November 25th, 2024

Musk Puts Another Nail in the Twitter Coffin

Elon Musk has confirmed that, if you put a link in a Twitter post, the post will be throttled. In other words, it is a negative for his algorithm.

Twitter, of course, has had numerous problems since Musk bought it and tried to re-brand it as X. Among those problems was the destruction of its moderation system that held trolls, scammers, harassers and bigots at somewhat at bay. And an algorithm that pushes Musk’s own views on people, in order to make himself the center of attention.

But throttling tweets that include a link is a different kind of problem, and one that goes back to the essence of the web — providing links to outside sources.

When the model user interface came into being, some folks were terrified of outbound links, under the theory that you don’t want to send people away from your own site.

(Some still are. Many publications, for example, will write about a lawsuit but fail to provide a link to the legal filing being discussed.)

But Google rose to great fame (and fortune) by sending people away from its site. It was the very meat of its original business model, to simply give people the bit of information that they sought. And as result it became a trusted (back in the day) website for people to return to and it became the world’s leading site for search.

Bloggers followed suit. We understood that if you provided outbound links to other sites that had interesting information, the reader would trust your site as a value. And return.

Indeed, when I started blogging I did weekly round-ups of personal injury blogs, and hi-lighted what others were writing. Goodbye, adios, and come back soon was the way I thought about it.

And bloggers, for the most part, continue to do just that. See, for example, almost any post on Scott Greenfield’s Simple Justice, Kevin Underhill’s Lowering the Bar, or Michael Dorf’s Dorf on Law. This remains true for any half-decent blog you can find, and there are many.

But Musk is doing the opposite, trying to stop people from posting links by telling folks he will throttle their posts. He is terrified of people leaving and wants to build a walled garden.

So be it. And, perhaps, this is yet another reason that Twitter users will continue to flee. Why, for example, would I bother to post a link to this post on Twitter when I know its algorithm will throttle it?

Bluesky is now exploding popularity, as racing to get more servers to help it along. It will no doubt continue to do so as long as Musk keeps doing his thing.

Unlike Twitter, Bluesky gives tremendous moderation tools to the user. And unlike Facebook’s Threads app, Bluesky doesn’t try to force feed you content that it wants you to get (resulting in tons of garbage posts in your feed, wherein folks desperately farm for engagement by asking dumb questions).

If Musk’s intent was to kill Twitter, he’s continuing to do an excellent job of it.

 

November 11th, 2024

New E-Filing Scam Targets Lawyers

Lawyers have been targeted for scams in the past (Lawyers targeted in check scam). But this one is new: Emails that appear to be messages from a court’s electronic filing system.

Attorneys are sent an alert with an update that requires immediate action. Then then you get an email with a link containing a virus. As per the federal courts:

According to the IT Security Office for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the fake Notices of Electronic Filing prompt recipients to reply immediately. Recipients are then sent an email containing a link to access fake case documents that direct users to a malicious website.

You’ve been warned.

According to Law.com:

Some of the messages originate from email addresses with the domain name “uscourts.gov.ecf.digital,” representing themselves as clerks alerting NEF warnings, and indicating that the attorney is required to provide a response.

If you don’t want malicious code mysteriously dropped into your computer, be wary. Always be wary.

Always.

 

November 2nd, 2024

On NOT Running the NYC Marathon

In a letter to the New York Times editor 20 years ago, I referred to the NYC Marathon as a “magnificent piece of urban theatre.” With a one to two million spectators, random New Yorker’s (including cops and firefighters) cheering for middle-of-the-packers, handmade signs in a thousand comical iterations, it a wonder to both to behold and participate in.

Some call it a 26.2 mile block party; I prefer to think of it as a very long stage. I have pre-planned beer stops, airplane around the turns, slap the outstretched hands of little kids and adults alike, and do my very best to whoop and holler and engage with the crowd, as I have usually determined by mile five that I probably won’t win. Because without the people it would be just another footrace.

On Marathon Sunday, New York City — where people don’t generally chat up strangers — becomes the biggest small town in the world. Everyone talks to everyone, and everywhere, if you are within spitting distance of the course.

Sometimes, especially as I age, I suffer minor injuries in training that curtails me. So I end up doing the event as a fun run instead of racing it. Hence the beers.

I’ve blogged about this before, including a Blawg Review (as well as reflections about running Boston). It is an extraordinary experience, and I’ve been lucky enough to do it 23 times.

But this year I’m out. I had my best training in years — with hundreds of miles running roads and trails, sometimes at night — and was hoping to actually race this year for a good time (on the clock, instead of simply hamming it up).

Instead I’ll be spectating. Just one week before the race I pulled a calf muscle while scrambling up a steep pitch on a hike. Then limped for a couple hours to get down the easy way. Then pulled the other calf muscle a few days later while limping down the stairs.

But if you think I’m tapping this keyboard to whine and complain about my misfortune you are mistaken.

Life is a series of experiences. Family, travel, jobs and if we are lucky, recreational. It’s the reason I was sworn in at the United States Supreme Court. It’s the reason I keep coming back to run New York.

