cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3320637
YouTube and Reddit are sued for allegedly enabling the racist mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 dead::The complementary lawsuits claim that the massacre in 2022 was made possible by tech giants, a local gun shop, and the gunman’s parents.
Youtube needs to be punished for their hypocrisy.
Average Joe gets a community guidelines strike for “promoting violence” because he said “Dead” instead of “Unalived”, but Penis Prager can advocate for beating your gay kids till they turn straight and YouTube just throws it into everyone’s playlists without so much as a “Boys will be boys”
Penis Prager
I see you’re a person of culture as well… I know this reference.
There is a good reason for that, and that is that Penis Prager is a bigger payoff for Google.
yeah but the hypocrisy is so blatant
This is so so stupid. We should also sue the ISPs then, they enabled the use of YouTube and Reddit. And the phone provider for enabling communications. This is such a dangerous slippery slope to put any blame on the platforms.
I think the thing isn’t just providing access to the content, but using algorithms to promote how likely it is for deranged people to view more and more content that fuel their motives for hateful acts instead of trying to reduce how often that content is seen, all because they make more money if they watch more content, wether it is harmful or not.
Yeah, the difference is in whether or not the company is choosing what to put in front of a viewer’s eyes.
For the most part an ISP just shows people what they request. If someone gets bomb making directions from YouTube it would be insane to sue AT&T because AT&T delivered the appropriate packets when someone went to YouTube.
On the other end of the spectrum is something like Fox News. They hire every host, give them timeslots, have the opportunity to vet guests, accept advertising money to run against their content, and so on.
Section 512 of the DMCA treats “online service providers” like YouTube and Reddit as if they’re just ISPs, merely hosting content that is generated by users. OTOH, YouTube and Reddit use ML systems to decide what the users are shown. In the case of YouTube, the push to suggest content to users is pretty strong. You could argue they’re much closer to the Fox News side of things than to the ISP side these days. There’s no human making the decisions on what content should be shown, but does that matter?
Yep. I often fall asleep to long YouTube videos that are science or history related. The algorithm is the reason why I wake up at 3am to Joe Rogan. It’s like a terrible autocomplete.
The algorithm is tailored to you. This says more about you. I never get recommended Rogan.
What if it isn’t algorithms but upvotes? What if Lemmy is next?
If you were head of a psychiatric ward and had an employee you knew was telling patients “Boy, I sure wish someone would kill as many black people as they could”, you would absolutely share responsibility when on of them did exactly that.
If you were deliberately pairing that employee with patients who had shown violent behaviour on the basis of “they both seem to like violence”, you would absolutely share responsibility for that violence.
This isn’t a matter of “there’s just so much content, however can we check it all?”.
Reddit has hosted multiple extremist and dangerous communities, claiming “we’re just the platform!” while handing over the very predictable post histories of mass shooters week after week.
YouTube has built an algorithm and monetisation system that is deliberately designed to lure people down rabbit holes then done nothing to stop it luring people towards domestic terrorism.
It’s a lawsuit against companies worth billions. They’re not being executed. There are grounds to accuse them of knowingly profiting from the grooming of terrorists and if they want to prove that’s not the case, they can do it in court.
the isps don’t encourage people to see content that makes them mad
I think to blame/sue the company that is nearest to the user should work fine. (following is hyperbolical) If you don’t do it that way, then yes it would be slippery because the big bang would need to be sued. But that makes no sense.
So if an attack is planned via mail you think we should sue the postal service? The phone company if it’s done over the phone?
No, because these things should be private. Social media however needs some kind of moderation. edit: also go blame the user too, but that should be a given
I think just the poster should suffice, we should leave the platforms out of it. If anything, it helps to out the assholes who would post stuff that enables this.
Blocking a user and removing content from a platform should be relatively easy and fast which should prevent organized crimes. Sueing someone afterwords takes way more resources and time.
But a platform can remove content without getting sued. Why sue them too? Because if you don’t sue their asses they don’t care.
Of course moderation takes time and can’t be perfect and this should be considered when suing the platform owners. And yes this could help the assholes, but I think you can report such behavior to the fbi or someone.
Change mail (private) to moderated public notice board (not private). The owner of the public notice board should probably be sued for allowing the content to stay up.
Is the postal service intentionally increasing mail to people interested in attacks by people messaging that attacks are necessary? If the postal service is doing that to increase the total postal volume, then yes, we should.
If my buddies and spend a month plotting a crimer in my cousin’s spare room, the cousin would be complicit since he knowingly allowed us to use his property for a criminal conspiracy. The USPS doesn’t know what i am sending in the mail since they are a common carrier.
Great analogy
Actually, they’d just try to seize his house, since proving his complicity is more challenging than proving that the house was used for the planning of a crime.
Utilities aren’t the same thing as platforms.
