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.
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.
Really a lot of people coming in on this thread who obviously have no legal experience.
Like you
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.
The catch is whether the site knows that specific individual is being radicalized. If admins aren’t punishing the account regularly I wonder how difficult it will be to prove reddit/YT specifically pushed this guy.
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.
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.
Is that really all they do though? That’s what theyve convinced us that they do, but everyone on these platforms knows how crucial it is to tweak your content to please the algorithm. They also do everything they can to become monopolies, without which it wouldn’t even be possible to start on DIY videos and end on white supremacy or whatever.
I wrote a longer version of this argument here, if you’re curious.
Which article is it? The link takes me to the website main page.
Huh really? Do you have JS turned off or anything? Here’s the full link: https://theluddite.org/#!post/section-230
Hmm not sure. I use a client called Memmy for browsing Lemmy. Copy and pasting the link in my browser worked. Thanks!
I bet memmy cuts off the URL at the “#!” for some reason. I’ll submit a bug report to their repo.
This is a good read, I highly suggest people click the link. Although it is short enough that I think you could have just posted it into your comment.
Yes, but then I couldn’t harvest all your sweet data.
Kidding! It’s a static site on my personal server that doesn’t load anything but the content itself. It’s mostly just a PITA to reformat it all mobile.
Because you are responsible for hiring psychologists to tailor a platform to boost negative engagement, and now there will be a court case to determine culpability.
Reddit is going to have to make the argument that it just boosts “what people like” and it just so happens people like negative engagement.
And I mean it’s been known for decades that people like bad news more than good news when it comes to attention and engagement.
They probably will take that argument but that doesn’t instantly dissolve them of legal culpability.
I agree to a point, but think that depending on how things are structured on the platform side they can have some responsibility.
Think of facebook. They have algorithms which make sure you see what they think you want to see. It doesn’t matter if that content is hateful and dangerous, they will push more of that onto a damaged person and stoke the fires simply because they think it will make them more advertisement revenue.
They should be screening that content and making it less likely for anyone to see it, let alone damaged people. And I guarantee you they know which of their users are damaged people just from comment and search histories.
I’m not sure if reddit works this way, due to the upvotes and downvote systems, it may be moreso the users which decide the content you see, but reddit has communities which they can keep a closer eye on to prevent hateful and dangerous content from being shared.
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You mean the cowards who are already operating in a safe-habor provision of the DMCA?
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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?
Can’t see how the lawsuit on the tech giants gets passed Section 230, which is unfortunate as Spez and the people who run Youtube willfully helped enable and encourage this shooter.
You argue that the product is faulty, you don’t play with 230. That’s my guess as to their strategy, as its the same strategy other lawyers are attempting to use.
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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.
FTFY.
"YouTube, Reddit and a body armour manufacturer were among the businesses that helped enable the gunman who killed 10
Blackpeople in a nracistattack at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, according to a pair of lawsuits announced Wednesday.The algorithm feeds on fear and breeds anger. This much is true.
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.
I have a feeling no one here ever ran a website in their life
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.
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’.
I agree
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.
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
Fuck off thats some bs
This is a step in the right direction. YouTube and especially Reddit, have some of the most awful moderations in practice to date. People online in general, are some of the poorest role models to be looking up to. They’ll encourage and stoke anyone to do anything. Whether it’s suicide, whether to perform dumb harmful pranks, just anything.
I don’t agree with the local gunshop. The gun store owner couldn’t have known that any gun he’d sell would be used within moments, to take innocent lives. The gunman’s parents? Maaaaaybe a little insight into upbringing and examine that until it’s exhausted before we judge there.
The gun store owner couldn’t have known that any gun he’d sell would be used within moments, to take innocent lives.
Hundreds, thousands of deaths due to gun violence committed right after the gun was bought would disagree with you
Did the gun owner tell gun purchasers to kill?
Did the gun start having voices of it’s own to tell people to kill?
You figure that out.
What is a gun for again? Shooting and… c’mon. You know the answer.
You think very black and white. I’m not entertaining that.
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You don’t know how I think, this is our first interaction ever. How can you know what I think? Why are you not able to tell me what guns are for? They are for killing. Either hunting animals or shooting people.
Are there any other uses for guns besides that? What, target practice for funsies? Where you… shoot a silhouette of a human? (I’m sure some places just have a target instead but what else would you be practicing shooting for?)
