Live data from Hacker News

LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

techstartups.com

481–490 of 717 posts

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#481

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…

A LiveLeak showing how people sitting in offices design these narratives and sell them to the public would be genuinely revolutionary - especially if it also showed uncensored video of the gore and horror of the results. IMO Baudrillard and the rest of Critical Theory are absolutely useless at this. The language is obscure, self-indulgent, self-aggrandising, and exclusive. Instead of revealing the reality of how thes…

Sounds like an effort worth pursuing and that you may be someone good at laying it out/directing it?

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#482
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's powerful, important content, but collecting and promoting it as shock entertainment, entirely out of context, doesn't strike me as the right way to do it. Our media's lack of willingness to portray the human cost of our overseas exploits is clearly a huge problem, but I don't think this really addressed it. It's all impact without usable information. While incredibly violent things do happen in the world regular…

WatchPeopleDie was supposed to do this. I wish the mods had been better about the garbage comments, but even then I think the reddit admins were hell-bent on shutting down any subs they didn't personally like. But I agree fullheartedly. Seeing such things really made me 'feel' how precious life is and how terrible the world can be. It helped me navigate moving to Europe a few times, even.

Ugh. Having the ability to comment really does add an entirely new dimension to a service, but a culture of bad comments can be so disheartening, and it seems like a tough cancer to treat.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems we're already getting a bit heated, as neither you nor I mentioned something about "wholesomeness" but here we are. My point is not that alt-right opinions are wholesome, but rather that since they don't have a lot of places they can write their opinions without getting overrun by opposition, it's only natural they'll retract into properties where they can freely talk. For example: If you're of the opinion that…

Saying homosexuality shouldn’t be legal isn’t an opinion, it’s bigotry. Viewpoints that infringe on a persons rights are not opinions, it’s discrimination. I agree people should be able to speak freely but I also believe in standards. To take another example, if somebody has the “opinion” that women shouldn’t be able to refuse their husbands sexual advances, is this discussion that is acceptable or is it bigotry? Sho…

Again, lets go back further. Should we have racial segregation? Is that an opinion that we should entertain discussion around?

At the end of the day there are some viewpoints that "we" - general society - just deem to be wrong.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#484

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…

Independent journalists seem more willing to show the brutal reality. I recently saw this video of an officer being sent into an ambush by a man Homeland Security knew was armed and dangerous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94afIBzOb5I

Fair warning: The video shows the murder.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#485
post #477
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WatchPeopleDie was supposed to do this. I wish the mods had been better about the garbage comments, but even then I think the reddit admins were hell-bent on shutting down any subs they didn't personally like. But I agree fullheartedly. Seeing such things really made me 'feel' how precious life is and how terrible the world can be. It helped me navigate moving to Europe a few times, even.

> but even then I think the reddit admins were hell-bent on shutting down any subs they didn't personally like. Or shutting down subs that might make the site advertiser unfriendly.

I really think for something like a violent video archive to do as much good as possible, it needs to be entirely grant funded. Aside from the obviously problematic approach of monetizing violence, I don't think you can be too heavy-handed in protecting privacy with this sort of thing. Though I wonder how this might change with deepfake videos gaining momentum. I think the entire venture would be really expensive to do well.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course "cesspool" is bad, "alt-right cesspool" is the same amount of badness. The reason you don't see a lot of "alt-left cesspool"s is because usually those people don't need to hide on alternative social media, as the mainstream ones are fine with alt-left people. Alt-right are the ones who are currently being fired if their opinion are being shared publicly. Now I'm neither of those, and have no fists in the fi…

I think alt-left people just bail on the whole scene, and what remains is Left cesspools; namely Twitter and Reddit.

That would imply that the world consists only of alt-left and and-right people. In reality the vast majority of people are pretty moderate, and there are far more than two political directions.

Most dramas on Twitter or Reddit involve some one- or two-digit number of people that get enormous publicity.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pickup truck!

Thanks! Still learning Aussie!

It's not quite a pickup truck. It's more an elongated car with the rear passenger area traded for a tray to carry things around in. Though having said that, the terms are often confused.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#488

I do hope you also understand our reasons I mean, I'd like to try, except he didn't actually give us any of those reasons. Rest in peace, LiveLeak. You were a beacon of reality that shone through the propaganda, the bullshit, and the sugar-coating. Your demise means that people who want to see something like a shooting that's been removed from mainstream platforms will be forced to visit darker corners of the interne…

> Now if someone asks me "Hey where can I go see that thing that was taken off of Youtube" I don't have a ready answer that isn't an alt-right cesspool. Does this mean that only the alt-right have access to uncensored information?

It's more that any place that doesn't censor information currently gets overrun by the alt-right, because they are pushed out everywhere else.

But yes, the effect is pretty much that.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#489

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…

> Without Liveleak, you might never feel it.

Are we having problems finding horrible things to watch other than on Liveleak... because I sure am not...

I really don't think Liveleak is some paragon of "truth" or the content you describe.

Post reply on HN