- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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.
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Idk about this suit but let’s not forget how Facebook did actually in fact get a fascist elected president.
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-won-trump-election-not-just-fake-news/
He was treated like a joke candidate by the Democrats at the time. Facebook didn’t get him elected, Hillary ran a weak campaign and didn’t take the threat seriously. He used FB for fundraising and she could’ve done the same thing if she wanted to.
Fuck reddit but thats bs.
It’s bizarre looking at this from the outside and seeing Americans trying to blame everything but the availablity of guns for shootings happening.
Many Americans will sacrifice a lot for their guns. Including school children and the ability to live in a safe society.
Coming from a country that had a couple of school shootings and then decided it wasn’t worth the risk, and everyone handed in their guns with little complaint, I find it hard to comprehend.
It’s hard to comprehend from the inside. This country is full of traumatizing shit that’s really hard to face.
Well, even Americans without guns are much more violent than people in other first-world countries. Our non-gun homicide rate is higher than the total homicide rate in (for example) France or Germany.
There’s an interesting discussion of the statistics here.
So my interpretation is that gun control is likely to reduce the murder rate, but the change will not be nearly as dramatic as many gun-control supporters seem to expect. Guns aren’t most of the problem.
Means≠motivation. Having the capacity to do something doesn’t drive one to do so.
I’m not deeply researched on this case but from what I know I’d imagine that poor solication combined with being accepted into a group who’d espouse those kind of views contributed to their actions. Not to say that any of those websites did anything particularly to drive their actions.
bUt iT’s mUh rIgHt tO kEeP aNd cArRy gUnS
Pity the mass shooting victims didn’t have the right to live their lives without being gunned down by a psycopath.
They do have that right actually, which is why we punish those who take those rights away. Just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean people can’t break the laws
Really? The pro-gun community doesn’t seem to think so. Without fail, they demand the right for people to legally own firearms despite a long history of red flags, in direct opposition to people’s right to life and liberty.
70% of mass shooters are legal gun owners, with most of the remaining being people who took a family members legally owned (and legally poorly secured) firearm.
Pro-gun groups spend millions ensuring this doesn’t change. Where is their punishment? They have record profits and convenient access to a hobby at the clear expense of people’s right to life.
And I know the bleated response; an immediate othering with “but those are law-abiding gun owners, you can’t punish them”.
But it’s bullshit. Most mass shooters fit the definition of “law abiding gun owner” right up to the minute they start firing into crowds. If a group is responsible for nearly three quarters of domestic terrorists and is unwilling or unable to lower that figure, society has a duty to put a stop to it.
It’s also disingenuous to claim responsibility for an act starts and ends with the murderer. We’re not blind, we can see the people who continue to enable gun violence.
Where do illegal firearms come from? Legal gun owners who leave handguns in their gloveboxes. Who blocks expanded checks and red flag laws that would have prevented mass shooters from buying semi-automatic weapons on a whim? Republican politicians who take millions from the gun-lobby. Who supports Republicans and the gun-lobby for exactly that reason? The pro-gun community.
And surprise surprise, it’s the same groups that routinely strips other people of their rights without a glimmer of guilt or self awareness.
Yes really, I’m part of that pro gun community, I own some myself. In the US, we have certain rights that are in our constitution, like the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, a trial by jury, and along with all those is the right to bear arms. It was so important to early America it’s the second amendment, right behind free speech.
Just having a gun, or any item that is also a weapon really, doesn’t oppose the right to live. Both exist, it’s illegal to kill someone with your fists, a knife, a bat, or a gun, it doesn’t matter what tool is used.
Most mass shooters fit the definition of “law abiding gun owner” right up to the minute they start firing into crowds.
So they aren’t law abiding? Glad we can agree on that. Yes it’s legal to carry a gun around as long as you don’t go shooting random people with it, what’s the point? I carry a pocket knife everywhere I go, that’s also legal also as long as I don’t go stabbing people.
Who blocks expanded checks and red flag laws that would have prevented mass shooters from buying semi-automatic weapons on a whim
So about red flag laws. Should red flags prevent the ability to practice a right? I’m not mentioning any specific right because constitutionally they all have the same protections. If it’s illegal to use two flags to prevent free speech, it’s illegal to use it for any other right, that’s how rights work.
The people wanting to single out one right are destroying the integrity of the most important document in US history. There are correct ways to do it, but they aren’t being done, instead they are trying to do things unconstitutionally. Removing a right is hard, and requires agreement, and there isn’t enough support to do it so the left resorts to unconstitutional methods and the right fights to stop it.
