Jason Howell Mumbles and Stumbles Through Another Show

Guest Submission

Jason Howell, famous for being stuck working in Petaluma with Leo Laporte after what some could call a productive career at CNET, is really not a good podcast host. He seems like he’s a pretty good guy, but the better talent — Iyaz — left already.

In the video above, created by an anonymous reader and submitted to us, you can watch a compilation of “kindas” strung together, all from a single Tech News Today. It’s a work of art constructed solely of verbal crutches.

Thank you, anonymous contributor, and may you continue making great content.

64 thoughts on “Jason Howell Mumbles and Stumbles Through Another Show”

  1. Again, horrible article that has nothing to really do with how TWiT and Leo has fallen. It makes an assumption that he is “mumbling through” the show, but that is what TWiT has always been. try again.

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    1. Joel Osteen said:
      Again, horrible article that has nothing to really do with how TWiT and Leo has fallen.It makes an assumption that he is“mumbling through” the show, but that is what TWiT has always been.try again.

      It has everything to do with how “TWiT and Leo has fallen”. At one time there were skilled and interesting people working at TWiT (Merritt, Iyaz,) or going even back further (Maxwell, Kiki). The gradual elimination of all real talent/shows to save costs is the exact reason they are where they are now, and it’s the point of this article.

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      1. Gomer Pyle?

        This is exactly what is wrong with TWiT. if you deeply listen to what the in-house talent actually say (and many guest hosts), they are not actually saying anything.

        Leo is usually reading on the fly, and trying to pretend he’s not. He will pick out a phrase on the webpage he is ripping off, and blurt it out as if it is some fact he already knew.

        Megum has no knowledge of the tech industry. They all rely on just asking stupid questions.

        The actual quality of the content is pretty bad.

        Although I will say, it did appear that Leo was trying harder on TWiT yesterday. So kudos.

        Other than that you all suck, especially you giraffe boy!

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    2. The article deserves a spot on the website. It illustrates how badly the hosts have been downgraded to save money. Jason & Megan probably would not even protest this post.

      Yesterday Effendunn admitted he moonlights as an Uber driver. The #1 producer (producer of TWiT) needs a second job to make ends meet!

      He was either too stupid or too honest to take Leo’s hint and lie that he worked for Uber !before! working at TWiT. Instead he told the truth and said he needs the money so works on Friday night.

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  2. This is a huge problem with TWIT, the lack of professional standards of broadcasting. Resources who can talk tech and can meet the standards of broadcasting exist, but they don’t want to work for Leo (or have been fired/ousted).

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  3. I really feel sorry for Jason being stuck there. I will cheer loudly once it’s announced he’s moved on. He’s really the only person left at TWIT that I care about their well being because he does seem to be a genuinely nice guy.

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    1. Esch said:
      I really feel sorry for Jason being stuck there. I will cheer loudly once it’s announced he’s moved on. He’s really the only person left at TWIT that I care about their well being because he does seem to be a genuinely nice guy.

      Elgan also wasn’t a terrible person. He was as clueless as a deer in the headlights but was generally harmless.

      In a way, I was relieved to see him go.

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  4. Jason is not very good. He has improved since he started hosting but still has many irritating verbal ticks, as this video demonstrates. “Totally stoked” is another one he over uses. And it’s not just the kindas and ums: Becky Worely chewed him out the other week for setting up a terrible tease for her segment. “Mental note, don’t let Jason write the teases for my segments” she said, or similar.

    I listen to AAA but mostly because Ron is OK and Flo is quite entertaining, though I wonder if her dizzy act is actually an act at times… But Jason usually ruins it, he’s got no opinion of his own and fills in with kindas and likes.

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  5. Seems more like poor Jason Howell is showing signs of what is called “TWiT Dementia”. Characterized by mumbling and mental confusion and inability to be coherent. It became a rampant issue when this infectious disease was brought into the studio by a carrier called Mike Elgan. Shoving patient zero out of the nest has sadly been done too late and too many are now infected with it.

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  6. What do you expect? TWiT is based solely on hiring people for one thing skill and turning them into a jack of all trades that is good at nothing.

    Jason isn’t a host, he wasn’t hired as one. But because TWiT is a cheap shitty operation they expect him to carry a show or three.

