7 ms·

I don’t get it. Seems like purely a stunt. What plausible legal violation could there have been? If you want to and a company indirectly involved wouldn’t the

by eli 4y ago

I don’t get it. Seems like purely a stunt. What plausible legal violation could there have been? If you want to and a company indirectly involved wouldn’t the gun manufacturer be more liable?

UncleEntity 4y ago
Obviously the social media companies need to police wrongthink. Not that I’m saying what that individual did wasn’t 100% wrong but any politician who is worth their beans will not let a tragedy go to waste.
- Bostonian 4y ago
  When someone writes that they are going to kill people, that should be taken down.
  - teddyh 4y ago
    All calls for censorship should be taken down.
    - avs733 4y ago
      Isn’t this also a call for censorship? I make the point not to be sarcastic but to note that there really are paradoxes and nuances within the concept of free speech. Trying to establish hard bound rules is more likely to lead to abuse then an honest discussion that acknowledges ambiguity.
      - teddyh 4y ago
        > Isn’t this also a call for censorship? Yes. All Cretans are liars.
      - towaway15463 4y ago
        All comments critical of censorship should be taken down.
        avs733 4y ago
        hear, hear!
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    Depends on the context, really. “Im gonna kill all you fools” when talking about the company kickball tournament shouldn’t result in a swat team breaking down your front door.
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      In the UK it does and I would say it is a bad thing. It is more or less delegalizing working class sociolect.
  - eli 4y ago
    So like a legally mandated takedown procedure for speech? Or you mean Discord should have employees individually review each message before it's transmitted?
ceejayoz 4y ago
Seems unlikely to be any charges out of this, criminal or civil, but that doesn't mean you can't learn something from what happened. "We should better monitor these sites" might be an entirely valid conclusion.
- sixQuarks 4y ago
  How many people die from mass shootings per year? Now compare that to the number of people that die in car accidents. It’s not even close. I do not want our civil liberties eroded in any way because of mass shootings. Government always uses emotional tragedies to grab authoritarian power.
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    To be fair, there are already a lot of regulations about who can drive a car (on public roads) and which sorts of cars can be used. Be careful that you're not inadvertently asking for social media to be regulated more like cars. Fortunately, however, there are plenty of countries that have fewer mass shootings and arguably better protection of civil liberties than the US, so they might provide some inspiration.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    > How many people die from mass shootings per year? Now compare that to the number of people that die in car accidents. I mean, to take my car out in public, I'm required to have a license, registration, inspection, various safety devices, and follow a variety of usage rules.
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      You can still buy or build a car without any of that for use on your own property or other private places that allow it, but there's no practical barrier to you taking it out on public roads other than the risk of being pulled over and ticketed.
      - 4y ago
sseagull 4y ago
It looks like the law allows the governor to ask the AG to investigate matters of public interest related to public safety. There doesn’t necessarily need to be a violation of the law. “…New York Executive Law Section 63(8), which permits the attorney general to investigate matters concerning public peace, public safety, and public justice and to subpoena witnesses and compel the production of documents.”
- eli 4y ago
  I wasn’t doubting the legality of the investigation itself, just what she will find.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Seems like purely a stunt. What plausible legal violation could there have been? The kind of referral from the Governor's office is not a criminal referral but more of a policy referral; while there are some kinds of legal liability that might be involved, that's not really even superficially the point of the referral and the legal authority under which it was made: understanding issues contributing to a public safety problem is. The AG is, yes, the top prosecutorial authority of the state, but that isn't the whole of their role. > If you want to and a company indirectly involved wouldn’t the gun manufacturer be more liable? Probably not; there is probably far less evidence that the gun manufacturer knew, or should reasonably have known, about the specific act it was contributing to.
- eli 4y ago
  Sure, fair enough. I'm extremely skeptical of a legislative solution here too. > Probably not; there is probably far less evidence that the gun manufacturer knew... What acts do you think civilians use an AR-15 style rifle for? What percentage of AR-15 holders shoot a person versus the percentage of social media users?
HideousKojima 4y ago
Would Toyota be liable if someone rammed a Tacoma into a crowd?
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  <insert "well yes, but actually no" meme here> People tend to bend over backwards to give Toyota the benefit of the doubt where possible. If it was a FCA product they'd be out for blood.
  - dotadegenerate 4y ago
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  In your example, Toyota didn't host and ignore/hardly moderate content on a social media platform used to plan a racially motivated attack which could also be considered a domestic terrorist act. Toyota manufactured a truck. Your analogy would be like holding the keyboard manufacturer that the perpetrator used to type hateful things onto various social media sites.
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    The post I was replying to was asking if the gun manufacturer could be held liable
vegai_ 4y ago
I think a great comparison to the current situation with social media is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead -- because of the following: 1. The companies that run these giant platforms know about the problems they cause 2. Those companies are hiding data about the problem 3. Those companies are doing nothing to fix the situation 4. Those companies are actually doing everything they can to make the situation worse Even worse than oil companies and lead in gasoline, these companies absolutely rely on generating hate, because that generates clicks/doomscrolling which brings them revenue. So they will continue to do nothing about this problem until they are forced to. The tool to force them to do this is government.

by eli 4y ago

I don’t get it. Seems like purely a stunt. What plausible legal violation could there have been? If you want to and a company indirectly involved wouldn’t the gun manufacturer be more liable?