And surprise surprise, it’s the same groups that routinely strips other people of their rights without a glimmer of guilt or self awareness.
I’m also against the recent movements to remove stuff like the right to abortion, but I was honestly shocked to see how weak the argument that made abortion a “right” was. Did you know how the original Roe V Wade decision was made?
It starts with the 14th amendment, known as the amendment that gave citizenship to anyone born in the USA, and providing them equal protection under the law. There is one line in the 14th amendment that reads “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”. The supreme court decided that one little phrase gives us the implied right of privacy. From that right to privacy, they determined that means we also have the right to abortion, but only some abortion, no late term abortion.
So not surprising it was a very controversial decision that many saw as the right result in the wrong way. I’m honestly surprised it lasted 50 years.
You can’t sue “the availability of guns”, but you can sue YouTube, Reddit, the manufacturer, and whoever else is involved and at least try to get some money out of them.
The algorithm feeds on fear and breeds anger. This much is true.
Say what you want about youtube and reddit but if you want them to censor more and more you are creating a sword that can be used against you too. I also don’t like the idea of shooting the messenger no matter how much we may dislike the messages. When I hear lawsuits like this I always think it is greedy lawyers pushing people to sue because they see deep pockets.
Right, so then they should be operated as a public telecom and be regulated as Title II. This would allow them to be free from such lawsuits.
However, they want to remain as private for profit companies so they should be held responsible for not acting responsibly.
It doesn’t make sense to treat websites as utilities. Net neutrality can’t be applied to websites, it would make most basic spam filtering infeasible and blow up operational costs
You’re right. I was wrong. There is a big difference between websites and ISPs, and in my eagerness to respond I skipped that basic understanding.
I feel like their should be basic policing of the most horrific things, e.g. child porn. But you’re right, it’s impossible to filter everything out in a timely manner by websites.
Last I heard they’re already covered under Safe Harbor laws and are protected.
US federal law CDA section 230
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Section ‘C’.
and with hold sites like youtube accountable I am living a gun that can shoot me. Its a double edge sword that can be used to hurt me no matter what we do
The lawsuit claims Mean LLC manufactured an easily removable gun lock, offering a way to circumvent New York laws prohibiting assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
This seems like the only part of the suits that might have traction. All the other bits seem easy to dismiss. That’s not a statement on whether others share responsibility, only on what seems legally actionable in the US.
Here’s an install video of what I assume was the product in question based on the named LLC. https://youtu.be/EjJdMfuH9q4
Shy of completely destroying the the lock and catch system by drilling the mechanism I don’t see an effective way of removing it.
I don’t think it’d meet the court’s standards for easily removable given it’d require power tools and would permanently alter the device in an unfamiliar reversible way.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/EjJdMfuH9q4
https://piped.video/EjJdMfuH9q4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
- RMA Armament is named for providing the body armor Gendron wore during the shooting.
No he bought it.
- Vintage Firearms of Endicott, New York, is singled out for selling the shooter the weapon used in the attack.
Not their issue he passed the background check.
- The lawsuit claims Mean LLC manufactured an easily removable gun lock, offering a way to circumvent New York laws prohibiting assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
Any knob w/ a dremel can make a gun full auto, let alone defeating a mag lock. And he broke NY law doing this.
- YouTube, named with parent companies Alphabet Inc. and Google, is accused of contributing to the gunman’s radicalization and helping him acquire information to plan the attack.
This is just absurd.
My guess is they are hoping for settlements vs going to trial where they lose.
Next they will announce that they are suing Disney because he watched the History Channel, and that had violence on it which contributed to his actions.
deleted by creator
This is really, really stupid.
The article doesn’t really expand on the Reddit point: apart from the weapon trading forum, it’s about the shooter being a participant in PoliticalCompassMemes which is a right wing subreddit. After the shooting the Reddit admins made a weak threat towards the mods of PCM, prompting the mods to sticky a “stop being so racist or we’ll get deleted” post with loads of examples of the type of racist dog whistles the users needed to stop using in the post itself.
I don’t imagine they’ll have much success against Reddit in this lawsuit, but Reddit is aware of PCM and its role and it continues to thrive to this day.
I just took a casual look at that sub and noped the fuck out. Sad to see how active a toxic community like that is, though not really surprising.
In the USA it’s not a crime to be racist, promote a religion teaching that God wants you to be racist, say most racist things in public, or even join the American Nazi Party. The line is set at threatening, inciting, or provoking violence, and judges don’t accept online arguments that saying racist garbage is inherently threatening.