    I’m surprised EffenDumb has only gotten to try his hand at being the TD, he must suck extra hard or else he’d be shoved into other roles by now.

    TWiT is a slave enterprise, they don’t hire you for a specific skill, they just hire you as manpower for whatever needs doing.

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  7. We are probably all guilty of saying certain phrases or words a lot, the difference is most of us are not broadcasters. I change my mode of speech to match the person I am talking to sometimes, but in a broadcast, I believe one should avoid colloquialisms etc as much as possible, unless of course the show is made for a particular audience.
    Whilst I appreciate that not everyone speaks in BBC English with perfect grammar, enunciation etc, certain words and phrases shouldn’t be used – “you know” (the worst imho), “kinda”, etc. It is not professional, it is lazy and sloppy, especially when auto cues are being used. The number of guests using the Kardashian fry at the end of eaCH SENTENCE, is also very annoying and makes listening to those people very difficult. Personally I have turned off, skipped guests , or stopped watching completely several shows because of these issues. I agree, Jason seems like a really nice guy, and when he is talking about things he knows well, has experience with etc, he is good, but he often doesn’t appear to be very comfortable in front of a camera – of course not everyone is, and the extra pressure of doing live, daily shows is obviously a lot on a person. I myself was not good on camera (but dahlings, I was FABulous on stage in my youth)!.
    The presenters and guests i did enjoy have all gone, long ago.

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  8. this is just , um, one of the reasons I, you know, like to listen to the no agenda show, right. John and Adam, kinda like, call each other out on these types of speech patterns all the time.

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  9. To put things in perspective, in All About Android, Jason is the more coherent and eloquent of the three. RonXoXo is a diva and Florence cannot get the California girl shtick to work for her.

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  10. I’ve held a grudge against Jason since his first day at TWiT. In the Cottage days, Erik Lanigan was the producer of TNT when Tom Merritt started. Then Tom got his Buzz Out Loud producer Jason to jump ship from CNET, and Erik was out of a job. That always bugged me. I thought Erik was doing really good work.

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  11. Joel Osteen said:
    Again, horrible article that has nothing to really do with how TWiT and Leo has fallen.It makes an assumption that he is“mumbling through” the show, but that is what TWiT has always been.try again.

    As others have said, you’ve got this one wrong. The point is that Leo doesn’t develop any talent at all. Jason chose a behind the scenes role, and if he’s gonna be a presenter there should be mentoring and coaching, to try to ease him into a better way of speaking.

    But that doesn’t happen at all.

    The fact that you’ve got a decent producer like Jason becoming a presenter, with no training, no mentoring, no development, is a key symptom of how bad things are at Twit.

    It’s not picking on Jason for the sake of picking on people, it’s showing how bad the hosting at Twit has become.

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  12. What I’m really interested in is, what do all these people do?

    It’s a genuine question. Looking through the list and putting aside the hosts, there seems to be a number of technical/creative people with real experience and skills. Why then do we see people such as Effendumb messing things up and being so awful?

    I mean, surprisingly enough, they actually do have a creative director!. That shocked me, given the creative malaise that’s overtaken Twit.

    Actually, I just read his bio. That’s what the creative director’s experience and role is? It sounds like they’re saying his main job is to work on sponsor advertising campaigns – the bio majors on his experience with promotion, but nothing about creativity apart from to say he’s been creative.

    But there is precisely nothing creative about Twit’s advertising campaigns, and they’re years behind other online broadcasting operations, which long ago realised you can’t keep talking for 5 minutes about a product – most shows I listen to now take 30-50 seconds for an ad.

    That odd bio in full:

    Jerry is the Creative Director for TWiT and the Producer of The New Screen Savers. He’s been working with TWiT since late 2013 and helped launch Tech News 2Night. He also works on advertising campaigns with TWiT sponsors.

    Jerry is an accomplished Creative Director, director, producer, cameraman and video editor with 20+ years creating branding campaigns, producing promotional trailers, copywriting, and generating audience awareness. He has won and been nominated for several Emmy’s as a director, producer and editor. Previously, he worked at the CBS owned stations in San Francisco and Austin, Texas. In the early 2000’s Jerry worked at TechTV in the Marketing and Promotion Department producing and directing promo spots.

    Jerry hails from Tennessee so you’re likely to detect a slight Southern accent when talking to him- plus he knows how to code and rebuild a car engine.

