Techdirt found an interesting example of how easy it is to censor videos on YouTube. After this faux ad appeared to criticize the control of cable companies, someone filed a defamation complaint and, as shown below, the video was removed. That’s right a faux ad criticizing unnamed cable companies was the basis for a defamation complaint according to the site.
I suppose the makers at Extremely Decent Films could argue the truth defense, but it gets tricky. Do they have to argue real truth or faux truth?
Oft times, there’s nothing funnier than the truth.
raf,
I have a very low tech cell phone and I prefer my landline but I will consider the points you and OS have made.
lotta,
I wish we could scrap cable companies altogether and just do individual subscriptions through internet receivers like Roku etc. I know exactly which stations I want … no more than 15. Right now I have about 320 and 305 of them are never viewed.
I wondered about that prison thing when the “insert name” guy from my cable company called me back to b*tch at me for not listening to his pitch. Both numbers he called me from were identified on my caller id … which was another strange thing … 2 different numbers in the space of 4 seconds.
Well, the customer service rep who took my complaint told me she’d noted it on my account and that I wouldn’t be getting anymore calls and so far I haven’t.
I’ve been researching cable providers and as far as I can tell, they all stink.
Blouise, Your call from the pushy tele-marketer reminded me of one I had some time ago. He was having a bad day and kept calling me back. He also had some kind of serious religious streak and started telling me I was doomed to the fires of hell for hanging up on him. I didn’t have caller ID and he wouldn’t tell me who he worked for or his name (real name). I had to leave the phone off the hook for over an hour to discourage him.
The problem was I didn’t know if he was local or in Pakistan but he sounded southern. This guy knew my name and address and made a point of confirming that in a way that was threatening. This was when a phone had to be traced. The only advice I got from the police was that if the call-backs continued they could set up a trace.
That was back in the Cretaceous. The amount of information anonymous 3rd/4th/infinity parties have about us now is outrageous and I have always been put off by that. There are crazy people out there to say nothing about the prison industry being involved in commerce in a way that will give inmates access to personal information.
From 2012:
I”nside the secret industry of inmate-staffed call centers
….The Justice Department and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons don’t break down which companies they do business with. But Unicor said inmates provide private call center service, including data review and sales lead generation, for “some of the top companies in America” under a federal mandate to help companies repatriate jobs they have outsourced overseas. ….”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/01/12/10140493-inside-the-secret-industry-of-inmate-staffed-call-centers?lite