Attesting who is responsible is more of that "bullshit most of us didn't ask for". I'm not interested in identifying myself so some cretin can know whether I am, or am not, an AI... particularly when the vast majority of posters on any platform act like NPCs anyway.
If they were truly this accurate at identifying sources of bot traffic, you'd think they'd be better at blocking them without inconveniencing the rest of us.
Jacobsen v. Katzer established that source code, i.e. something other than money, could be used as valuable consideration for perfecting a license into a contract. The terms of service you agree to when you join Facebook, Twitter, or what have you, similarly involves an exchange of non-monetary consideration for services rendered. Both user and service provider are in a legally-binding contract. If a service provider then bans a user for no reason, or any reason, they open themselves to litigation. None of this is controversial. I really do recommend you talk to somebody who's familiar with contract law before continuing.
That's not rhetoric. It's well established that consideration does not have to consist of money. A prime example of this was in Jacobsen v. Katzer where the exchange of source code was deemed valuable consideration for purposes of perfecting a license into an enforceable contract. You might want to consult an attorney or at least read up on the basics of contract law before continuing.
The user and Service are bound by their terms of service which is perfected into a contract by the valuable exchange of their eyeballs against advertising for the provision of the service in question. Valuable consideration does not have to mean "money". So, no, they don't get to ban people on a whim.
It's not 'whataboutism' when you're impugning their authority while seemingly have none of your own... or, in the alternative, even if it is, it's quite valid in this instance.
If people actually bothered to look at any of his code, and the reactions of people knowledgeable at the time to his code (and/or his intellectual bloviations), the damage to "open source" would be so thorough that we'd probably all be using Microsoft products for an indefinite period. However, it's far easier to just nod your head and pretend he's very smart (in that reddit sort of way).
Personally, I love reading about people's reactions to the abomination of fetchmail, although my absolute favorite is him yapping with pride that he has code in basically everything -- which is ESRspeak for him writing libgif. Of course, dig down into that and you'll find he didn't write anything... he ported an MSDOS library someone else had written. Many such cases.
> Playboy Magazine in the 50s and 60s had a reputation for, among other things, reviewing hi-fi systems, pop albums and surprisingly good fiction. Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione must have wanted some of the tech + fiction market because he and his wife Kathy Keeton launched Omni Magazine in 1978.
Either that got ninja-edited in the 8 minutes since you posted that comment, or you misread that paragraph.