    Now, he’s been working there for over 2 years and has only “helped launch” one show? I actually don’t think the creative director should be launching shows. The job should be about the vision, overall image, direction – and ensuring consistency in implementation of the company’s plans.

    Also, given that Twit is supposed to be a professional outfit, the quality of writing is poor. Look at the last sentence – it reads like they’re saying he can code a car engine. That’s ambiguous writing, and anyone writing for a professional website should know to edit stuff like that out.

    As for “Emmy’s”, that sort of mistake shouldn’t ever make it to the production version of a media company’s website. I know these are only small mistakes and only nerds will spot them, but you should care enough about your product to hunt out and remove mistakes like this.

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    1. evilpants said:

      But there is precisely nothing creative about Twit’s advertising campaigns, and they’re years behind other online broadcasting operations, which long ago realised you can’t keep talking for 5 minutes about a product – most shows I listen to now take 30-50 seconds for an ad.

      IF FANS SAW HOW TWIT SELLS ADS THEY WOULD BE MORTIFIED. THEY TELL ADVERTISERS THEY WILL DO 5 MINUTE ADS AND INCORPORATE THE AD ALMOST AS A SHOW SEGMENT. THE FANS ARE “LOYAL” AND TRY EVERY PRODUCT LEO SELLS. THEY SAY LEO IS A GIANT IN THE INDUSTRY AND WHEN HE ENDORSED SQUARESPACE IT “MADE THE COMPANY.” THEY USED TO GET VERY HIGH RATES FOR HIS ADS. USED TO. THEY USED TO FLAUNT FORD AS A DIRECT BUYER LIKE CRAZY. MOST OF THE ENERGY AND CREATIVITY AT TWIT GOES INTO SELLING ADS NOT SHOWS. THEY STILL GET ADS BUT NOW GET STANDARD PODCAST RATE. NO ONE BELIEVES LISA ANYMORE.

      I KNOW THIS.

      Evilpants can do original articles for TD.

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  13. I confess, I turned on the stream. I can’t for the life of me explain how bad it is. I was watching an unenthusiastic conversation between amoral Leo and Megan Morrone and waiting for show to start. Then they said moving on to next segment or some shit like that. THAT WAS THE SHOW.

    Leo does not give a shit. What happened to him?

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  14. There’s usually several inevitables in any shitty twatcasts

    1. Megan will mention her kids
    2. Paul Thurrot will lament the death of windows phone and hate on Apple
    3. Soup Laporte will claim looooove an ad sponsors product
    4. Jeff Jarvis will defend Googles unethical and dangerous business practices
    5. Effendumb will fuck up in some capacity
    6. Ben Thompson will babble for long periods of time about nothing and not allow any cohost any time to speak
    7. Andy Ihnatko will mention he has a review unit of a new piece of tech
    8. Rene Ritchie will speak in glowing terms of everything Apple has ever said or done
    9. Steve Gibson will try to plug his sleep serum and paleo diet
    10. Soup will Google the question asked of him by a caller on TTG

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  15. Hi,

    Yes, it’s unfortunate for reasons beyond their control, Megan and Jason have been put in positions for which they have little aptitude and then, to add insult to injury, “real” broadcasters like Becky Worley appear on the show and rather outshine them.

    Jason is good in the anchor position on AAA, where he’s mostly the gooseberry foil to Ron and Flo (are those two a thing yet?)

    But Lisa and Leo realise that they have a loyal audience, fed with fresh meat from the radio show, that can be satisfied with mediocre product from which good money can be harvested. TWiT is not growing, it has passed its peak and is now in decline.

    It’s a little bit sad, and a lot inevitable. They’ll shift to the new premises and gradually fade away.

    We’re all human, and we and our creations all degenerate over time. The edge is lost, regrets mount, death is a forgiving and final embrace.

    Looking forward to Snowcloney McSnowcloneface’s disparagement, it means I’m important.

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      1. holden said: Nothing actionable here, sport. It’s called Freedom of Speech.

        Well said Holden!!!!

        Freedom of speech
        the number one Troll “Leo LaFuck hides behind the freedom of speech act countless times during his podcasts while Trolling other podcasters / CEO’s/companies/celebrities etc.
        I’m glad his business is failing he deserves everything he brings upon himself and other ass kissers.

