Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online • Hacker News Board

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#451

Post by spitfire » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

Serious question here. What are the liability laws like in the US for producers of propaganda? Can you hold say inforwars or brietbart (used as proxies here) liable if they insight or inflame this sort of person to go on a rampage?

You could easily prove in a court of law that what they peddle is not factual so I don't see how they can't have some liability. Freedom of speech is freedom to speak, not freedom from consequences.

Possible precedent here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/suicide-texting-trial-...

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#452

Post by burger_moon » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #243

orf wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it possible that her content just wasn't that good? I mean her website is a pretty typical looking 'illuminati controls everything' crazy conspiracy site, if her content is similarly poorly produced getting down ranked seems natural.

> Isn't it possible that her content just wasn't that good? Even so, she still had 366,591 views, which should all that matters re revenue.

Curious if you feel that way about other people who have been in the limelight lately like Logan Paul (I think that's his name), Pewdiepie, or even Alex Jones.

I'm in the camp which agrees with you, but people often say this until it's about content which they disagree with.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#453

Post by portofcall » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #435

maldusiecle wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A position doesn't become "relativism" just because you don't want to hear it. It's not relativism to point out that people have responsibility for their actions, nor to point out that mental illnesses do not generally make people homicidal. Regardless of what is ultimately found out about the case, people were claiming mental illness before they had information to support that, as they do in nearly all of these case…

Mental illness is described in terms of deviance from "normal" behavior and conformance to generally accepted morals. I think this is trivially proven from a lay read of the DSM. A shooting spree in reaction to an website's policy change is both immoral and irrational. No conceivable context would make that chain of actions acceptable. How could one look at this action and assume mental illness does not exist? It's n…

This I just wrong from the start. If there’s a single overarching definition of mental illness, it’s “clinical significance” and not deviation from the norm. Of course it’s not that simple either, but it is a common thread throughout all of them.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#454

Post by travmatt » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #360

travmatt wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you search her name on twitter, around 40% of what you see is right wing conspiracy theorists who assert, without evidence, that she was a member of ISIS. I also noticed a smaller percentage of people asserting, again without evidence, that she was an NRA member. And neither appear to be true. >How do these get spread on Twitter? Are partisans mindlessly voting them up? Are bots behind this? Propaganda is part of…

Propaganda is part of the standard for any group trying to control the narrative in a democracy. I would suggest Chomsky and Herman's book "Manufacturing Consent" for more details.

The American far left creates and disseminates far less propaganda than the far right does, although I’m open to hear evidence otherwise. For whatever odd reason it seems that the left in general is far less amiable to inflammatory propaganda - for example, there’s much more evidence that Donald trump coordinated his campaign with foreign intelligence services than there is evidence that Obama is a socialist Muslim or that Hillary Clinton was complicit in child sex trafficking or satanic rituals.

In my estimation I’d say that the main tools of the far left are currently censorship and ostracism within communities, although the far right engages in these practices just as avidly.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#455

Post by pmarreck » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

written wrote: post #301

pmarreck wrote: post #257

At what point did she wrongfully decide YouTube owed her anything ?

Tech companies realize they owe a lot to their users. They owe them their entire existence, I'd say. It's quite obvious from their behavior and the fact they try to attract and hoard user attention. Users are valuable in general. It's not like it's one way transfer of value from companies to users. So why your rhetorical question?

Because if YouTube decided to hoard all ad revenue as of tomorrow (putting aside for a minute how bad of a long-term business decision that would be), that would still not be a valid reason to shoot up the HQ.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#456

Post by pmarreck » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

sigotirandolas wrote: post #287

pmarreck wrote: post #257

At what point did she wrongfully decide YouTube owed her anything ?

If she were to be working for an employer in an EU country, it would be illegal to just fire him person from a job without compensation. The situation is different (AFAIK she lives in the US which has far fewer job protection policies, and earning a living through YouTube doesn’t count as an employer-employee relation), but there are analogies. Few countries and jobs have so little job security as being a YouTuber.

> Few countries and jobs have so little job security as being a YouTuber.

And unless this information is somehow hidden from anyone who consensually enters into a relationship with YouTube, this is not really a good point

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#457

Post by pmarreck » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

fudged71 wrote: post #366

pmarreck wrote: post #257

At what point did she wrongfully decide YouTube owed her anything ?

The moment YouTube started paying her for content?

And if they suddenly stopped paying anyone and just hoarded all the ad revenue, would they be subject to lawsuits?

Why does anyone think that what pays today must by definition also pay tomorrow, or else some grave ethical transgression has occurred?

Job security is an illusion (or a gross inefficiency, choose one)

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#458

Post by xster » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #384

coldtea wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it possible that her content just wasn't that good? Even so, she still had 366,591 views, which should all that matters re revenue.

Are you sure? There are certain coveted demographics that advertisers are willing to pay a lot more money for than others. I don't think it's true that all views are counted the same for monetization purposes. And then there's views that are desired so little (e.g. those on whacko conspiracy theorist channels) that advertisers aren't willing to pay to put ads on them at all, and you end up with "demonetization".

By that same logic, aren't paranoid audiences ready to throw their money at post-nuclear-war supply kits and male vitality pills gold patches for advertisers?

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#459

Post by purple-again » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #416

macintux wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN seems to discourage jokes, although I don't see it explicitly in the guidelines. Jokes in the context of people dying probably are even less well-received.

Ahhh... Thank you, that seems obvious in hindsight. My lack of social awareness/empathy strikes again!

Inquiry, recognition, and then correction of behavior. If something is ‘wrong’ with you, you should hold on to it for dear life because you just demonstrated one of the hardest things for an adult to do. Personal growth.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online

#460

Post by nvahalik » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

dgudkov wrote: post #442

nvahalik wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Man, do I feel stupid for thinking the internet would be a force for good. That it would promote democracy, free speech, and critical thinking. The internet is a tool and like any tool, it can be used for both good and evil. It depends on the people using it. In fact, the internet is arguably a victim of it's own success. It has democratized thought so well such that people whose ideas are morally depraved have the…

>The internet is a tool and like any tool, it can be used for both good and evil. I prefer to view the internet as amplifier . Per se, it's not good or bad. It just amplifies whatever it has on its inputs. The inputs of early internet were nerdy, but we mistook this nerdy utopia of internet as good force for axiom. Now internet amplifies whatever humans are and boy its ugly.

Absolutely. The barrier to entry initially was high, so the SnR was really high. However, now anyone can create 1080p videos and the tools to do basic editing are practically free. Whereas someone whose ideas were unpopular with those around them might find themselves unwelcome and perhaps would quiet down, now you can address your message to your specific audience and get positive feedback which wasn't possible before.