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.
It use to be video games and movies taking the blame. Now it’s websites. When are we going to decide that people are just bat shit crazy and guns need some form of regulation?
Because every gun owner thinks they are “the good guys”
And most of them fantasize about killing liberals and BLM protesters.
Why always equate gun owners with right wing wackos? It’s getting a tad tiring…
Because most are.
Now I know the new trendy thing is for gun lobbyists and right-wing operatives online to stoke the division by pitching guns to the left. I know the intent is to profit from a wider market while simultaneously muddying the waters of who is the most violent ideological group.
… And some ground is being made with this vector, but it’s still nowhere close to comparable.
Because they think dead schoolkids are a necessary sacrifice for their gun collecting hobby?
Usually from their perspective they are. Most people don’t try to be bad.
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Guns are the primary cause. They should go first. The others are secondary causes. They should go next.
They’re not going anywhere, because our rights are solidly established and the Supreme Court is not going to abide with any infringements.
Unfortunately there’s a long history of ignoring supreme court rulings.
There’s also a long + contemporary history of citizens ignoring bans too. Check out the levels of compliance in New York after they banned some guns. Many of their counties’ sheriffs have even stated they won’t enforce those bans.
I guarantee the guns will still be here long after everyone who can read this is gone.
I can see the nuance in an argument that an online community, unmoderated, could be using an algorithm to group these violent people together and amplifying their views. The same can’t really be said for most other platforms. Writing threats of violence should still be taken seriously over the internet, especially if it was later acted upon. I don’t disagree with you that there’s a lot of bat shit crazy out there though.
but muh rights to go pew pew!
/s just in case not clear…
Just go to school if you want pew pew
I hate that reoccuring “joke”.
The thing about bat shit crazy people is that they dont need guns to be violent, they will find another way.
Guns just make the whole killing thing a lot more efficient.
democratizing violence is not a bad thing if you think about it.
As disturbing as that comment is, the inverse sheds light on one of the biggest issues with attempts to regulate guns to reduce gun violence:
Legal attempts to restrict violence through restrictions of legal freedoms will not and have not democratized safety from violence, mostly because the vast majority of violent crime is perpetrated by people who are already in the habit and practice of disregarding laws.
It is harder to get a nail salon license in many states than to accumulate an arsenal.
It’s not popular nowadays to mention that people need to have self accountability, there’s always apparently a website, service, game or social media platform to “blame” for the actions of the individual
How is self accountability incompatible with systemic issues?
I don’t know man, sounds a bit too much like sense to me.
Guns have more legislation written about them than nearly any other product. They are heavily regulated. They are not effectively regulated however.
This ineffectiveness is directly due to NRA lobbying, and their zero-tolerance attitude towards any new gun legislation. Any gun-friendly lawmaker who even gets close to writing gun control legislation will end up getting harassed (and likely primaried in the next election). So when gun control legislation passes, it’s inevitably written by people who don’t understand guns at all. No wonder it’s all shit!
Maybe now that the NRA is having financial difficulties legislators will have make leeway to enact things that might have a chance of working.
That’s the biggest ball of nonsense speak I’ve read all day.
So we have regulations, the regulations don’t work, and that’s the fault of the NRA…because they oppose more regulations?
Look, I’m no fan of the NRA either but that’s just word vomit.
Also, the political angle you describe is also nonsense. Just look at Sen. Feinstein, one of the biggest gun grabbers in American politics, who’s been in her seat for thirty years.
Getting the party nod or not getting it based on being anti-gun is basically a non-issue. If you’re an anti-gun Democrat, that won’t likely set you apart from other primary challengers, and certainly not enough to singlehandedly unseat an incumbent (not to mention the questions raised by your party leaving you vulnerable to primary challengers). If you’re an anti-gun Republican, you’ve got bigger issues to worry about than the NRA.