But giant media platforms run by giant tech corportations who have repeatedly shown that they don’t give a shit about people? If they’re not putting railguards on their algorithm and content out of choice and are consequently creating mass murderers, then they should be regulated to have some railguards.
No corporation has proven that it will make the best choices for society, it’s up to people to force them to.
If you look at anything even remotely related to “men’s interests” YouTube will begin showing you alt right fascist bull shit.
Seriously. I spend a little too much time watching a short that is clearly designed to get me worked up about stereotypical communication difficulties between men & women from a “women, am I rite?” perspective, suddenly I’m getting Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. I spend a little too much time watching a video about certain Ukrainian war equipment or a Slo Mo Guys video involving guns (wood stock hunting guns, I felt like it was the early 80s all over again before everyone decided they needed assault weapons), suddenly I’m getting served tacticool idiots with kitted-out murder machines. Or I watch a Bart Erhman video (secular New Testament scholar with a large lay audience) and suddenly I get served muslim da’wah/apologetics videos and Catholic catechism ads.
Lots of stupid, emotionally driven teenagers on the platform who think their opinion is reality, so you have a lot of Tate/Peterson/Rogan riders on the platform. Add in the fact ‘controversial’ (blatantly wrong or insane) content gets lots of comments/engagement, so it is pushed by the algorithm. Then there are just lots of idiots in general who don’t want to consider self-reflection or change their vies, so they will eat up all the ideology that shifts the blame or gives them a chance to ‘get to the top.’ They are victims of modern society. But somehow see every ‘problem’ except for the real one, the one of neoliberal ideologies around capitalism and individualism.
I just wish that I could watch (intentionally or accidentally) a slightly hot-take video once in a blue moon without the algorithm deciding I’m a right-wing nutjob that only wants right-wing nutjob content. How hard would it be to allow users to give active input on what they’re getting? Right now, anything I do (downvoting, “don’t recommend this channel”, reporting hate speech) gives me MORE of the shit I hate.
If you look at anything even remotely related to “men’s interests” YouTube will begin showing you alt right fascist bull shit.
Or if you don’t. Youtube shorts recommends Rogan constantly.
I watch a lot of model trains stuff, I don’t get alt-right fascist stuff. At worst I get shit like ShoeOnHead who seems reasonable enough.
She is an anti-feminist and basically alt right entry point.
No? Have you ever watched her, or did you just see out of context clips?
Unless by antifeminist and alt right, you mean disagree with stalin, and isnt a women supremacist.
Guessing from the witch in your username, you’re just upset shes doesn’t think women are superior.
If youtube is still pushing racist and alt right content on to people, then they can get fucked. Why should we let some recommender system controlled by a private corporation have this much influence American culture and politics??
I sub to primarily leftist content and their YouTube shorts algorithm insists on recommending the most vile far right content on the planet. It is to the point that I’m convinced YouTube is intentionally trying to shift people far right
Wow I am so surprised by this. I watch mainly tech and gardening YouTube and my shorts have been extremely applicable to me.
Even when I use a new computer like at work the shorts are mostly pop culture.
Didn’t make shorts any less annoying though
I wonder if this differs from country to country? Or is it different in Europe vs US? I get maths, engineering, music. Nothing too awful. But there is clearly a fully conscious and malicious push to the right going on on all large platforms. It seems Europe is trying to step in and limit that shit from big US platforms before it’s too late. Then we have censorship looming on the other side of the picture.
Oooh be careful or you’re gonna get the Free Speech Absolutist liberals mad at you. Instead of blocking the offensive content, you just need to “win them over with better ideas.”
Feels good to be reading this somewhere other than reddit
I mean lookingbat the details for the basis of the suit. They think they can sue someone for teaching a criminal how to do something. They think they can sue the makers of body armor for selling a guy who was not a criminal at the time of purchase, an unregulated commercial product. They think they can sue YouTube for providing motive for whatever he did.
In the law world theres a word for this. Its called a shakedown. This is grieving family’s who are vindictive. They dont care who pays, but somebody has to pay in their eyes. Sadly on the merits this case will die in court pretty fast and nobody is gonna see a dollar unless alphabet and spez’s lawyers decide they are feeling charitable. Which they won’t because settling would cause implications of guilt in the public eye.
This is grieving family’s who are vindictive.
I’d blame it on the lawyers.
They dont care who pays, but somebody has to pay in their eyes. Sadly on the merits this case will die in court pretty fast and nobody is gonna see a dollar
The family’s lawyer is getting paid either way.
Yeah some families are vindictive but ALL lawyers are ready to press a case like this as long as they think they can win.
If they think they can win it’s another matter, what I think is happening here is the lawyer is pushing for the case regardless, because they get paid regardless.