He wasn’t a participant. I was a mod there before I immolated my Reddit account and day it happened I trudged through his full 196 page manifesto. It mentions PCM exactly 0 times. What does he mention in it? /pol/ and /k/ specifically. With /pol/ taking around 40% of the entire manifesto. He made a single comment on /r/pcm. That comment? “Based.” We have/had nearly 600k users, 150k active weekly. One person making one comment does not judge the community. He was active on other parts of Reddit as well. Much more than ours.
Who would be the right one to sue? Reddit is hosting it, but they are using admins to keep discussion civil and legal; the admins of PCM are most likely not employed by Reddit, but are they responsible for users egging each other on? At what point is a mod responsible for users using “free speech” to instigate a crime? They should have picked a few posts and users and held them accountable instead of going for the platform. People will keep radicalizing themselves in social media bubbles, in particular when those bubbles are not visible to the public. Muting discussion on a platform will just make them go elsewhere or create their own. The better approach would be to expose them to different views and critique of what they are saying.
There’s admins and there’s moderators (mods). Please clarify which you mean.
Admins are Reddit employees and are supposed to enforce site-wide rules outlined in their policy and terms of use.
Moderators are unpaid volunteers whose identity is typically unknown to Reddit who are in charge of running a sub. Moderators can make up additional rules and enforce them.
They’re just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks hoping to get some money. Suing google for delivering search results? It shows how ridiculous blaming tools is. The only person liable here is the shooter.
The only person liable here is the shooter.
On the very specific point of liability, while the shooter is the specific person that pulled the trigger, is there no liability for those that radicalised the person into turning into a shooter? If I was selling foodstuffs that poisoned people I’d be held to account by various regulatory bodies, yet pushing out material to poison people’s minds goes for the most part unpunished. If a preacher at a local religious centre was advocating terrorism, they’d face charges.
The UK government has a whole ream of context about this: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97976/prevent-strategy-review.pdf
Google’s “common carrier” type of defence takes you only so far, as it’s not a purely neutral party in terms, as it “recommends”, not merely “delivers results”, as @joe points out. That recommendation should come with some editorial responsibility.
This is more akin to if you sold a fatty food in a supermarket and someone died from being overweight.
Radicalizing someone to do this isn’t a crime. Freedom of speech isn’t absolute but unless someone gives them actual orders it would still be protected.
Don’t apply UK’s lack of freedom of speech in American courts.
This is more akin to if you sold a fatty food in a supermarket and someone died from being overweight.
No. It’s actually more akin to someone designing a supermarket that made it near impossible for a fat person to find healthy food and heavily discounted fatty foods and someone died from being overweight.
Fuck off thats some bs
This is the best summary I could come up with:
YouTube, Reddit and a body armor manufacturer were among the businesses that helped enable the gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, according to a pair of lawsuits announced Wednesday.
The complementary lawsuits filed by Everytown Law in state court in Buffalo claim that the massacre at Tops supermarket in May 2022 was made possible by a host of companies and individuals, from tech giants to a local gun shop to the gunman’s parents.
The lawsuit claims Mean LLC manufactured an easily removable gun lock, offering a way to circumvent New York laws prohibiting assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
YouTube, named with parent companies Alphabet Inc. and Google, is accused of contributing to the gunman’s radicalization and helping him acquire information to plan the attack.
“We aim to change the corporate and individual calculus so that every company and every parent recognizes they have a role to play in preventing future gun violence,” said Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law.
Last month, victims’ relatives filed a lawsuit claiming tech and social media giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Google bear responsibility for radicalizing Gendron.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The village (community/lack of community) makes the villains. Everyone’s a problem. We are all to blame.
That. Or, just spitballing here, it’s the guns.
Not saying something shouldn’t be done or not done with the gun situation. But I believe it’s the community driving these kids to want a gun to kill people. Gun laws are just one part of many problems that are a part of our broken community. I guess the guns are a result of a broken community is part of what I mean. Banning guns alone in my eyes is an extremely over simplified bandaid fix. Tbh these days I see the gun debate as crooked politics just trying to get votes… They want that free publicity.
Edit: a politician is never going to speak negatively about the general community. They can’t, it would kill their career. I think that’s a big problem in why nothing changes. Politics is money and business it’s like gang life for white collars
I’m not even sure what you mean when you say community, or who’s part of it.
No problem. It’s hard to talk about this stuff with out generalizing. I’m at work I can’t really get into it.
Thats like suing weapons for killing people
