LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online • Hacker News Board

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#311

Post by vaylian » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #253

nickysielicki wrote: post #17

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated. A lot is said about desensitization as…

It's fascinating to see how the sausage is made. It gives the most important datapoint before you can preach your higher ideals. It's different if you seen a war(even if it's a liveleak video), it keeps your feet on the ground when you have to decide to cast a pro/anti war vote or argue about it's merits. That's what worries me about our sterilised internet: Things happen, but we are not allowed to peak under the cov…

It's the same thing with climate change. A lot of people still don't understand how bad it actually is.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#312

Post by ggggtez » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

imranq wrote: post #216

Why is there so much fetishization of violent content in the comments? Sure maybe liveleak provided some footage you couldn't get on youtube and that is indeed a loss, but to think that the violence you see represents the truth is just as bad as denying that any bad happens in the world. The world is far larger than any one mind can handle. I wouldn't judge it from a few videos taken out of context. The world can be…

While you probably won't hear free-speech advocates shouting nearly as loudly for this as for view-point-diversity (ahem)... there is some legitimate concern that this content is often legal.

And more than that... it was often news-worthy. The kind of stuff on that site included war crimes, murders, armed robbery, reckless disregard for the safety of others, accidents caused by poor city maintenance...

You may not like the videos, but the things that they captured will happen whether the videos exist or not. And while I wouldn't recommend that anyone make a habit of watching something on LiveLeak, it was still a resource that had educational possibilities.

Like you said: most of the world is a great place. And I think most people, upon seeing violent content like that, would become deeper advocates for peace and safety. It's hard to be a big tough guy who thinks he's rambo when you see how meaningless your life is against a bullet.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#313

Post by Biganon » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:22 AM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #193

an_opabinia wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LiveLeak was essentially ISIS propaganda.

Not really. Though they often did want a method to spread their videos, the West lacked any of the real context behind such videos turning it into outrage fueled Western propaganda. I expect the videos sparked far more Islamaphobia than radicalization.

Creating or fuelling islamophobia has always been one of ISIS's tactics

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#314

Post by skrebbel » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:23 AM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #234

squeaky-clean wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the scary thing about war though. You can grow up, go to school, make friends, fall in love, fall out of love, graduate, move, make new friends, learn to cook, fall back in love, buy a home, get a job, get a new job, learn to paint, fix that leak in the kitchen... And then a car bomb goes off while you're walking by and all that time spent is gone.

But that’s life. I have 2 friends that died in a car accident. They were in their mid-20s. A split second accident. If they didn’t drive that night, they probably would never get as close to death as they did that night. But it happened and all their efforts were erased in a second. It’s not just war that causes that.

The difference is not only the scale of things but especially that a war is caused by people, on purpose, too often with the consent of their population.

Car accidents are exactly that, accidents.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#315

Post by daveoc64 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:24 AM UTC

throw_m239339 wrote: post #175

stu2b50 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the 1-2 punch of Reddit and Discord have all but decimated the old vBulletin forum days. If you have a niche interest, Reddit and Discord are pretty much the only place to find a community for it. It's very dominant in that space now. I'm pretty much forced to use Reddit or else disconnect from communities I'm interested in.

> No, the 1-2 punch of Reddit and Discord have all but decimated the old vBulletin forum days. If you have a niche interest, Reddit and Discord are pretty much the only place to find a community for it. It's very dominant in that space now. You missed the point. Reddit redesign is ensuring everybody flocks back to a more readable form of social media that does not look like reddit redesign.

I was reading yesterday about how "Old Reddit" is often used by a tiny proportion of users (~5%) and the vast majority of users are using a mobile app to access it.

This varies by subreddit, of course, but anything with mainstream appeal is likely to have most users on mobile web or an app.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#316

Post by ggggtez » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

c-c-c-c-c wrote: post #233

imranq wrote: post #216

Why is there so much fetishization of violent content in the comments? Sure maybe liveleak provided some footage you couldn't get on youtube and that is indeed a loss, but to think that the violence you see represents the truth is just as bad as denying that any bad happens in the world. The world is far larger than any one mind can handle. I wouldn't judge it from a few videos taken out of context. The world can be…

What are you on about. Since when can you get shell-shock from watching videos online. Its not fetishization but rather an unabridged edition of the footage you see on the news.