I’m not sure that’s true. Families don’t always have deep pockets. The lawyer is paid a % of the settlement, which is probably more money than the family could just pay out of pocket. But it does mean they need to win, so they pick their cases. I mean if you pay them well in cash they’ll likely take any case. But a lot of personal injury cases and such are paid on a percentage.
The lawyer is paid a % of the settlement
Not necessarily, if that was the case I would expect it to be very likely they would win - a lawyer isn’t going to take a case on contingency if they don’t think they will win. More likely the family have a little bit of money saved up and the lawyer is taking advantage of them in their emotional state by encouraging them into a frivilous lawsuit.
It’s a sliding scale built on risk and reward.
They will take the case if they think they can win OR when they only have a chance of winning but the settlement is going to be large.
25% chance of a $10 million settlement with a big corporation: take the case.
90% chance of multi hundred thousand dollar insurance payout: take the case.
Probably they also consider the amount of work. For all we know, both of the above could be just 10-20 hours of work.
Former Australian Deputy Premier won a case against Google in 2022 arguing that the YouTube platform enabled journalist FriendlyJordies to make fun of him, and he won a $715,000 settlement.
Edit: Thanks for the correction, guys
Also, not a former Australian prime minister. He was the deputy premier of New South Wales.
I’m still learning Australian political terminology, you are right, I had prime minister and deputy premier confused.
FYI, the premier is like the state governor and the prime minister is like the president.
YouTube may end up being protected by Safe Harbor laws:
715 thousand. Not millions
Changed it. What’s a zero here or a zero there between politicians though…
True
nailed it
Yeah, they should also sue the ISP, the power company, the company who built the criminal’s house and the people who paved the road he used. /s
Oh not wait they are suing ISPs for zeroes and ones that flow through their cables. Strange world we live in. No one would have sued the postal service for a letter they got, or their telco for a call they received before the www.
sadly… this case will die in court
Only part I disagree with. It’s a very good thing that this case dies in court. It really does suck for the families, sure, but if these kinds of lawsuits worked it would cause a whole lot more problems than it solves.
How is this a “shakedown”?
They literally explained why it was a shakedown. I don’t know what else needs to be said.
The parents of the victims are suing organizations that have no chance of being held liable in the hopes that they get some form of payout. That’s what a shakedown is.
It’s tragic and I get their anger, but this isn’t going to succeed. Any legal team worth its retainer fee will successfully defend this.
There’s no blackmail or extortion of money, it’s a litigation suit on companies to be held liable. That’s not defined as a shakedown.
The term “shakedown” has been used to describe frivolous lawsuits seeking to strong-arm settlements from defendants for decades. Language is descriptive, not prescriptive.
I don’t think that ordinary non-billionaire humans suing Google is strong-arming by any sense of the imagination. Google has the deep pockets and the top legal team. Google could invent lawsuits about whatever the fuck it wanted to and destroy each and every one of these people until the end of time. PR is the only reason they don’t. Not fear of court imposed sanctions—they’re too slick for that.
They should sue Facebook too. Facebook is rife with Nazis. And they’re fine with it.
Good! They should. Facebook’s algorithm supports Nazis.
I’ll take you at your word.
They should be suing the Conservative Party. That’s the enabler of gun violence.
Much as I dislike Reddit, I dont think they are to blame here
Reddit worked very hard to protect all anti-nazi imagery and stop people from posting anti-nazi sentiment. I’d like for someone to acknowledge that they silence anyone who posts anti-nazi shit and who speaks about killing Nazis.
Many are here because of that.
Got banned for posting anti-nazi memes comparing 45 and his supporters to Hitlet and his. It gets scary drawing parallels between the beer hall putsch and jan. 6…
Nothing like a drunk angry mob when you stage failed coups!
They kept the_donald around for years after they helped organize a nazi rally.
It could be the killing part not the nazi part that they silenced you.
As if killing people is some ultimate evil? WW2 literally happened with the purpose of stopping the Nazis, and the only way was killing them due to their ideology requiring force.
People die every day for no reason, some suffer their entire lives’, some people die due to indirect/direct consequences of greed by corporations. The US has killed millions through geopolitical interference. Yet killing somebody who would have ‘unideal races’ genocided is too far? Sure. As if liberals aren’t ok with killing people as long as they agree with the perpetrator.
Fucking ridiculous. If people feel so strongly to publicly announce wanting to kill you, they are either insane, or you are fucked up. And in this case, I think we know the answer.
That’s their claim, but it’s not like I’m advocating killing a person or anything of value. I’m advocating to kill a Nazi. That’s just being an American Citizen.
They also censor content that is just outspoken again nazism and linking the current fascism in the american right to the fascists in history. Meanwhile on /r/conservative fake news and conspiracy theories about the election, the raid on Mar a Lago, racist conspiracies around BLM and violence from cops, and every other topic of republicans and democrats is a okay for reddit
Reddit is seriously dogshit. Shitty admins, shitty users and shitty investor interests ruined the site completely. The platform will never turn back. It’s gone fully into the hive-mind/censorship direction, likely because it keeps people on the site and maximises revenue.
