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.
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.
This.
I don’t know about Reddit, but YouTube 100% drives engagement by feeding users increasingly flammable and hateful content.
Hell they’ll even take ad money to promote Jan 6th conspiracies
Absolutely. I saw a Google ad the other day from maybe PragerU that was about climate change not being real, while I was searching for an old article that was more optimistic about outcomes. They actually said by the ad that they were showing it as a suggested thing, and thankfully you could report it, which I did immediately. It pissed me off a ton.
A friend recently shared a similar suggested video/ad they got on YouTube, which was saying “Ukrainians are terrorists”. PragerU or TPUSA.
I can see the argument for allowing these ads to exist as a freedom of speech thing, fine. But actively promoting these ads is very different. The lawsuit would have merits on this. I’d prefer if this content was actively minimized, but at the very least it shouldn’t be promoted.
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and we all know what reddit mods do.
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.
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
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.
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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.
Then what just give up hold Youtube account for their actions
This comment would have really benefitted from some punctuation
THen why not just give up, and never hold youtube accountable for their actions
the isps don’t encourage people to see content that makes them mad
I agree that his parents are culpable.
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.
I think the root of the problem is the Republican party. If you look at the language the shooter used in his manifesto, it’s very very similar. There are things social media platforms can do to mitigate extremism, but people like this will continue to feel emboldened by the GOP.
Everytown Law is about to get a lesson on how Section 230 works.
Pretty sure SCOTUS has a case they’re hearing currently that may very well change the scope of section 230 so I’d maybe reserve your quips until after that shakes out lol
The two big cases this year were already decided: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter,_Inc._v._Taamneh and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalez_v._Google_LLC
Although both dodged the S230 claims, both made it clear that Twitter and Google, respectively, had no liability.
Is there another case I missed?
My understanding was that it was sent back but not struck down saying that it just didn’t fall under anti-terrorism laws, but I guess I was mistaken!
Ah, to be based on selective history and tradition.
Big tech says no.
This isn’t the first time they’ve forgotten how various laws work. And they keep losing. Kinda makes you wonder if it’s intentional or not.
I don’t really know what their goal is here. Surely they’re not stupid enough to think they could actually win this?
They should be suing the Conservative Party. That’s the enabler of gun violence.
hm yes, let’s look at who commits the most gun violence in the US, surely it is conservatives!
Yes?
Go take a political litmus test of every gang member in the US and see how many are conservatives.
Active shooters make a drop in the pale comparatively, they’re just the ones the media focuses on because it’s the narrative they prefer.
Ah yes, the famously politically active gang members.
They shoot each other in the name of societal wealth distribution, everyone knows that
Politically Active? Since when was that the metric? We are just talking about political alignment.
And why do you think they’re Dem?
They likely don’t care about politics
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I’m pretty sure most cops lean right soooo
You really don’t see why the media would focus on a random mass killing instead of 2 scumbags shooting at each other over drugs? Weird.
2? More like thousands. If guns are the problem, then guns are the problem. We don’t need to focus on specific gun crime when those crimes are once again a drop in the bucket.
That’s why it’s weird.
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Lmao you should read up
“The conservative party enables gun violence” and “conservatives commit the most gun violence” are completely separate and independent statements. The person you’re replying to is saying the former, not the latter.
In other words, they aren’t saying that Republicans commit the majority of gun violence, but that the policies championed and implemented by Republicans are responsible for gun violence occurring.
And whether or not Republicans like it, they admit this all the time, although not the way you’d think. The GOP likes to say that mental health is the driver of gun violence and mass shootings, but simultaneously, the GOP votes against improved mental healthcare and even slashes funding for it.
Ah yes, the conservative party makes all those gangbangers get illegal guns and shoot each other up.
brilliant comment.
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why don’t you tell me how I am wrong?
we both know I am 100% correct.
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Good. Civil court is where they’re most vulnerable, this is called tort law.
In criminal cases, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers. In a civil lawsuit, the defendant is only innocent until a judge, or jury, depending thinks they’re 51% likely to be guilty, what they call the preponderance of evidence.
In other words, “probably” is good enough when you sue someone. It is not good enough if the state is trying to throw you in prison. This makes it more efficient to process the 99% of civil court cases, which are usually just dumb shit, like which of these two arguing neighbors needs to pay for having a tree on their property line cut down or something. It also results in our civil system being a very effective weapon though, as a lot of wealthier and more powerful people know pretty well.
edit for italics
edit2: If anyone doubts me you can just google “tort” and read all about our American system on wikipedia, or any number of other places.
edit3: juries in civil too.
I don’t really know why you emphasized judge. Jury trials are very common in civil cases. This will be a pretrial dismissal or summary judgement without a jury, however. There’s nothing to discover or evidence to review that’s contested.
True, jury trials are common in civil. They’re just not the majority, and I’m trying to draw a simplified picture I suppose. It’ll edit it again.
You have klan members in Congress, supreme court, churches and every police department, but sure, YT and Reddit are the problem.
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.
it’s not republicans that are suing over this…
Fair enough! I should’ve said, and have corrected it to, reactionaries.
Also I didn’t really mean it in as US centric way hence saying conservatives rather than Republicans. More of the philosophy of conservativism instead of the political oriented conservatives. You know, trying to maintain old institutions at all costs, automatically assuming new institutions are not as good, only finding faults in new methods/institutions while ignoring the faults with the old, etc.
Probably because it’s Republicans making the content and doing the shootings.
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.
You mean like blaming guns?
Not at all like blaming guns. A gun is a tool used to cause death. The other things are all being claimed as vectors to cause someone to use a gun to cause death. If someone didn’t have easy access to a gun it would be much harder to go on a killing spree regardless of how radicalized they are.
