8 ms·

Firstly, my sympathies with the people at Youtube HQ. I have many, many friends in the bay area and so this kind of thing hits close to home. Secondly, I strug

Firstly, my sympathies with the people at Youtube HQ. I have many, many friends in the bay area and so this kind of thing hits close to home. Secondly, I struggle when thinking about if we should give airtime to a shooter's grievances, or reasons. Or even mention who they are. I tend to be on the side of: don't give them any air time. And certainly, don't acquiesce to this type of behavior because it is almost by definition "terrorism" (using violence to cause change in policies). On the other hand, I have been hearing a lot about YouTube demonitization, censorship, etc. Should this shooting be a part of the discussion about censorship? Should YouTube and the tech community let it affect the discourse around censorship? I don't know.

danso 9y ago
YouTube (and other social media services) usually take down the accounts of headline-making killers. You're asking if they should make an exception in this case?
- vowelless 9y ago
  No, that is not what I am asking. In parallel, there has been a conversation going on about demonitization, censorship, etc (see the removal of the gun videos recently). My question is, should such a shooting have any impact on that conversation? I feel like we should restrain ourselves from letting violent acts like this impact those conversations, even if the violent acts were done "in the name of" fighting against censorship
  - danso 9y ago
    > My question is, should such a shooting have any impact on that conversation? Did you expect that the shooting would have a meaningful impact in the debate? Certainly, people will mention her name in the next few months, because of the infamy of her acts. But no, I don't think Google is going to openly say that an attempted mass murder of their employees was an incentive or disincentive. For likely the same reason why governments don't typically negotiate with ransomers and terrorists.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      > Did you expect that the shooting would have a meaningful impact in the debate? Not upstream comment author, but I can see how it could. People make a living off YouTube. YouTube purposefully hides the metrics by which they judge videos and choose to promote them to or hide them from different audiences, and which cause a video to become demonetized, which means no revenue can be obtained from it. They have valid reasons for wanting to do this (which isn't to say those reasons should win out in the end, it's an active debate AFAIK), but on the other hand they heavily encourage content creators to make it their full time job and embrace YouTube. The stress of having your livelihood drastically affected due to an algorithm change in some opaque way that nobody will explain may contribute heavily to stress individuals feel. That doesn't in any way excuse the actions of this person, but if it contributed, is this not a valid, if extreme, data point about the impact in people when they feel powerless and in the dark about their livelihood?
      - daodedickinson 9y ago
        Thousands of people got massive "wealth shocks" from YouTube's massive wave of perceived-as-arbitrary (or at least unexplained) and unanticipated "demonitization" wave. YouTube has no worthy competitor so these people had nowhere else to go and could only try to trade even more labor for far less income. It's no surprise that this has led to quite a few suicides: https://www.daytondailynews.com/business/midlife-wealth-shock-may-lead-death-study-suggests/ygj9OsH8TyEJ8AHQGsv13H/ https://www.daytondailynews.com/business/midlife-wealth-shoc...
dandersh 9y ago
No the shooting shouldn't be about the discussion on "censorship". The discussion should be about the tendency to resort to extreme levels of violence to settle disputes and settle perceived wrongs. As far as the attention question, I'm in the same boat. The more I've read about school shooters and the like the more apparent it is how much of an inspiration their predecessors (starting with Harris and Klebold) are. There is this obsession with "Why'd they do it" which leads to a level of attention that appears to be desirable.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
There are correct ways to start a discourse around censorship. Shooting people is not one of them.
- Density 9y ago
  Seems like a great way to start a discourse.
  - saas_co_de 9y ago
    The unfortunate truth is that this woman got more exposure for her message by taking the action she did then would have been possible by any other means. That has some rather frightening implications for society.
- verylittlemeat 9y ago
  Blowing people up got Ted Kaczynski's anti-technology manifesto printed in the NYTimes. Even if got through to one person I bet he feels like it was worth it. It's not something to admit in polite company but violence is a great way to start a conversation.
  - toomanybeersies 9y ago
    Just because it's effective doesn't mean it's correct though.
    - boomlinde 9y ago
      What is the definition of "correct" in this context that we can all agree to?