No, the NRA doesn’t make it so that gun friendly legislators don’t draft gun legislation, leaving it to be written by those who know nothing about the subject…rather it’s just common sense. A pro gun legislator knows that we’ve been trying that shit for years and it just… doesn’t…work. You’re expecting them to push for something that is not only against their political self interest but also their personal self interest, then blaming the NRA when it doesn’t happen.
Why are video games immune to neuroplasticity? Or any form of entertainment really.
Neuroplasticity is not really relevant here - it’s just the ability of the brain to form new connections. You’d need a casual effect of video games/entertainment toward radicalization inherently and science does not support that position.
Even meta studies are not showing any causal link between gaming/entertainment and aggression
Anecdotally I play a genocidal maniac in every game I can. I love playing total war and killing every single thing I come across, razing pillaging their villages and enslaving the survivors. I’ve done it since I was a young child playing RTS games like age of empires. Adding up all my video game kills would probably be literally in the billions. Can you guess how many people I’ve killed in real life?
Why is every commenter defending it so aggressive then?
I imagine it feels that way when tons of people disagree with you. But that’s also part of posting in public discourse, if people don’t like what you’re saying they will surely let you know.
What do you mean, “immune to neuroplasticity”?
Basically when you do something over and over your brain rewires to do it more efficiently but nobody seems to think hours of video games or perceived negativity/positivity has any effect when it comes to certain entertainment.
Badabing. It’s okay. You heard a word somewhere and misunderstood how to use it. It happens.
Are there any actual scientific studies that back up that summation? Because video games have been under intense scrutiny for decades and every time it’s brought up the consensus seems to be that there’s no direct link
Because clicking a mouse to go pew pew at fictional characters is drastically different than pointing and shooting a gun at a human being.
Even the most realistic military shooters, you don’t just get a red tint over your eyes if you get shot, you can’t wait it out or use a medkit to immediately be fully recovered, and people don’t respawn the next match after they are killed. They don’t show how gruesome and nerve-wracking real violence it is. They can’t show the lasting consequences of that. People who play video games might not even know how heavy a real gun is.
And then there are things like Fortnite and Overwatch, which are just silly cartoons. No comparison.
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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.
Fantastic. I’ve been waiting to see these cases.
Start with a normal person, get them all jacked up on far right propaganda, then they go kill someone. If the website knows people are being radicalized into violent ideologies and does nothing to stop it, that’s a viable claim for wrongful death. It’s about foreseeability and causation, not about who did the shooting. Really a lot of people coming in on this thread who obviously have no legal experience.
I just don’t understand how hosting a platform to allow people to talk would make you liable since you’re not the one responsible for the speech itself.
They set the culture.
Did reddit know people were being radicalized toward violence on their site and did they sufficiently act to protect foreseeable victims of such radicalization?
We should get the thought police in on this also, stop it before it has a chance to spread. For real though, people need to take accountability for their own actions and stop trying to deflect it onto others.
a viable claim for wrongful death
Something tells me you’re not a lawyer.
Something tells me you’re wrong and not a lawyer.
Does remindmebot exist on Lemmy? I’d be very interested in a friendly wager.
Loser has to post a pic in a silly shirt!
I don’t know but I’m 3 for 3 on these.
Bet that Supreme Court would uphold ATF interpretation on bump stock ban. That appeals courts would find a violation of 1A where Trump and other political figures blocked constituents on social media. And I bet that Remington was going to be found liable in the Sandy Hook lawsuit on a theory not wholly dissimilar from the one we’re talking about here. I’m pretty good at novel theories of liability.
What silly shirt will you wear?
Mine will say “I’m a T-Rex stuck in a woman’s body”
I am not, in fact, a woman. It’s a hoot.
Mine will say “Novel theories of civil liability are not my bag, baby!”
In fact they are.
It’s a date! No remindmebot but I’ll bookmark it.
Fuck reddit but thats bs.
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.
I agree
Last I heard they’re already covered under Safe Harbor laws and are protected.
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
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. Similarly, the lawsuits claim Reddit promoted extreme content and offered a specialized forum relating to tactical gear.
