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akivamcohen.bsky.social Profile picture
akivamcohen.bsky.social
@AkivaMCohen
19 subscribers
Jun 30, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
OK, time to get myself ratioed.

The SCOTUS affirmative action decision was legally wrong - poorly reasoned and legally silly. But in the long run, and if it spurs schools to use socioeconomic status and opportunity as the finger on the scales, it will be a net positive Race is a blunt instrument, and I think we *all* agree that, for example, Willow Smith doesn't need or warrant any sort of bump on her college application. But Willow Smith is a WILD outlier and "but what about [insert rare exception]" isn't a useful policy framework
Jun 9, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This thread from Yesh is a good example of a philosophical mistake I like to call "solutionism" - the belief that if a problem is bad enough then there must be a solution out there to resolve it, because "yeah, it sucks, it can't be solved for" is too unthinkable to bear You see it a lot in the context of Israel/Palestine, with people convinced that the right mixture of fairy dust & button pushing can lead to a peaceful resolution that addresses all of the important and competing imperatives, it's just that nobody has found the right mixture yet
Jun 9, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
@yesh222 You don't worry about that, because it's not a solveable problem. You keep doing the right thing and hope that convictions and mounting evidence prevents more people from joining the conspiracy theorists, but that's all you can do @yesh222 I said this 4 years ago, and it's proven true in every particular.

May 19, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
That she was the one stealing the bike.

Literally nothing she did on the video is consistent with her new story. When her colleague came over and the kids said "that's his bike, he already paid for it" she didn't deny it, or look surprised by the claim. Like ... how do you determine truth in a they-said-she-said situation? Watch human behavior. Throughout the video, the kids' tone is exactly what you'd expect for someone who believes their own story. Hers very much is not
May 9, 2023 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
Hey, Twitter, and especially my #LitigationDisasterTourists, gather round. B/cwhile DM is focusing in on the court finding that selling videogame cheats is criminal copyright infringement and RICO, I'd like to tell you about something different. The CFAA, and @KathrynTewson And don't get me wrong - that RICO stuff is big news that should be sending shockwaves through the cheat software industry. Cheatmakers often use resellers. Being found liable on a RICO violation means that every reseller could potentially be liable for 100% of the damage caused
Mar 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
I'm not inclined to forgive antisemitism, but this is more a learning opportunity than a defenestration opportunity. There are people who still legitimately don't understand that "Jew down" or "gyp" are slurs; it's just a phrase they've grown up around and use w/o thought And yes, he doubled down when called out on it. That's almost always going to happen when someone who sincerely doesn't believe they're doing anything bigoted is called out for it in a public setting.

The real test will be whether he can learn (& apologize) as he gets more info
Mar 3, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Here's why Mark Randazza's client is making a huge mistake.

Their argument here is "our law firm colors are silver and black, there's no likelihood of confusion." And if they'd had all their athletes putting on silver and black uniforms, that would be a great defense. "Nobody will think this is the official Raiders uniform, because they KNOW it's not the official Golden Knights uniform. It's just OUR silver & black"
Feb 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Sure, that's bad. But sections (a & b) are worse.

If someone says "as the Bible says, gays are evil, greedy, and not to be trusted", and you call them a bigot, you are guilty of defamation per se because the antisemitism is based on a protected religious belief Image If someone says "according to science, gay people are disease vectors who should be avoided and quarantined from the rest of us" and you call them a bigot, you are guilty of defamation per se because it's based on "scientific beliefs"
Feb 17, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Great video from @LegalEagle explaining just why Section 230 is so important to the state of the internet today.

That said, I'm not *as* certain as he is that a ruling that algorithmic recommendations are the websites' own content - not the ...

content being recommended, but the recommendation itself - would be the end of the internet as we know it. For one thing, you'd swing right back to the "knowledge" rule, and unless the site is actively moderating its algorithmic recommendations (again, not the underlying content)
Feb 10, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
For fuck's sake, stop it. That proposed law is bad. It has exactly nothing to do with religious freedom. Set aside for a second whether that's an accurate description of Judaism. "This bill does not accord with [insert religion]'s understanding of [insert topic]" is NOT a violation of religious freedom.
Feb 3, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Hey, ex-Tweeps: we've heard from many of you that Twitter's new PeopleQuestions form - the only way Twitter is allowing you to communicate with them about things like your missing paychecks, disability payments, and their other thefts from you, now includes a poison pill: "By submitting this form, I acknowledge consent for collecting Personal information, I consent to not sharing this link with anyone else including other ex-tweep, and I will comply with the terms of the Employee Invention Assignment and Confidentiality Agreement ...
Dec 16, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Hey, #LitigationDisasterTourists: Going to drop a little bit of content here, as a treat.