        We will never forget or forgive him for his actions in the video link below.
        Je suis Erik!!!!
        RIP
        http://youtu.be/iHQ0fLN63UE

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      2. That’s not what freedom of speech means. You can be sued. If twit wants to go that far, they could. It will cost them real money to do it. So when they day comes they think it’s worth that money, they can and will.

        I find it absofuckinghilarious you guy deleted the boaty person posts. Whatever that name was. He/she was a mirror to the nastier element here. Someone here can’t stand looking in a mirror. But good job getting rid of it. Just like how twit got rid of you from their chat. Both places are better without it.

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        1. Fauxjournalist said:
          That’s not what freedom of speech means. You can be sued. If twit wants to go that far, they could. It will cost them real money to do it. So when they day comes they think it’s worth that money, they can and will.

          I find it absofuckinghilarious you guy deleted the boaty person posts. Whatever that name was. He/she was a mirror to the nastier element here. Someone here can’t stand looking in a mirror.But good job getting rid of it. Just like how twit got rid of you from their chat. Both places are better without it.

          Faux, are you dense?? There is nothing LEGALLY actionable here. Nada. Zilch.

          FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION.

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          1. We can all understand the booting someone from a chatroom or deleting comments is not illegal or a constitutional violation. However, the principle of free speech is being violated. And yes, when the TD douchebags delete comments it is not different at all from scooterX kicking someone they don’t want to hear from. Total double standard they refuse to admit they fucked up.

            The only difference is TD is incredibly hypocritical in that they claim to be proponents of the principal of free speech, all opinions, criticism, and trolling. Yes that was the ultimate hypocrisy by who,ever did that.

            *Jeff Jarvis is the biggest fool in that he hinted at a law suit. Court=govt
            So he was a bigger tool than TD in that he actually wanted that guys speech outlawed.

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  16. Leo’s touchy isn’t he.

    Shame Leo, live on camera about 3 weeks ago showed how ignorant he was when he gave his user name, card number and password to a spoof website after responding to a phishing email. He even said “I didn’t know Chase Bank used Wix for hosting” then continued doggedly trying to log onto the website.

    Leo you are out of touch with tech and not we don’t continue watching. I watch maybe once a month sometimes once every three months and it’s worse each time.

    I visit Totaldrama because there are people here that torture themselves watching your abomination of a podcast channel so that others don’t have to sit with a sick bucket.

    You can call me stupid but I’m not the one that blames others because of your terminal in-studio set up that can’t cope with the traffic and causes dropouts on your skype calls and for the streams to collapse.

    Now you should spend your energy moving to the TWiT Strip House or whatever you end up calling it and eventually move into your garage or garden shed to do your shows.

    You can have Effendunn do the Technical director and editor and upload it, or maybe he can just do Lyft or Uber to cover the shortfall in income.

    You know Leo that he’s looking for another job because he can’t make ends meet and desperately trying to find something, even your brown nose with the Bug tattoo is considering jumping shit for something that is a little better paid and not a risk of suddenly becoming and offsite producer.

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  17. Jason Howel was a tremendous producer. He contributed the right amount so that as an audience member you wanted to hear more from him. He handled all situations and hiccups and consistently prepared for the shows and prepped the guests. TNT only needed to break the live show maybe 6 or 7 times a year for technical issues. Howell managed to keep the show hosts and guests in good spirits and interacted well with the IRC audience, keeping them engaged. Look at what they have now.

    The top TD is effendumb. This monkeyman never says anything intelligent and all his jokes die and that laugh is irritating. He constantly encounters issues he can’t handle mid-show. He worships Leo and yet Leo always needs to tell him what to do. Anything he contributes either verbally or via the monitor is imbecilic. His lone contribution was buying a VR headset to lend Leo mid-show which always leads to awful content of Leo in goggles looking the fool. Watching Effendumb do his job is like watching a person with a stick trying to hit a piñata, it’s kind of funny but mostly cruel to watch.

    Putting Jason on AAA as a sincere enthusiast was a good idea. But making your top TD the headline host because he was a popular TD is something only a cupcake with a mail-order college degree would agree to.

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  18. What I love the most is how Boaty comes here spewing hate and taking a tremendous amount of time to answer every. single. reply. in this thread and telling us that we’re all trolls (which some of us here are definitely not), and yet their actions are what a troll does. Hypocrite much?