Yeah this is going nowhere.
The algorithm feeds on fear and breeds anger. This much is true.
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.
PCM isn’t just a Right wing subreddit, it’s a Nazi recruitment sub under the guise of “political discussion”.
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.
Ahh one of those “We’re mad and we don’t have anyone to be angry with.” style lawsuits. Pretty much the Hail Mary from a lawyer who is getting their name in the paper but knows it won’t go anywhere.
“Easy to remove gun lock” that has been tried multiple times and usually fails. “Gun lock” doesn’t seem to be related to assault weapons and large capacity magazine but who knows what they mean, even when a gun is “Easily modifiable” it’s usually not treated as illegal, because someone has to actually make those modifications. The same will probably be the case for the kevlar. (at the time of the shooting it was legal).
Youtube contributing to radicalization is a laugh, it’s an attempt to get their name in the papers and will be dismissed easily. They’d have better chance to name the channels that radicalized him, but first amendment rights would be near absolute here. Besides which “Radicalization” isn’t the same as a conspiracy or orders. It’s the difference between someone riling up the crowd until they’re in a fervor which ends up in a riot, and someone specifically telling people how to riot and who to target. (Even if can be tried as crimes, one is a conspiracy, one is not, and even that “radicalization” would be neither.) Even “I wish someone would go shoot up …” would be hyperbole, and thrown out as well. It’s pretty hard to break the first amendment protections in America (And that’s a good thing, if you think it’s not imagine if the other party is in power and wants to squash your speech… yeah let’s keep that amendment in place).
The same will be the case against Facebook for all the same reasons.
If you think Google should be responsible, then you think the park that someone is radicalized in should be responsible for what’s said in it, or the email provider is responsible for every single piece of mail that is sent on it, even though it might not have access to see that mail… it’s a silly idea even assuming they could even do that. Maybe they’re hoping to scare Google to change it’s algorithm, but I doubt that will happen either.
The case against the parents is another one that people try and again… unless there’s more than their saying, you still can’t sue someone for being a bad parent. Hell there’s a better case against the parents of Ethan Crumbley, and even that cases is still pretty shaky, and involved the parents actively ignoring every warning sign, and buying the kid the gun. This there’s nothing that seems to be pinnable on the parents.
You know it sucks and I know there’s a lot of hurt people but lawsuits like this ultimately fail because it’s like rolling the dice, but history pretty much shows this is hoping for a one in a million chance that they get lucky, and they won’t, because it’s one in a million, and then they’d have to hope it’s not overturned even if they do win.
You don’t know what you’re talking about and it’s obvious.
You’re not a lawyer, right?
- 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.
Only responding to the last point, but if they can prove that Google somehow curated his content to push him towards fringe, terroristic websites, they could be found liable as a civil suit.
Any basic “you may like this” algorithm can produce those results.
I dislike Reddit now but this is fucked up. It’s not like the platform itself said “hey man, you should totally commit this barbaric, racist act and we’ll supply you with the weapons.”
This is really, really stupid.
Fuck off thats some bs
anyone blaming guns here are just as bad as blaming youtube or reddit.
gUnS dOnT kIlL pEoPlE
All are tools that need a human behind them to make a choice in order to operate.
Dangerous tools need schooling and licenses to operate.
What about that would have chnaged the Buffalo shooting?
So does a forklift and that requires a certification!
what about that would have changed the Buffalo shooting?
I don’t know anything about it, I can’t say for sure. Probably the guy couldn’t get a gun, if I’d have to say.
You’re arguing that getting a license would somehow prevent this shooting? The kid bought the guns legally as it is. They were not illegally obtained. So getting a license is just one more hoop to jump through. It wouldn’t have stopped anything, IMO.
The thing about hoops is that they do prevent a lot of things.
Not all of them, but a lot.
“Ah, that’s too much to bother” is surprisingly a good deterrent.
One shoots off your mouth, the other shoots bullets
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