Twitter is now blocking Mastodon links - to both posts and accounts - as "harmful". Checked it myself, here's the error message that pops up. Give it a shot with any Mastodon link you want. And yes, it's the Mastodon link. Break it and the tweet sails through just fine
Dec 12, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
OK, folks, this Yoel Roth imbroglio, of all things, has effectively been the last straw for me. I'm going to be significantly decreasing my twitter usage and migrating my Litigation Disaster Tours over to Mastodon (mastodon.sdf.org/@AkivaMCohen). I'll post links to them here when I do. Twitter's been an absolutely amazing place for me. I've found better friends, partners, and clients than I could've ever imagined, some great communities. Somehow 40K of you decided I was worth paying attention to, which seems like a mistake. But ...
Dec 7, 2022 • 16 tweets • 2 min read
Listening to oral argument in Moore, joined midway through. Kavanaugh & Alito both sound skeptical of the appellants. Gorsuch, on the other hand, is absolutely in the tank for the appellants
Dec 4, 2022 • 37 tweets • 12 min read
Hey, #LitigationDisasterTourists ...

So, I've been a bit busy this week and this weekend. But as you all probably know, on Thurs the 11th Circuit issued its ruling overturning Judge Canon's insane order appointing a special master to review materials seized at Mar-a-Lago Let's start with the panel who issued the ruling and how they did it.

If Trump could have drawn up his dream panel, this is probably what he'd have picked: 2 judges he himself appointed, plus Pryor, an arch-conservative who's called abortion docs as "abortionists" in opinions
Nov 24, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
We are already representing some of the fired Twitter employees (from this and other waves) Musk is trying to stiff out of their severance. So are a number of other excellent firms/attorneys.

These people have options and should talk to MULTIPLE attorneys before signing anything And yeah, multiple. Obviously, I think we're the best option to represent these folks - if we didn't, we wouldn't be taking people on. But this is not a decision anyone should make quickly, or without fully investigating their options.
Nov 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
If I routinely had followers in my mentions celebrating violence targeting trans people, I'd do a cheshbon hanefesh.

Not this chillul hashem. Like ... this is who your audience is, Chaya. This is who you are playing to. @libsoftiktok is not meaningfully different, at this point, than any of the neonazi accounts that focus on "Jews behaving badly" - though in her case, "behaving badly" is just "existing"
Nov 18, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
It's not just that the people on here going "Twitter's going to be fine" don't necessarily have all the information about what's happening *in* Twitter, it's that they're not recognizing what's happening *on* Twitter Twitter's biggest asset isn't its systems, or its employees, or its reach, or its user base.

It's Twitter's lock-in effect. People come here because people *are* here. And people don't leave here, because it's where our pocket friends are
Oct 21, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Hey, new #LitigationDisasterTourists arriving for the Niemann v. Carlsen dust-up, this tweet is the first in a side-thread of links to older tweets discussing "actual malice" - an important standard in US defamation law that significantly harms Niemann's chances of success Here's a one-tweet summary of what the "actual malice" standard requires a public-figure defamation plaintiff to prove:
Oct 20, 2022 • 70 tweets • 19 min read
OK, #LitigationDisasterTourists, by popular request (@yesh222 @ariehkovler @crowder and others) let's do a live read. I've got no idea whether what's pled here is viable or not - haven't even read it - but public figure defamation is about the hardest case to prove in US law. Not only is that hard to believe on its own, it highlights the existence of a third-party chess expert who seems to think you cheated.

Maybe I'm missing something here but this really does seem like an unforced error
Oct 4, 2022 • 46 tweets • 16 min read
OK, #LitigationDisasterTourists, let's spend some time on Trump's latest "legal" filing: an abomination that takes direct aim at the First Amendment and your personal freedom of expression.

Yes, even if you're a MAGA-fan Newsmax/OAN die hard: Yours. The lawyers here are, once again, James Trusty and Lindsey Halligan, and I'm not kidding when I say that the courts should refer them for discipline for filing this flaming bag of dogshit on their doorstep.