to doing what it does best:

My first thought when I heard the initial news about a foiled terrorist plot was “I wonder if this is another case of the FBI making terrorists where none would exist but for the intervention of the FBI”. At this point, the assumption is so safe to make that it should be everyone’s first thought when they hear about this sort of thing.

Next, it’s an anonymous comment about the North Carolina GOP threatening ProPublica over a story:

Genuinely, when someone says “free speech”, magats hear “calling people slurs”. That is the extent of their familiarity with the concept. (And it does not extend to calling white Christian cisgender heterosexual men slurs.) Free speech, to Trump’s base, means freedom not to be chided for speaking hatefully, freedom not to think before you speak.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is MrWilson with another comment about the end of direct filing:

Well, I for one believe in the free market, so when I fulfill my financial obligations, I always try to find a third party who can take an additional cut in order to ensure that I’m paying the premium rate for my Freedom™. When I go to a Burger King restaurant, I walk inside the lobby, sit at at table, and order an Uber Eats delivery driver to drive over and pick up my order thirty minutes later and deliver it to my table, like every true American patriot! Direct File is pinko commie satanism!

In second place, it’s n00bdragon with a comment on our post about 60 Minutes editing the Trump interview, and specifically a reference to certain lines being “literally in the same sentence”:

To be entirely fair to Mr. Trump, everything he says is in the same sentence. He doesn’t believe in periods.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment on our post about Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win bucking the usual Democratic obsession with consultant-guided messaging:

Old rule of business: When you don’t know what to do, hire some consultants. When you still don’t know what to do, fire the consultants. The path forward will suddenly appear obvious!

Finally, it’s an anonymous comment about the CyberGhost DMCA takedown:

Well, you see, it’s because you’re making them look bad. As opposed to, say, them making them look bad.

That’s all for this week, folks!