13955

And thus it is demonstrated that utterly abandoning evidence-based epistemologies leaves you vulnerable to hucksters and propagandists. Faith is for suckers.

13956

Montana man does not understand endangered species laws or that eggs develop outside, not inside, the mother’s body.

13957
13958

Warning, do not consume any beverages while watching this clip.

13959

… and GOP voters will believe she’s telling the truth.

13960

Freedom of Association isn’t technically in the Constitution, I guess.

13961

Is this another example of Texas thinking they have a new unstoppable strategy - let “the people” (aka a single loon) be the thought police, so it isn’t “the government”, therefore it’s all okey dokey?

13962
13963

“The only real solution is to cease operations in Texas indefinitely.”

That would be fucking amazing.

13964

Edit: The best part is all the responses calling him a globalist and a neocon.
Because selling 90% of your soul isn’t enough. It has to be 100% or you’re a traitor.

13965

I think it wouldn’t just be the bigs that would have to cease operations. I think it’d be every forum and website that moderates its content, like Qt3, for example.

But I would be curious how long this law would stay on the books after Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok shut down access to all Texans.

13966

Well, that would suck, but in my imaginary world, it’s just the biggies who would have to bow out for fear of being sued.

13967

You are correct.

And not just forums. Any place with any comments or anything you could respond to.
To be safe, I think every company everywhere would just block them to avoid missing something.
It would be the only rational choice for them.

Game services? Nope. Steam can’t let you just post whatever. No one with VOIP of any sort could do it. Can’t let you join a Vermintide 2 run and spam the N-word constantly after all.

Texas internet would be the front page of Google and not much else.
You could probably search sites up, but then when you tried to connect they’d say your region is blocked.

Edit: Even 4Chan would likely block them, which is hilarious to think about.

13968

It’s ok, Texas still has a plan.

13969

So the 5th Circuit Court “only” ruled that web services that have more than 50 million active monthly users and rely primarily on user-generated content are subject to lawsuit for any moderation, essentially.

So QT3 is safe, but that’s still a LOT of sites and services that host user content - not just social media but youtube, linkedin, twitch, zoom, pintrist, quizlet, etc.

13970

Technically, since Google also supplies user reviews of products and locations, wouldn’t those be subject to this ruling?

13971

I am sure Texans will be fine with not having access to Amazon.

13972

I’m kinda hoping this stands now. I’m genuinely curious if the Texas legislature is ready for all those services to go dark, or if they were secretly hoping the ruling would get stayed but they win internet points anyway.

13973

Or any news source that has a comment section.

13974

The law is haphazardly tailored such that Google and News Sites are probably OK. From the article:

The law applies to web services with more than 50 million active users that let people “communicate with other users for the primary purpose of posting information, comments, messages, or images,” not including internet service providers and news or entertainment sites.