    I’m going to guess Boaty has a direct connection inside TWIT because they are trying WAY too hard to put everyone down here. (My money is on Padre)

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    1. Padre? No but maybe a young parishioner that has been especially blessed by him and feels the need to defend his spiritual captor and his cohorts.

      I’m guessing a teen at most, with his own bedroom in his mom’s basement, wallpapered with photos of Uncle Layo and a full scale mannequin dressed up like FMCP.

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  19. Leo, how about preparing for your shows for a change? You are just too ignorant to come in five minutes before the show begins and wing it.

    You think because you’re a professional broadcaster that you can get away with it, but it’s just so obvious you can’t, and honestly it’s embarrassing to listen to you flounder, struggle, and make mistakes.

    Also, how about training and practicing with those who will be in front of the camera? You won’t create an army of Lanigans who want your job, but you will create better shows, and that leads to more viewers and listeners.

    Think you can handle that, asshole McFatFuck?

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  20. I still can’t over how FAT Tonya Hall is…Jesus…I mean OBESE. I mean MORBIDLY OBESE. She’s consuming calories at such a rate very soon her mass will collapse and create a black hole sucking the entire TWiT complex into oblivion.

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  21. And now all of our posts about and to Boaty are totally out of context as his were deleted. As much as he was an ass to everyone here, I don’t think removing his posts was the right thing to do. *shrug*

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    1. Esch said:
      And now all of our posts about and to Boaty are totally out of context as his were deleted. As much as he was an ass to everyone here, I don’t think removing his posts was the right thing to do. *shrug*

      It was the right thing. The dude was essentially spamming up with his posts. He added no intelligent discourse.

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      1. Fauxjournalist said:
        As right as twit is to do the same. Totaldrama has become twit.

        This site is for us former TWIT followers to catalog that network’s downfall. It is not meant primarily for those who disagree. We didn’t invite you or any TD haters here. Unlike TWIT, our mission statement is quite clear.

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        1. For the record, I don’t hate totaldrama. I will be critical of some comments here though. To be gross or make fun of someone’s weigh or appearance isn’t something that should be protected from such criticism.

          Leo can do what leo wants in his house, and you guys can do what you want in your house. If your goal is to shrink away into nothing, you’re right on track. If you’d like to grow your audience, you’d need to rethink your practices.

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      2. Fauxjournalist said:
        As right as twit is to do the same. Totaldrama has become twit.

        TWiT removes content on sites out of its control using complaints (most likely from the inside in the case of Twitter) and DMCA reports (in the case of YouTube).

        The user in question spammed the comments up, with his threads, from 44 comments to 193 comments. He furthermore proclaimed he was the King of TD for taking the comments so far off-topic from the article and making it all about him. He had exactly what he wanted.

        We removed that perverse incentive.

        We have never minded criticism (see every single one of your comments in the past on all the articles), and we freely allow it. However, when it removes the ability to have a coherent discussion due to sheer volume, we can and will remove it.

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    2. Why not twit shuts people up all the time. Now this site is no different. Dan always said it was his house and I guess he was right. This is the house of whoever the admin is here.
      Whatever that guy was doing was not spam. He just a point of view TD didn’t like. Sort of like how TWiT didn’t like us saying Leo was lying.

      I am going to go retread the post about Jeff Jarvis. Maybe he had a point about getting the satire deleted.

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      1. Red Penguin said:
        Why not twit shuts people up all the time. Now this site is no different. Dan always said it was his house and I guess he was right. This is the house of whoever the admin is here.
        Whatever that guy was doing was not spam. He just a point of view TD didn’t like. Sort of like how TWiT didn’t like us saying Leo was lying.

        I am going to go retread the post about Jeff Jarvis. Maybe he had a point about getting the satire deleted.

        It’s fine to disagree, but the guy just went on and on. Even people like Faux who disagree with us don’t post the same comments over and over in one thread.

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      2. Red Penguin said:
        Why not twit shuts people up all the time. Now this site is no different. Dan always said it was his house and I guess he was right. This is the house of whoever the admin is here.
        Whatever that guy was doing was not spam. He just a point of view TD didn’t like. Sort of like how TWiT didn’t like us saying Leo was lying.

        I am going to go retread the post about Jeff Jarvis. Maybe he had a point about getting the satire deleted.