Hopefully the good experiences we have in life will outweigh the bad when our time has come.

In my job over the last 38 years I’ve represented many, many people with lousy experiences. It’s why they needed a lawyer. It’s why I run races in a turkey suit come Thanksgiving time. I let my feathers fly to appreciate my luckiness.

In other places there are, of course, far worse experiences than those represented by the records in my file cabinets, often by many orders of magnitude: Ukraine invaded by Russia, civil wars in Sudan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, crisis in Venezuela, and 100 years of Islamic extremists trying exterminate Jews and Israel. Horror stories abound of killing, starvation and displacement.

And me and my aging legs? I can’t whine. I’ve been as lucky as a guy can get. I’ve been able to run the streets of NYC for no other reason than the thrill of running the streets of NYC. Again and again and again.

To those that are running the race, I wish you all the best of luck. And hope that you are able to appreciate how lucky you are simply to have this opportunity. And to cherish the experience.

 

October 30th, 2024

NYC Kills the Jaywalking Law

The concept of jaywalking in New York City has always been a joke. It was, until yesterday, illegal. But everyone did it. Even if a cop was standing right in front of you.

New Yorkers always valued their “right” to walk where they wanted, as Dustin Hoffman famously yelled in Midnight Cowboy: “Hey, “I’m walkin’ here!”

That freedom to walk wherever we wanted, however didn’t seem apply to everyone. It seems that New York cops were still writing tickets for Blacks and Latinos, who received 92% of the tickets.

An unenforced law for a white guy like me isn’t the same as an unenforced law for others. In other words, jaywalking was a pretext for cops to stop someone they didn’t like.

So, now that it’s gone, how does that affect New York’s personal injury law? Does this mean pedestrians can wander the streets aimlessly with their schnozz buried in their phones?

Yes. But. And the “but” part is that it will not magically grant them immunity for their own negligence. Yes, you can step out between cars without looking. You won’t get a ticket. But you can still be held liable if a car slams into you.

Comparative negligence — that part of the law that says fault isn’t always 100% this way or that — will not evaporate. A pedestrian must still yield the right of way outside of a crosswalk. A jury can (and will) still apportion fault against a pedestrian if given just a smidgen of a chance.

The only real difference is that if a pedestrian was actually given a ticket in the past after a collision, an almost unheard of situation in NYC, a guilty finding for violating a law might would liability against that person as a matter of law, and a negative inference if it is city ordinance. Since that rarely happened, it won’t matter.

A last thing on this short post as I come out of hibernation — just because you have the right to do something stupid doesn’t mean you should. Even if you have the right of way. As I noted a few years ago in a post about the difference between fault and safety, I remembered a little something from a book on Tombstone Humor that I read decades ago:

Here lies the body of John McCray,

He died defending his right of way.

He had the light, He had some pluck,

But the other fellow had the truck.

 

April 30th, 2024

Protesting Students and January 6ers

Across many college campuses now there are various anti-Israel protestors that are, to varying degrees, yelling, hanging signs, occupying walkways and common areas, and on occasion occupying and vandalizing buildings.

And, in conduct that is incredibly easy to predict as it parallels much of partisan politics, people will do everything to highlight both the absolute worst (or best) of whatever opinion that they have. And, by implication, try to show that the folks highlighted are representative of the whole.

In the January 6 cases we saw some who violently attacked the police and actively stormed the Senate to stop votes from being counted. Others strolled in after the damage was done and took pictures. And still others stayed outside and never entered, perhaps just wandering past the line of busted barricades that may, or may not, have even been there anymore.

Every case is different.

But the analogy to those Trumpers is perfect for the kids on campus today. Many call for the extermination of Israel (“from the River to the Sea”) or other forms of violence as to Israel or Jews generally. You need not look hard to find these. Unlike Vietnam era protests, these people don’t call for peace but for war.

Others are simply clueless, and could not name the river in question, and have no idea that it’s a call for extermination.

Some are violently attacking police and vandalizing buildings. Others are standing around either watching or half-heartedly chanting because, “hey, there’s a protest, and that cute classmate asked me to go.”

The vast majority would probably fail a course on the basics of the current Arab-Israeli conflict that dates back 100 years.

The point, of course, is that each of the arrested students — and there will be many — will have their days in court. Each case will rise/fall on the details of that particular student. Pretty much like every other case in the courthouse, be in criminal or civil. Because details matter. Just as in the January 6 cases.

In the meantime, for any student that may be reading this, the very, very old adage applies of “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

But unlike in days of yore, it’s not just jail time that might be at issue for those arrested, as future employers now have the internet. And if you’re arrested while standing in a crowd with people holding signs to “globalize the intifada” you should fully expect that future employers will find it.

They won’t give a damn if you were not holding that sign. And if you try to claim it was written in Arabic, and that you couldn’t read it, they will just assume that by joining a protest that you didn’t understand that you are also too dumb to hire. It won’t matter if you agree, because you’re not the hiring manager.

Be careful of the company you keep.