Michael Crook Trolls The Internet With Support SOPA Site

This just in: If you don’t support SOPA, you are thief!!! So says the wisdom of one Michael Crook, who seems to be on a mission to troll everyone he comes into contact with. You may have first h...
Michael Crook Trolls The Internet With Support SOPA Site
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  • This just in: If you don’t support SOPA, you are thief!!! So says the wisdom of one Michael Crook, who seems to be on a mission to troll everyone he comes into contact with.

    You may have first heard of Crook after he filed a bunch of takedown notices following an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. Apparently, Crook thought because he was featured in the screen-captured images from his Fox News appearance, he had the right to demand the takedown, even though Fox News is responsible for the content. That is, they own it. PlagarismToday features an in-depth look at the events, which took place in 2006.

    Fast forward to the end of 2011 and SOPA, or at least the discussion of, rules the day. Enter Crook and his Support SOPA site — no link, if you want to visit it’s SupportSOPA.org — which is a perfect example of a false dichotomy, if, for nothing else, Crook’s insistence that if you are against SOPA, you are a thief, meaning companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Mozilla are thieves just because they have the audacity to think SOPA goes about its business incorrectly.

    It should be noted that, in the Reddit thread related to the site in question, someone else points out the false dichotomy of Crook’s argument as well.

    Because of Crook’s silly disclaimer at the bottom of his Support SOPA site, this post won’t be quoting it directly. Paraphrasing, on the other hand, is open for business. Crook’s disclaimer is also the reason we won’t be giving his site any link love. If you want to see it, simply copy and paste SupportSOPA.org into your browser’s address bar. Here’s a paraphrased example of Crook’s thoughts concerning SOPA:

    A person is a thief if they don’t support SOPA because disagreeing with a ‘reasonable’ set of rules designed to stop piracy in its tracks surely means you support piracy… Or something like that.

    You’ll find most of Crook’s reasoning is circular like the paraphrased section, which will only harm the Support SOPA movement even further. Perhaps a more rational, less accusatory approach would be better, but then again, we’re talking about a person who issued takedown notices to sites using screen captures of his Fox News appearance, even though the content was not his intellectual property.

    Apparently, Crook thinks the much-maligned amendments makes SOPA all better, and therefore, if you don’t get on the SOPA bandwagon, well, enjoy stealing your next movie.

    Besides the lack of formal logic being used in Crook’s pro-SOPA manifesto, the reason Crook comes across as a troll is, among other things, because he calls out Reddit as being something similar to fringe web presence that’s only used by the mentally ill. If it looks like a troll and grunts like a troll, it’s probably a troll.

    And then there’s this nifty Google search, as pointed out by Redditor sucrerey.

    That’s another reason why the site in question isn’t getting a link, although, articles like this one are probably all the encouragement Crook needs to continue his apparent trolling ways.

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