      - themacguffinman 9y ago
        Morally correct?
Bukhmanizer 9y ago
>On the other hand, I have been hearing a lot about YouTube demonitization, censorship, etc. Should this shooting be a part of the discussion about censorship? Should YouTube and the tech community let it affect the discourse around censorship? I think the answer to this is clearly no. I feel like people here feel very strongly about censorship, so maybe they'll disagree. But I think we need to get a bit of perspective here. She attempted to kill people to get what she wanted.
- Density 9y ago
  Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with blood of tyrants. Sorry you can't see yourself as such.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    I don't think random people working at Youtube are tyrants.
    - fyi1183 9y ago
      They're clearly not. At the same time, they may be propping up a tyrannical system. "Just following orders" is not a solid argument for your morality. It's clearly a complicated mess. My personal hope is that we eventually learn the lesson that sufficiently influential social networks need to be subject to democratic oversight and a transparent judicial system. That will likely make them more expensive to run, but that's a price we have to pay for three sanity of our society.
    - ethanwillis 9y ago
      No, they just enable them.
    - BRAlNlAC 9y ago
      You only say that because your livelihood hasn't been ripped away from you by an algorithm.
  - Bukhmanizer 9y ago
John_KZ 9y ago
>Secondly, I struggle when thinking about if we should give airtime to a shooter's grievances, or reasons. I don't know about your way of thinking, but when a person is willing to give his life for a reason, I want to know exactly what it was. Sometimes it's just crazy talk, other times it helps you identify a problem and stop further shootings or ruined lifes that end in shootings.
- vowelless 9y ago
  Let's not turn America into the middle East where people use murder suicide for causes and changing policies...
  - scottlegrand2 9y ago
    I agree with your sentiment, but I also think we need to make America the kind of place where people don't think a murder-suicide like this is their only remaining option. I'm not too optimistic about that at the moment.
bitL 9y ago
> if we should give airtime to a shooter's grievances, or reasons I think in this case she represents a significant number of YouTubers, and is like an extreme version of discontent that is happening. Imagine a hive of bees growing until they start getting annoying and one of them stings you; by removing one you don't solve anything, you need to do something with the whole hive. So you can remove any traces of her from the Internet so that nobody knows about her motives, but all it does it to let discontent bubble and then erupt in unexpected ways, instead of doing some needed correction.
- bilbo0s 9y ago
  "...I think in this case she represents a significant number of YouTubers, and is like an extreme version of discontent that is happening..." Doesn't really matter though. We shouldn't be giving these people the infamy they are looking for. If anything, it's made me think a little less of disgruntled youtubers, and some youtubers have legit gripes.
  - bitL 9y ago
    I don't think it's about being "famous" (some narcissists of course would be like that). I'd treat it as a valid feedback from within a dynamic system that there's a built up pressure somewhere and it's time to do some tweaks for system to continue working, instead of saying everything is wonderful, the feedback was just a deranged singleton instance, or even that we need to double down.
    - bilbo0s 9y ago
      Mass shooting? "...a valid feedback..." ?
      - bitL 9y ago
        If you look at the whole as a non-personal system, then yes. When you e.g. see your city has suddenly more murders than before, you probably take it as a valid feedback and try to do something about underlying causes.
DanBC 9y ago
We have "censorship" in Europe and we don't have people murdering others because of it. The problem isn't censorship. The problem is that the US is far more violent than other developed nations, and there is easy access to deadly weapons for anyone who wants one.
- cicero 9y ago
  Why is the US more violent? More video games? American football? Or is it just the easy access to guns that makes Americans violent?
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  >We have "censorship" in Europe and we don't have people murdering others because of it. Europe has a long history of mass murder intertwined with censorship. This history was the basis for the US Bill of Rights, notably the first and second amendments.
lr4444lr 9y ago
I want to know what happens in the public sphere. I don't want some bureaucrat deciding what is and is not "too dangerous to public safety" to allow to to be broadcasted because some copycat MIGHT get inspired. To quote Charlton Heston's response in "Touch of Evil" when the corrupt cop played by Orson Wells complains how effective policing isn't easy, "your job isn't supposed to be easy. The only job where policing is easy is in a police state."

