The issue is what mechanism could be used to force Google to pay, but also prevents Google from saying “yeah, we just won’t provide any links to those sites at all”.

Are they going to force Google to index those sites against their will? If so, how? Even if they could, would you really want that? Will it be just as cool for Russia to force Google to index whatever it wants, too? Are they just going to take money from Google no matter what, and give it to the news sites, even if Google isn’t indexing them?

Sorry for the delayed response. I didn’t see a notification.

Google is pointing out that the news sites need google more than google needs the news sites.

This sort of thing happens every once in a while; some country’s news organizations think that google should have to pay them for the privilege of helping people find their sites. Google responds by blacklisting news sites from that country. The news sites suffer more than google does, and they reverse the decision.

The best we can hope for, under the circumstances, is that Roberts comes to deeply regret that decision, as Trump turns on him.

I don’t think you’ve fully realized what is going on. The message Trump is sending is “if you do my bidding, there will be no consequences”. The law is now a tool to protect those people Trump wants protected, and a weapon to hurt those Trump wants hurt.

Classic fascism. Buckle up.

In context of the admin post they responded to, it just seems like a logical suggestion (not demand). I don’t agree that the admins should hand over control, but I also don’t see how suggesting it warrants a ban.

There are worse, imo.

user @snake posted:

Did you ever consider ceding ownership of the instance to an entity with greater legal capabilities?

In the end, it will not make sense to try to keep this instance running if the owners are unable to provide adequate service to its users.

and was banned for:

reason: Go get your service somewhere else

Definitely not a great look.

Uh, @[email protected] … what’s up with the banning going on in this thread? I noticed on a.lemmy.org that someone was labeled “banned” and their comment was simply “Ight, I’m out”

The mod note was “Let us help you”.

There are more similarly weak (spiteful?) bans that certainly don’t seem to be at a standard for a ban. “Litterally 1984” was another one. Is that all it takes to be banned here?

Edit: Many (all?) the users I referenced as banned are now unbanned from the site, but now banned from this community.

Well, TIL a few things. Thanks.

I have to admit that I always thought she was agnostic, if not atheist, from that Pope stuff.

I idly wonder why a gay feminist would convert to Islam. Aren’t those things incompatible? Is this my ignorance showing? Are there sects of Islam that are more open minded, like there are sects of Christianity?