TD literally was a breeding ground for incel hardcore altright racists and nothing was done about it.
What’s TD?
The donald. The breeding ground for the disgusting republicans we have now.
It was more like a localized colony or infestation. The NRA, the Church, and FOX are the mother hives. You’ve got to get the nest, otherwise you’ll be running around stomping them out everywhere without ever getting rid of them.
Otherwise known as the front page of reddit for the entirety of the 2016 presidential election. Every single post on /r/all was either pro Trump stuff from The_Donald or pro Hilary stuff from /r/Politics. As a non american, it made using Reddit painful, being constantly bombarded with stuff about the election.
Wasn’t it banned? That feels like more than “nothing”
Yes. In 2020. After raiding other subs.
Not because they broke any laws or were racist. Just TOS shit.
If you then claim that reddit did anything to combat the alttight uprising i have a bridge to sell you.I think they tried to allow for almost any uprising on every side. It’s good for business. And what’s good for business is good for their Chinese investors.
they were rathe eager to police any leftist content, even if it was clearly satirical
To be fair, it took waaay too long for anything to be done about it. I feel like they kept it going for so long because it was drawing people to Reddit and improving engagement etc. Even when they did step in, they just quarantined the subreddit.
Reddit has edited content, that IMO opens them up this. Once they start removing legal but undesirable content they are tacitly approving the content they haven’t removed.
You have klan members in Congress, supreme court, churches and every police department, but sure, YT and Reddit are the problem.
At the very least, they shouldn’t be promoting this content. There’s a difference between hosting content and actively suggesting it to users.
There can be two problems.
The two problems can have disproportionate sizes. Drumming up hysteria about reddit and yt is basically a distraction when you have people in public life endorsing the fringe ideas floating on these platforms.
There can also be two solutions.
Did you want to personally rubber stamp each of them?
Yes.
It’s been the Republican playbook for decades. Get the populace riled up about Satan or Gays or AIDS or now trans people and you can rob them blind while saying it was them.
Reddit, youtube, and tiktok are quickly becoming the new, “video games cause violence” cry from reactionaries. Hell you see people here claiming tiktok is going to make all the kids have 2 second attention spans. It’s all just scapegoats for other systematic failures in culture, education, and social saftey nets, but those are hard to fix. Easier to just blame the platform and not make any real changes.
Stop blaming websites for crazy people doing crazy things.
When the Joker movie came out in 2019, everyone on CNN was saying it was going to cause mass shootings, because of that one lunatic that shot up a movie theater during a screening of “the dark knight”
The idiots who write the material for the talking heads just want to stir things up so they can get eyeballs on the screen.
I bet the outlets that were giving live coverage of the shooting showed ads every 5 minutes…like they did with that one really bad shooting.
If the suggestion algorithms helped radicalize the attacker, by feeding him moreand more racist content, then that is entirely different from a mass shooting scene in a movie.
Racist content doesn’t fly on youtube…unless it’s put out there by corporate outlets.
That… isn’t true at all.
Unless they’re just blatantly saying slurs, which they almost never do, the dog whistles never get caught by the moderation bots.
And your point is…?
I made my point in my original comment.
Crazy people are just crazy
The gun(s) are the most significant enablers of mass shootings.
They blamed books for copy cat killers, movies and video games for shootings now they want to blame websites…
now they are trying to sue people because of hindsight? this isn’t Minority Report. this is ‘lets throw allot of torts and other legal bs on the wall and pray something sticks’
This lawsuite is ridiculous. You should hold the shooter liable for there actions. Not reddit, the gun shop or anyone else.
You can however, blame the policies that helped turn the shooter into what he is.
Like an actual common sense gun law that doesn’t sell guns to mentally ill people.
If the gun shop knew he was I’ll they wouldn’t of sold him the gun
Is that how you tell if someone is mentally ill? Just sell them a gun and see if they take it?
Oh, god, please, yes!!! Turn all gun shops into honey pots—folks can really run with this idea.
Yeah, we need to implement some kind of system that stores mentally ill people! And then make gun shops call them before every sale!
You don’t that’s why its silly they are liable
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How’s that been working out?
Not well with silly lawsuites like these.
Reddit enables more than just racist, it’s a nasty cesspool the like of 4chan, riddled with bots, the CEO himself is a POS.
It’s a fucked up website but if you think it’s remotely as bad as 4chan then I’ve assumed you’ve never been to /pol/. Reddit doesn’t allow the n word.
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It’s literally rule 1…
Rule 1 Remember the human. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence. Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.
Go to r/4chan or r/Greentext, it’s all over the comment sections there
users are still toxic
Yes, but the site does not promote those, unlike in 4chan