Most gun violence involves weapons that are less than 6 months old.
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.”
It’s bizarre looking at this from the outside and seeing Americans trying to blame everything but the availablity of guns for shootings happening.
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.
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.
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.
Man, if the only thing that’s preventing a country’s populace from murdering each other is restricted access to weapons, then that country is a failed society.
Yes much better to arm that populace and have it be a double failure. Your failed society comparison would be an improvement for the US.
That’s kinda a given, but way harder to fix than introducing weapons control.
Man, if your country has you living in such fear that you feel the need to be armed at all times, then that country is a failed society.
I mean, I’m sure there are lots of other socioeconomic reasons, but it feels like you can solve this big one a lot quicker and easier than trying to solve all the abstract issues that covers.
Yeah, let’s not regulate guns at all, that’s a swell idea. Really worked out well so far.
Let’s make them illegal, like drugs, because that works great.
The demand for guns in the US is high; if you don’t think this would become a lucrative black market you’re foolish.
The solution is more involved than just “regulate X”. Something is deeply fucked that isn’t going to be simply solved with a law, and could make things worse despite great intentions, just like prohibition did.
If the demand isn’t addressed, the problem will still exist. Same as prostitution and drugs.
Let’s make them illegal, like drugs, because that works great.
So what’s the black market for hand grenades and land mines like?
Practically non-existent because it turns out controlling weapon manufacturing is much easier than controlling drug manufacturing and you can properly scrutinise people’s access to them without a death cult getting outraged.
It’s almost like an in-between option for both drugs and guns needs to be considered.
I’d still contend the issue is demand, and that is the root issue. Other solutions are treating the symptom, not the cause.
The demand isn’t so much the problem in an in between option, fair regulation and access requirements along with tracking (in the case of guns moreso) would help tremendously.
Definitely though the underlying cause of the desire/need is a separate discussion. Recreational drugs/guns aren’t a complete negative imo, some people just like to experience a different mindset/state or shoot guns, but those that are mentally ill should be able to get help instead.
I don’t disagree necessarily, I just see it this way.
There’s a drug problem: why are people turning to drugs for escapism? It indicates an underlying issue with society and/or our relationship with drugs.
Along the same lines, why are we so hostile towards one another? Reducing the number of guns would reduce the number of people shot, but it wouldn’t address the hostility.
It’s just more complicated than “regulate X” no matter how good or common sense those regulations are.
My concern is that people only pursue the regulations, don’t address the social issue (much harder), and we end up with what prohibition created - a more robust black market.
There will always be murders. Humans are irrational creatures. Banning firearms makes murder attempts less likely to succeed, and mass murders significantly harder to plan, execute, and achieve actual mortality with.
It is a quasi-religious thing. They would rather risk their kids dying than even accept the most basic regulations.
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.
anyone blaming guns here are just as bad as blaming youtube or reddit.
If you don’t believe online words can sway people’s beliefs/opinions or drive them to action then why are you leaving this comment here?
I didn’t say that. You’re putting words into my mouth. It still took a human to take up arms and use a tool. Youtube alone didn’t do this. Reddit alone didn’t do this. Guns alone didn’t do this. Training and a license would not have prevented this.
Now you’re putting words into everyone else’s mouth. Who said any of those things are solely responsible for this tragedy? Why are you arguing as if the shooter is walking free while prosecutors go after YouTube and Reddit?
Then why are they suing Youtube and Reddit if they don’t think those platforms are responsible? I’m saying that you people want to blame every fucking other thing in the world, EXCEPT for the person doing the fucking crime. How am I arguing that the shooter is free? I’m literally saying, this kid would have likely done this with or without those things and the stupid idea that a license would prevent it is asinine.
How am I arguing that the shooter is free?
This right here:
I’m saying that you people want to blame every fucking other thing in the world, EXCEPT for the person doing the fucking crime
The shooter is facing his day in court as will the companies who helped drive him to commit this tragedy.
lol, ok. sure buddy. Any yet we get constant cries for the removal of guns because without guns this wouldn’t happen right?
Not sure what this has to do with the rest of the discussion, but no I don’t think mass shootings would be very common if guns didn’t exist.
One shoots off your mouth, the other shoots bullets
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.
This is really, really stupid.