danso 9y ago

YouTube (and other social media services) usually take down the accounts of headline-making killers. You're asking if they should make an exception in this case?

vowelless 9y ago
No, that is not what I am asking. In parallel, there has been a conversation going on about demonitization, censorship, etc (see the removal of the gun videos recently). My question is, should such a shooting have any impact on that conversation? I feel like we should restrain ourselves from letting violent acts like this impact those conversations, even if the violent acts were done "in the name of" fighting against censorship
- danso 9y ago
  > My question is, should such a shooting have any impact on that conversation? Did you expect that the shooting would have a meaningful impact in the debate? Certainly, people will mention her name in the next few months, because of the infamy of her acts. But no, I don't think Google is going to openly say that an attempted mass murder of their employees was an incentive or disincentive. For likely the same reason why governments don't typically negotiate with ransomers and terrorists.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    > Did you expect that the shooting would have a meaningful impact in the debate? Not upstream comment author, but I can see how it could. People make a living off YouTube. YouTube purposefully hides the metrics by which they judge videos and choose to promote them to or hide them from different audiences, and which cause a video to become demonetized, which means no revenue can be obtained from it. They have valid reasons for wanting to do this (which isn't to say those reasons should win out in the end, it's an active debate AFAIK), but on the other hand they heavily encourage content creators to make it their full time job and embrace YouTube. The stress of having your livelihood drastically affected due to an algorithm change in some opaque way that nobody will explain may contribute heavily to stress individuals feel. That doesn't in any way excuse the actions of this person, but if it contributed, is this not a valid, if extreme, data point about the impact in people when they feel powerless and in the dark about their livelihood?
    - daodedickinson 9y ago
      Thousands of people got massive "wealth shocks" from YouTube's massive wave of perceived-as-arbitrary (or at least unexplained) and unanticipated "demonitization" wave. YouTube has no worthy competitor so these people had nowhere else to go and could only try to trade even more labor for far less income. It's no surprise that this has led to quite a few suicides: https://www.daytondailynews.com/business/midlife-wealth-shock-may-lead-death-study-suggests/ygj9OsH8TyEJ8AHQGsv13H/ https://www.daytondailynews.com/business/midlife-wealth-shoc...

dandersh 9y ago

No the shooting shouldn't be about the discussion on "censorship". The discussion should be about the tendency to resort to extreme levels of violence to settle disputes and settle perceived wrongs. As far as the attention question, I'm in the same boat. The more I've read about school shooters and the like the more apparent it is how much of an inspiration their predecessors (starting with Harris and Klebold) are. There is this obsession with "Why'd they do it" which leads to a level of attention that appears to be desirable.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

There are correct ways to start a discourse around censorship. Shooting people is not one of them.

Density 9y ago
Seems like a great way to start a discourse.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  The unfortunate truth is that this woman got more exposure for her message by taking the action she did then would have been possible by any other means. That has some rather frightening implications for society.
verylittlemeat 9y ago
Blowing people up got Ted Kaczynski's anti-technology manifesto printed in the NYTimes. Even if got through to one person I bet he feels like it was worth it. It's not something to admit in polite company but violence is a great way to start a conversation.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  Just because it's effective doesn't mean it's correct though.
  - boomlinde 9y ago
    What is the definition of "correct" in this context that we can all agree to?
    - themacguffinman 9y ago
      Morally correct?

