Top all-time · #1587
Ken White
Personal blog · popehat.substack.compoliticswritingculture
Ken White writes The Popehat Report, a personal blog at popehat.substack.com about politics, writing and culture. Since 2020, 48 different Hacker News readers have linked it 66 times, most often “Section 230 Is the Subject of the Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
A newsletter about law, liberty, and leisure. Click to read The Popehat Report, by Ken White, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Section 230 Is the Subject of the Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-10-16
- Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2022-03-22
- Substack Has a Nazi Opportunity5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-12-21
- /p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentencing4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-09-25
- Hating Everyone Everywhere All at Once at Stanford3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-03-18
- Clarify Which Free Speech Value You’re Debating3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-12-19
- Goodbye, Twitter3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-12-13
- /p/hamline-university-and-cancel-culture2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-01-07
- Overt Acts and Predicate Acts2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-09-05
- Lawyers, Warn Your Clients About Social Media2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-09-02
What Hacker News says?
No. 18 USC 793(g) is the conspiracy charge . One of the elements of a conspiracy charge --- any conspiracy charge --- is one or more "overt acts" that demonstrate the accused was not merely associated with other members of the criminal group, but also actively participated in it. That's what the "any act" in your quote refers to --- those are the "overt acts". None are listed in this plea stipulation. Here: a Ken Wh…
Comment linking /p/overt-acts-and-predicate-acts-explained
on “Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free”Submitted Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times as a story · 405 points
HN discussionThat’s starting from misunderstanding how federal sentencing works - even the prosecutors only asked for half that. Ken White has a good explainer of how federal sentencing actually works and why the numbers people toss around are too high: https://popehat.substack.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sen...
Comment linking /p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentencing
on “Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison”Submitted Who Judges the Judges? as a story · 78 points
HN discussionhttps://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of...
Comment linking /p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the
on “YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud”Submitted Clarify Which Free Speech Value You’re Debating as a story · 11 points
HN discussionFree speech means a lot of different things. I like Ken White's framework https://popehat.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-free-speech-ped... Free speech rights - The government shouldn't restrict speech Free Speech culture - Private institutions shouldn't punish speech Speech Decency - Individuals should judge others by their speech Incoherence - Nobody should be judged for anything they say
Comment linking /p/in-defense-of-free-speech-pedantry
on “How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack”Submitted Substack Has a Nazi Opportunity as a story · 10 points
HN discussionWhat Fox News argued was a bit more nuanced than that all of Fox News isn't news. Rather, "Fox successfully argued that one particular segment on Tucker Carlson’s show could only be reasonably interpreted as making political arguments, not making factual assertions, and therefore couldn’t be defamation."[1] That feels like a fairly reasonable assertion for anybody watching Tucker Carlson. [1] https://popehat.substac…
Comment linking /p/fox-news-v-fox-entertainment-does
on “Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam”Submitted The Fourth of July as a story · 8 points
HN discussionPaul Graham grew up in a time when rich middle-aged white men with no relevant experience or credential could spout off about whatever topic they wanted, including pseudo-intellectual racism/misogyny, and everyone would be forced to listen to their nonsense unable to respond with more than an eye-roll for fear of reprisals. (For that matter, when Graham grew up those powerful white dudes could beat people up, sexual…
Comment linking /p/our-fundamental-right-to-shame-and
on “Heresy”Submitted Popehat Report: Win a Dream Date with a Litigious Douchebag as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of a Popehat article I finally got around to reading yesterday: https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-fundamental-right-to-sham... In that article, Popehat talks about the need to define cancel culture and understand how the free speech rights of the first speaker intersect with the free speech and association rights of people that respond. I think the most useful aspect of PG's article is that he does…
Comment linking /p/our-fundamental-right-to-shame-and
on “Heresy”Submitted What Is an Anti-Slapp, Anyway? A Lawsplainer Series as a story · 5 points
HN discussionBefore anyone brings up Section 230, let's all get up to speed on what it means, from an expert, Ken White @ Popehat: "Section 230 Is The Subject of The Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen" https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of... TL;DR: No , moderating their site even in an egregiously, blatantly biased way won't make Twitter a "publisher" or make them lose Section 230 protections
Comment linking /p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the
on “Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account”Submitted Hating Everyone Everywhere All at Once at Stanford as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> I guess my worry is not about free speech or other people just criticizing but more of the woke crowd that just wants to cancel you because they disagree. What's wrong with the "woke crowd?" Is that not merely a nebulous group of people who have political opinions with which you disagree? What's wrong with them wanting to "cancel" you? Is that not an exercise of free speech and free association? Freedom of speech…
Comment linking /p/our-fundamental-right-to-shame-and
on “Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's online rant spurs threats to supes, police reports”Submitted May a Public University Fire Its Chancellor for Making Porn on His Own Time? as a story · 3 points
HN discussion"consecutively" in this context is sort of right. But in practice, the charges group together. So if you get charged with 1000 counts of wire fraud, you don't math out 1000 sentences and then decide which ones are consecutive and which are sequential, you math out one wire fraud sentence and for the 'but how many times did you do it' multiplier, you get an extra hit for being prolific. The parallel commenter linked…
Comment linking /p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentencing
on “Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty on all charges”Submitted Hating Everyone Everywhere All at Once at Stanford as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWhat a time for Popehat to quit Twitter: https://popehat.substack.com/p/goodbye-twitter
Comment linking /p/goodbye-twitter
on “SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities”Submitted Can a Tarot Card Reading Be Defamatory? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt's far too early to tell if consciousness is adaptive. Has it enabled humans to be wildly successful? In the short term, sure! But the long term is unclear. E.g., look at how the technological progress it makes is at risk of destroying human civilization. A series of ecological boom/bust cycles could lead toward negative selection for consciousness. Or we might manage to wipe out ourselves or, say, most mammals, l…
Comment linking /p/alex-jones-at-the-tower-of-babel
on “Is DALL-E 2 ‘gluing things together’ without understanding their relationships?”Submitted Stop Demanding Dumb Answers to Hard Questions as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"To be clear, we have no legal department, let alone a subpoena compliance section of it. However, what we thankfully have is a very helpful Ken "Popehat" White on speed dial" Beautiful. For anyone not familiar with Mr White, his blog is worth a read. I can't imagine someone I'd rather not face off against as a gov't official making spurious demands. [0] https://www.popehat.com [1] https://popehat.substack.com
Comment linking /
on “Released from a gag order regarding a federal investigation into a silly comment”Submitted Hating Everyone Everywhere All at Once at Stanford as a story · 2 points
HN discussionUrl changed from https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of... , which points to this and a bunch of other articles, and doesn't add much otherwise (other than Popehat-style snark). If one of the other URLs is a better fit, we can change it again.
Comment linking /p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the
on “Section 230 Explained”Submitted Lawyers, Warn Your Clients About Social Media (2020) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOthers have interpreted these debates in a similar way: https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of...
Comment linking /p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the
on “Repealing Section 230 won’t do what anyone wants”Submitted Section 230 Is the Subject of the Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