UncleEntity 4y ago

Obviously the social media companies need to police wrongthink. Not that I’m saying what that individual did wasn’t 100% wrong but any politician who is worth their beans will not let a tragedy go to waste.

Bostonian 4y ago
When someone writes that they are going to kill people, that should be taken down.
- teddyh 4y ago
  All calls for censorship should be taken down.
  - avs733 4y ago
    Isn’t this also a call for censorship? I make the point not to be sarcastic but to note that there really are paradoxes and nuances within the concept of free speech. Trying to establish hard bound rules is more likely to lead to abuse then an honest discussion that acknowledges ambiguity.
    - teddyh 4y ago
      > Isn’t this also a call for censorship? Yes. All Cretans are liars.
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      All comments critical of censorship should be taken down.
      - avs733 4y ago
        hear, hear!
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  Depends on the context, really. “Im gonna kill all you fools” when talking about the company kickball tournament shouldn’t result in a swat team breaking down your front door.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    In the UK it does and I would say it is a bad thing. It is more or less delegalizing working class sociolect.
- eli 4y ago
  So like a legally mandated takedown procedure for speech? Or you mean Discord should have employees individually review each message before it's transmitted?

ceejayoz 4y ago

Seems unlikely to be any charges out of this, criminal or civil, but that doesn't mean you can't learn something from what happened. "We should better monitor these sites" might be an entirely valid conclusion.

sixQuarks 4y ago
How many people die from mass shootings per year? Now compare that to the number of people that die in car accidents. It’s not even close. I do not want our civil liberties eroded in any way because of mass shootings. Government always uses emotional tragedies to grab authoritarian power.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  To be fair, there are already a lot of regulations about who can drive a car (on public roads) and which sorts of cars can be used. Be careful that you're not inadvertently asking for social media to be regulated more like cars. Fortunately, however, there are plenty of countries that have fewer mass shootings and arguably better protection of civil liberties than the US, so they might provide some inspiration.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > How many people die from mass shootings per year? Now compare that to the number of people that die in car accidents. I mean, to take my car out in public, I'm required to have a license, registration, inspection, various safety devices, and follow a variety of usage rules.
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    You can still buy or build a car without any of that for use on your own property or other private places that allow it, but there's no practical barrier to you taking it out on public roads other than the risk of being pulled over and ticketed.
    - 4y ago

sseagull 4y ago

It looks like the law allows the governor to ask the AG to investigate matters of public interest related to public safety. There doesn’t necessarily need to be a violation of the law. “…New York Executive Law Section 63(8), which permits the attorney general to investigate matters concerning public peace, public safety, and public justice and to subpoena witnesses and compel the production of documents.”

eli 4y ago
I wasn’t doubting the legality of the investigation itself, just what she will find.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Seems like purely a stunt. What plausible legal violation could there have been? The kind of referral from the Governor's office is not a criminal referral but more of a policy referral; while there are some kinds of legal liability that might be involved, that's not really even superficially the point of the referral and the legal authority under which it was made: understanding issues contributing to a public safety problem is. The AG is, yes, the top prosecutorial authority of the state, but that isn't the whole of their role. > If you want to and a company indirectly involved wouldn’t the gun manufacturer be more liable? Probably not; there is probably far less evidence that the gun manufacturer knew, or should reasonably have known, about the specific act it was contributing to.

eli 4y ago
Sure, fair enough. I'm extremely skeptical of a legislative solution here too. > Probably not; there is probably far less evidence that the gun manufacturer knew... What acts do you think civilians use an AR-15 style rifle for? What percentage of AR-15 holders shoot a person versus the percentage of social media users?

HideousKojima 4y ago

Would Toyota be liable if someone rammed a Tacoma into a crowd?

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
<insert "well yes, but actually no" meme here> People tend to bend over backwards to give Toyota the benefit of the doubt where possible. If it was a FCA product they'd be out for blood.
- dotadegenerate 4y ago
mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
In your example, Toyota didn't host and ignore/hardly moderate content on a social media platform used to plan a racially motivated attack which could also be considered a domestic terrorist act. Toyota manufactured a truck. Your analogy would be like holding the keyboard manufacturer that the perpetrator used to type hateful things onto various social media sites.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  The post I was replying to was asking if the gun manufacturer could be held liable

vegai_ 4y ago

I think a great comparison to the current situation with social media is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead -- because of the following: 1. The companies that run these giant platforms know about the problems they cause 2. Those companies are hiding data about the problem 3. Those companies are doing nothing to fix the situation 4. Those companies are actually doing everything they can to make the situation worse Even worse than oil companies and lead in gasoline, these companies absolutely rely on generating hate, because that generates clicks/doomscrolling which brings them revenue. So they will continue to do nothing about this problem until they are forced to. The tool to force them to do this is government.