        TWiT removes content on sites out of its control using complaints (most likely from the inside in the case of Twitter) and DMCA reports (in the case of YouTube).

        The user in question spammed the comments up, with his threads, from 44 comments to 193 comments. He furthermore proclaimed he was the King of TD for taking the comments so far off-topic from the article and making it all about him. He had exactly what he wanted.

        We removed that perverse incentive.

        We have never minded criticism, and we freely allow it. However, when it removes the ability to have a coherent discussion due to sheer volume, we can and will remove it.

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      3. I think his “yo momma” comments count as spam. I don’t mind critical posts but when it’s only childish drivel, I can see why they’re better off removed.

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  22. Saw a slightly interesting article about how IHeartMedia, which inexplicably hosts two Laporte “call in with a question and we’ll google the answer for you” shows a week.

    It looks like it might well collapse soon – it’s massively in debt and its stock price has fallen to nothing: it’s gone from around $8 a share a few years ago to $0.79 a share now.

    From the article – Leo seems right at home here:

    In the meantime, the company has gone to great lengths to make its revenues look stronger than they were, according to one former top executive. One practice was to do quick-cash trade deals, swapping ad inventory for goods and services the company was then able to book as revenue within that quarter. The practice is perfectly legal but frowned upon as a sleight of hand that cheapens the value of inventory.

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    1. I don’t understand what happens if I heart goes down. Do radio stations close or they do their own programming and not syndicated stuff.

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  23. Re. deleting comments:

    Jeff Jarvis said: The only difference is TD is incredibly hypocritical in that they claim to be proponents of the principal of free speech, all opinions, criticism, and trolling. Yes that was the ultimate hypocrisy by who,ever did that.

    No, not so. I think a site can be a big believer in free speech but also still say “we will not put up with racism, homophobia etc here”. That’s not hypocritical, let alone “the ultimate hypocrisy”. It’s also completely different from “the chat room kicks out anyone who criticises Leo” – I’m amazed anyone thinks they’re similar at all.

    As the XKCD comic posted above says: freedom of speech gives you the right to say whatever the hell you want, but it doesn’t mean people have to provide space on the internet for you to say it and it doesn’t mean we have to put up with you stirring hatred.

    Fauxjournalist said: I find it absofuckinghilarious you guy deleted the boaty person posts. Whatever that name was. He/she was a mirror to the nastier element here. Someone here can’t stand looking in a mirror. But good job getting rid of it. Just like how twit got rid of you from their chat.

    I don’t know TD’s owners, but I am the person who wrote the comment asking for the Boaty posts to be deleted. It wasn’t to do with the homophobia, it was to do with the purpose of the posts.

    What that person was doing was attempting to turn every single comment thread into a pile of shit. You might have enjoyed what he was doing, but his intent was to keep doing it so that every thread turned into a row between Boaty and the original commenter – Boaty calling him a “faggot” and telling him what a piece of shit he is, the original commenter responding in anger.

    Boaty was doing it under every single comment – so it was no longer just a mildly amusing bit of a show. It was a definite attempt to derail the whole site.

    The purpose was to stop other people commenting. It’s a standard MO on the web, and has been for years: make threads seem so hostile, most people give up.

    That’s why it’s ok to delete a commenter like that. Again, I’m amazed that this needs to be explained to anyone. He would have continued to do it to every single thread, because his purpose was to make people feel like it’s not worth commenting.

    I’ve been around the web long enough, and I’ve run enough discussion-oriented sites, to know this MO. It was even done inside my workplace labour union discussion board recently, when a large number of members really disagreed with what the leadership had done over a particular issue. People started complaining, and a few supporters of the leadership went into every thread making personal attacks on those who complained. All it took was for 1 or 2 people to respond, and then every single discussion became a row about everything except the stuff that needed to be discussed.

    They made enough personal attacks – and, just like here, it only took a few people to respond, and the whole discussion just felt hostile. A few people complained about both sides attacking each other, even though the original complainers had only attacked back when repeatedly provoked. A few people said “fuck you all, you can’t even have a civil disagreement” – see? that’s the aim, to make people back away, making it look like the whole lot of you are bad. If people could guarantee never to allow Boaty to wind them up, then he could’ve continued commenting, I’ll bet. But people do respond when they’re attacked, and it would’ve worked.