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.
They should sue Facebook too. Facebook is rife with Nazis. And they’re fine with it.
Considering the Facebook algorithm will introduce you to neo-nazis, that would actually make sense.
Facebook says this guy’s face is fine: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086229708504&mibextid=ZbWKwL
Dude looks like he passed out way too early at a frat party hosted by the Klan.
Have the been any legal cases on these algorithms?
Will be dismissed on section 230 grounds.
Their content promotion algorithms are not protected by section 230. Those algorithms are the real problem, pushing more and more radical content onto vulnerable minds. (The alt-right YouTube pipeline is pretty well documented. Reddit, I think, less so. But they still promote “similar content”)
Section 230 requires "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#:~:text=good faith removal or moderation of third-party material Selection of click-bait algorithms is a choice. At least, they could select out promotion of murder and maiming without a sled ride.
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.
Reddit 100% allows that. Some mods have it banned but it’s not a platform specific ban. Some user even made a bot to track how many times users said it in their comment history.
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.
That rule boils down to “be nice to people lol” and is intentionally vague so Reddit can apply it unfairly, as they always do. It does NOT ban the n-word, and the word shows up everywhere on that dump. Admins do not do any amount of moderating so these rules are mostly for show.
https://www.reddit.com/r/jambands/comments/gvokdo/comment/fsttzuh/
Not sure what subs you’re on but I can’t remember the last time I saw that word outside of the r/4chan mod bot saying the comment was removed for it and they were quarantined.
Considering I got permabanned for saying if we wanted to find out if the brazen bull was a real thing we could test it on child molesters the rule is very much enforced. That’s way less bad than the nword.
users are still toxic
lol even mods don’t follow rules on reddit and there are private subs where people do whatever the hell they want.
I went on /pol and did Ctrl f + n word, got 7 results. Can’t say reddit is even slightly that bad. I’m sure it still gets said, but it’s very much looked down upon. Where in 4chan it’s just a normal word, and so is the f slur.
just a normal word
how and why
._.
and they make fun of reddit when they’re not the right people to make fun of reddit
… I mean you’re preaching to the choir.
Agreed. Spez’s support of The_Donald was the beginning of the end (although as he was a mod of jailbait before it was banned, it was clear that Trump wasn’t the genesis of Spez’s sickness), and now there’s nothing left of the communities that made it great. There’s hasn’t been anything rewarding about contributing there since about 2014.
Same with this site. All social media. All.
The gun(s) are the most significant enablers of mass shootings.
Complete lack of accessible mental health counseling enters the room.
You know it can be both right?
No, it cannot. The comment literally said “most significant”. That means 1, not 2.
Plenty of countries have issues providing enough healthcare, only one has the US gun culture.
It’s easier to get guns in many EU countries than many US states.
And do those states have fewer mass shootings?
No. California has some of the strictest gun laws and leads the country in mass shootings. New York also has ridiculously strict gun laws and is up there on the mass shootings count as well.
(Though also let’s be real the shootings are just correlated with large dense populations in the current US climate, not if the state is red/blue. So let’s drop the gun law security theatre, there are a million factors that influence gun violence more than restricting the rights of everybody.)
🤔 so if gun violence is a problem… and they’ve already banned violence… what if one would ban the other thing - oh wait no it’s definitely the goofy gamer machinimas 🤭 stop giggling y’all, this is serious. you don’t wanna turn into criminals
They banned violence. Clearly banning things is effective. It worked when they banned drugs. And 100 years ago when they banned alcohol. And there’s definitely no sex workers because prostitution is banned.
Yet somehow, the bans on hand grenades, landmines and giant bags of anfo have worked. It’s almost like it’s easier to control the production of weapons and dangerous goods than plants and sex.
Gun control works the world over.
Bad news…tons of people want to ban guns thinking it’ll stop the violence…
People want to regulate guns, not ban them. If a supply is reduced and people lock up the guns they do have rather than leaving them to be easily stolen, they’re less likely to be used in violence. That means when people are violent, they’re more likely to use a knife or other weapon that’s more convenient to access. When a knife is used, it’s highly unlikely that bystanders will also be killed. Also, it’s less likely that the victim themselves will die. And if you think you don’t care about the life of another person involved in violence, think selfishly about the cost that you’re paying in hospital costs and medical insurance to treat gun woulds of the people who die and can’t pay their bill which cost way, way more to treat than knife wounds. Not to mention that if you care at all about the lives of cops, you’ll realize that cops are usually the bystanders that get killed by the guns being used in violent acts.
The only guns that people want to ban are offensive weapons of war. The only thing they can do with that is commit terrorism.
Noone is saying ban guns. People are saying we should have more thorough background checks, mandatory training, and close gun show loop holes. No, banning things doesn’t completely solve the issue. But putting obstacles in the way generally stop most crimes. Of course there will still be people who go above and beyond to commit a crime, but with the number of shootings drastically lowered you can start to address the rest more easily.
So you would legalize kiddie porn because it still exists?
Are you suggesting “banning guns”? If so, genuine curiosity, how would you go about doing it?
I feel like our problem isn’t that social media companies are not liable but that they are too big, like imagine this happening on mastodon. Generally I feel like mastodon would not allow this unless the instance was specificlly facist like the KF instance
I dont think the Fediverse is a good example of not allowing certain activities.
It’s weird that this is a link to the exact same 25 day old post on the same community.
Blame everything but the shooter great
Nah, this is in addition to. No one is saying the shooter was faultless, so stop pretending anyone said that.
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.
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