That took me way too long.

Abuse of rights

There’s various concepts in common law jurisdictions that go in the same direction.

Abuse of process

…as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than illumination.

The question makes me remember Daryl Bem, a celebrated social psychologist. He published a much cited article called “Writing the Empirical Journal Article”. About 15 years ago, he used this advice to prove that humans can see into the future. His advice is probably still used to teach. That’s probably the worst thing you can do.

I don’t think you have the choice. Products that aren’t imported are made with parts that are imported. In fact, there will be products that have several layers of products tariffs in them, for example cars. Parts are made, assembled into bigger parts and ever bigger parts, and may cross the Mexican or Canadian border each time.

These tariffs are a monumental act of economic self harm. That’s what the stock market is saying. Stocks have (rational) value because you are entitled to a share of future profits. The stock market crashing tells you that the pros expects that a lot of value is not going to be created. Trillions of dollars will not be paid out to stock-owners, and further trillions will not be paid out as wages. The real wealth that is the other side of that money - all these new goods, cars, phones, TVs, dishwashers … - will not exist in the USA.

So, don’t worry about hitting them in the wallet.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on an American ball sack—for ever.

Maybe watch out for products from Russia and Belarus, as they are not included in the tariffs. This may start a new era of economic cooperation; putting the US in USSR. Ironically, Russia is still hit hard because of oil taking a nosedive.

That’s a lot of parameters. Wow. I didn’t know they’d go this big.

When I saw this, 2 questions came to mind: How come that this isn’t immediately reported? Why would anyone upload illegal material to a platform that tracks as thoroughly as Meta’s do?

The answer is:

All of those accounts followed the same visual pattern: blonde characters with voluptuous bodies and ample breasts, blue eyes, and childlike faces.

The 1 question that came to mind upon reading this is: What?

1. Get humped by a dog.
2. Whine like a bitch.

I guess most people don’t get how terrifyingly dystopian this is.

In the EU, there is a serious push to make this mandatory.

As far as I know, all these posts could come from an LLM via a botnet. The article does not support your claim. I don’t know what you are trying to argue here.

I have given you factual information. I obliged your request for a source. You are welcome.

I doubt that happens. What certainly happens is that they remove and ban more than a judge would order. That’s necessary to avoid liability.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A32022R2065

The paper contains errors about AI technology and should not be taken at face value. Notably, its understanding of distillation is wrong.

Unfortunately, it also lacks an analysis of EU law, which makes the paper rather useless. The EU almost always goes for monopoly rents in these matters, which does not stimulate anything. The EU has no content industry able to compete with the US’s, no major tech industry, and it is clearly not developing AI companies either.

EU law requires them to moderate that sort of thing. Bit ironic to complain about that on an EU instance.

Well, not to Europe. They’ve always been illegal here. I don’t know where they could even go.

By “society”? That’s what NSFW labels are all about. Even the expression is a nonsense euphemism. (You’d think that any not work related websites would be “nsfw”.) Anything to do with the mechanics of human reproduction is taboo. In practice, that’s 90% depictions of feminine bodies.

Of course, there is more to it than that. For example, in Germany, until last year, it was illegal to “advertise” abortions. In practice, that meant that doctors were prosecuted for providing information on the web.

Interesting in light of the recent lawsuit filed in France. Meta’s lawyers apparently don’t believe it has merit. They are probably right on that.

Still, there is an unavoidable risk from unclear regulations. They obviously feel that reaching European users is worth it. I wonder why.

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/5057-understanding-how-marginal-taxes-work-its-all-part

Your local tax system probably works the same.

FWIW globally, there is the issue of “welfare traps”. Benefits for low income people are usually tied to income (or savings). Once income reaches a threshold, these benefits must be replaced with income. So a higher income may result in a net loss.

1. This is exactly the intended purpose of fair use. Look up the copyright clause.

2. Small creators are the biggest beneficiaries of this. They would have to pay the extortionate licensing fees.

Oh wow. That’s not a small misunderstanding.

Law is basically territorial. French police can arrest people in France. If, say, Russian police tries to arrest someone in France, then it is, at best, a criminal kidnapping and, at worst, an act of war. Extradition hearings are a thing because a country decides on its own terms, by its own laws, whether to hand over people to another jurisdiction.

Sovereignty is a big deal for countries. If you think about it in terms of kidnapped or armed, uniformed foreigners running around, then you understand why.

If France were to send out fines to people in the UK for driving on the wrong side of the road, then the UK would refuse to collect them. France could collect fines for something people have done in the UK only if these people pass through France. Obviously, that would cause serious international tension.

In the same way, if France awards special privileges to its citizens that allow them to collect money from people around the world, other countries would not entertain such demands. What France can do, is make laws that force French residents to pay money to people around the world. That’s how copyright law works.

There are international treaties on intellectual property. Signatory countries generally agree to have certain minimal standards in their laws. They also agree to treat all nationals equal. So, France couldn’t make special privileges for its citizens. They also agree that their copyright laws only apply in their territories.

So, I don’t see quite what a French court could be doing here, that would be compatible with international law.