    That’s a common tactic: pollute the discussion with a pile of shit, so that a) the actual discussion stops and b) people think “I can’t be bothered to comment, it’s just gonna end up full of that troll noise”.

    Surely you can see that? Didn’t you see that this person did it to every single comment? Isn’t it obvious that the purpose was to ruin the site?

    Isn’t it then obvious that the person was not “a mirror to the nastier element here”? When have you ever seen a TD supporter post under every single comment “you are [x] and you are a fucking [z]”? Point it out. If you’ve seen it enough to make such a bold claim, back it up.

    You can’t cos you’re completely wrong – there are no commenters who do what Boaty did. You can’t just say “some people are nasty sometimes and therefore if someone else is nasty, but 100 times as much, that’s a mirror”. That would be like me looking into a mirror and believing a supermodel is staring back at me.

    Your MO on here is to stand distant, declaring that this site is shit. That’s what you do. But you only do it once a week or so, and you do it in a way that engages me and makes me want to debate it with you.

    There are nasty people on here. I hate the way some of them speak. Absolutely.

    But that is not mirrored by someone posting under every single comment, then replying to every single reply, with the same nasty shit.

    You seem like an intelligent person. It should be obvious to you that no website can allow the comments to be ruined like he was deliberately doing.

    As an intelligent person, surely you know that “deleting someone who is posting a response to every single comment, insulting the commenter and the website and using homophobic language to insult them further” is fundamentally different to “removing someone who merely politely criticises Leo on their first ever post”?

    The chat mods ban people who simply say “does Leo have to keep talking about his car?” – surely you can see that it is not hypocrisy for TD to ban someone from posting “you’re a fucking coward faggot who sits in his basement typing bullshit all day” 20 times in a thread?

    You honestly think that’s the same? In which case why haven’t you been banned – you rarely engage in any discussion, you spend your time here criticising the site. So for you to be correct, you have been banned from this site.

    The fact that you’re not banned is proof that you’re wrong, and once again we are in that weird territory where someone claims something is prohibited, but the very fact that they’re doing the thing they claim is prohibited is proof that the thing is not prohibited – it’s the same as when right-wing people claim they’re being silenced, and they do so on the front pages of mass circulation newspapers, on TV news shows, in web discussion boards.

    It’s a bizarre way of thinking.

    Just a quick comment about libel: there’s no actionable stuff on TD for Twit to sue for libel. The more rancid comments fall under satire, and the rest is simply true. I guess FCMP has a case for the number of times he’s called a paedophile on here – but with the sheer amount of scandal that’s engulfed the Catholic Church, from nuns beating the shit out of boarding school children to priests molesting dozens of local boys, it’s almost the thing everyone says about priests who seem a big slippery.

    But the rest? That’s either fair comment, satire, TRUE or so far beneath the view of the law, Twit wouldn’t get anywhere suing anyone here.

    Not just that – I don’t know about the US, but in the UK to sue for libel you have to a) go through a process of trying to resolve it with published apologies and retractions well before you ever get to court, and b) prove that the comments damaged your reputation.

    Given that 99% of the stuff TD has posted about Leo has been screengrabs or live feed video recordings, it’s hard to say that TD has done any harm to Leo.

    And that’s why Leo hasn’t even attempted to sue: if he did, the internet would go to war on him, and instead of a few hundred thousand page views on 10 websites showing his dick pic, it would be hosted around the world and shared to millions.

    He’s gotta surely know that: no one likes a guy who’s brought it on himself and then tries to stop everyone else talking about it.

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    1. ” I think a site can be a big believer in free speech but also still say “we will not put up with racism, homophobia etc here”.”
      What does that have to do with Bloaty, are you honestly saying TD does not put up with words like faggot or calling women whores?????

      “What that person was doing was attempting to turn every single comment thread into a pile of shit.”

      ScooterX would say the exact same thing. People commenting on hosts appearance is disruptive, talking about off-topic subjects takes the chat room where the chat room owner doesn’t want to go, criticizing Leo is coming into his house and being ruse to homeowner.

      “The purpose was to stop other people commenting.”
      He was engaging everyone and giving logical (albeit wrong) answers. He was engaging in discussion.

      I think you are not being honest with yourself and are looking for ways to justify what you called for and they did. Maybe take a moment to be objective.

        » Quote comment

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