Bukhmanizer 9y ago

>On the other hand, I have been hearing a lot about YouTube demonitization, censorship, etc. Should this shooting be a part of the discussion about censorship? Should YouTube and the tech community let it affect the discourse around censorship? I think the answer to this is clearly no. I feel like people here feel very strongly about censorship, so maybe they'll disagree. But I think we need to get a bit of perspective here. She attempted to kill people to get what she wanted.

Density 9y ago
Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with blood of tyrants. Sorry you can't see yourself as such.
- adrianN 9y ago
  I don't think random people working at Youtube are tyrants.
  - fyi1183 9y ago
    They're clearly not. At the same time, they may be propping up a tyrannical system. "Just following orders" is not a solid argument for your morality. It's clearly a complicated mess. My personal hope is that we eventually learn the lesson that sufficiently influential social networks need to be subject to democratic oversight and a transparent judicial system. That will likely make them more expensive to run, but that's a price we have to pay for three sanity of our society.
  - ethanwillis 9y ago
    No, they just enable them.
  - BRAlNlAC 9y ago
    You only say that because your livelihood hasn't been ripped away from you by an algorithm.
- Bukhmanizer 9y ago

John_KZ 9y ago

>Secondly, I struggle when thinking about if we should give airtime to a shooter's grievances, or reasons. I don't know about your way of thinking, but when a person is willing to give his life for a reason, I want to know exactly what it was. Sometimes it's just crazy talk, other times it helps you identify a problem and stop further shootings or ruined lifes that end in shootings.

vowelless 9y ago
Let's not turn America into the middle East where people use murder suicide for causes and changing policies...
- scottlegrand2 9y ago
  I agree with your sentiment, but I also think we need to make America the kind of place where people don't think a murder-suicide like this is their only remaining option. I'm not too optimistic about that at the moment.

bitL 9y ago

> if we should give airtime to a shooter's grievances, or reasons I think in this case she represents a significant number of YouTubers, and is like an extreme version of discontent that is happening. Imagine a hive of bees growing until they start getting annoying and one of them stings you; by removing one you don't solve anything, you need to do something with the whole hive. So you can remove any traces of her from the Internet so that nobody knows about her motives, but all it does it to let discontent bubble and then erupt in unexpected ways, instead of doing some needed correction.

bilbo0s 9y ago
"...I think in this case she represents a significant number of YouTubers, and is like an extreme version of discontent that is happening..." Doesn't really matter though. We shouldn't be giving these people the infamy they are looking for. If anything, it's made me think a little less of disgruntled youtubers, and some youtubers have legit gripes.
- bitL 9y ago
  I don't think it's about being "famous" (some narcissists of course would be like that). I'd treat it as a valid feedback from within a dynamic system that there's a built up pressure somewhere and it's time to do some tweaks for system to continue working, instead of saying everything is wonderful, the feedback was just a deranged singleton instance, or even that we need to double down.
  - bilbo0s 9y ago
    Mass shooting? "...a valid feedback..." ?
    - bitL 9y ago
      If you look at the whole as a non-personal system, then yes. When you e.g. see your city has suddenly more murders than before, you probably take it as a valid feedback and try to do something about underlying causes.

DanBC 9y ago

We have "censorship" in Europe and we don't have people murdering others because of it. The problem isn't censorship. The problem is that the US is far more violent than other developed nations, and there is easy access to deadly weapons for anyone who wants one.

cicero 9y ago
Why is the US more violent? More video games? American football? Or is it just the easy access to guns that makes Americans violent?
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>We have "censorship" in Europe and we don't have people murdering others because of it. Europe has a long history of mass murder intertwined with censorship. This history was the basis for the US Bill of Rights, notably the first and second amendments.

lr4444lr 9y ago

I want to know what happens in the public sphere. I don't want some bureaucrat deciding what is and is not "too dangerous to public safety" to allow to to be broadcasted because some copycat MIGHT get inspired. To quote Charlton Heston's response in "Touch of Evil" when the corrupt cop played by Orson Wells complains how effective policing isn't easy, "your job isn't supposed to be easy. The only job where policing is easy is in a police state."