Sure you can. You can build up a tolerance, but most people are not mentally prepared to confront graphic violence.

It takes months of hard training for soldiers to be prepared for confronting death. How is a school teacher going to feel after watching a video of a school shooting? Probably not very safe all of a sudden, and that could have long lasting scars even if it wasn't something they personally experienced.

Edit: And while I agree, LiveLeak was a source of truth for news stories, it also was a fetishization for some people. I think in order to truly tackle the legacy of liveleak, we can't ignore that some people watch gore for the gore and not because they want to be more informed citizens. I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we must confront that reality too.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#317

Post by cosmodisk » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #17

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated. A lot is said about desensitization as…

We used to watch the stuff on Ogrish back in the day,when we were teenagers. I couldn't say it desensitized me but made me realise I can't do shit about it. When one side of the planet is launching rockets to space and the other throwing stones on people because they looked at someone, there's no fixing of this only slow, agonising passing of time,with the hopes that it will eventually improve as people will be less and less willing to do certain things.

It also made me realised,how we, people in the Western world,are insulated from many horrors of this world both directly and indirectly by the lack of coverage on them.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#318

Post by DyslexicAtheist » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:29 AM UTC

acituan wrote: post #60

nickysielicki wrote: post #17

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated. A lot is said about desensitization as…

> The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Counter-point; the world is mostly a neutral, even OK, place, with also violence in it. Our cognition is heavily biased towards saliencing and preserving the scary bits, and being exposed to a planet scale showcase of those bits does not necessarily make us wiser (e.g. better decision makers). At least for me personally it took a dec…

> Counter-point; the world is mostly a neutral, even OK, place, with also violence in it.

and credits for this statement are real life experience or academic? Those who have actually seen the world would not make such an utterly ignorant statement. I much recommend volunteer work with refugees, a soup kitchen, working with disabled, etc to help alter this perspective. much recommend!

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#319

Post by barrkel » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:35 AM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #222

Barrin92 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liveleak doesn't portray the reality of war because it shows you some beheading. Voyeurism and gore are not the same as genuine insight into what scary and violent places are actually like. It's worth reading Baudrillard's ' The Gulf War Did Not Take Place ' on how media representation, and stylized, selective footage is used to distort. You didn't get to know the 'reality' of war, but the hyper-reality of it. If you…

Sorry man, but every bit of that book (and everything else jean baudrillard wrote) is fashionable nonsense. Hyperreality is a bankrupt useless concept and has no basis in reality. Baudrillard tries to sound profound but really just sounds like a post modernist schizo like the rest of his contemporaries

Unfortunately, you're not right. The world is moving into text. What matters is the effects words have, not their truth. Brexit and Trump are significant evidence of this, but there's a lot more. Today, online bullying is probably a bigger problem for teenagers than offline, and that's because they live more of their lives online. They are literally moving into the simulation, a place constructed out of allusion and conjunction of symbols.

Consider all the fighting over words in what the right likes to call the woke. Symbolism, not the real, is bigger than ever and getting more important every day.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn

Words increasingly constitute reality, rather than being referents to some external reality.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#320

Post by CalRobert » Thu, May 06, 2021, 7:36 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #27

nickysielicki wrote: post #17

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated. A lot is said about desensitization as…

War and terrorism was definitely made “more real” on LiveLeak than what you’d experience via the media or YouTube. I also found a real appreciation for other things: driving safely, worker protections, fire safety. These “boring” things take on more importance when you can see what happens when you ignore them. I don't think people should dwell on these morbid things. But seeing just one or two videos of, for example…

It's weird that phrasing the reality of it is considered distasteful. "Child killed in collision with vehicle" is sanitary. "Driver smashes child's brain with their bumper" less so. Yet we might not let drivers get away with killing 40,000 people a year in the US if we spoke clearly about it.