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The Rawandan genocide was driven forward in large part by disk jockeys on broadcast radio who used their platform to direct the mob toward their targets. https

The Rawandan genocide was driven forward in large part by disk jockeys on broadcast radio who used their platform to direct the mob toward their targets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib... Even lynchings in the Jim Crow South were often driven by the mass media of the time, newspapers. https://www.nbcuacademy.com/catalog/newspaper-archives-printing-hate https://www.nbcuacademy.com/catalog/newspaper-archives-print... Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically without mass media of some kind inspiring it, contrary to what you have asserted. Ethnic violence requires people to identify someone as "other" than themselves, and requires people to take the massive leap towards using that otherness to justify murder. These ideas need to be organized by a rational and malevolent mind, and they need to be widely disseminated before they encounter people who are motivated to act upon them. The people who come up with these ideas are usually not unhinged enough to carry out these atrocious acts, and the people who commit these murders are usually not able to come up with these ideas on their own. It's the mass media that links them together. Violent ideas disseminated via Facebook can and do have the same effect that violent ideas disseminated via radio and newspapers have had in the past. And it should be assessed through the same lens. Wouldn't you say that the radio station owners in Rawanda shared responsibility with the disk jockeys they put on the air? Wouldn't you say that the newspaper publishers in the Jim Crow South shared responsibility with the writers that they published? Of course you would. Facebook was told that this call for violence before the man was murdered, and they did not act. Yes, there is a clear difference between Facebook and these other examples in that Facebook does not share the politics of the murderers. But Facebook provided the platform, Facebook made money when the call for violence was disseminated, and the man died because Facebook failed to act in a timely manner to remove the information. Different perhaps in intent, but not in effect, compared to these earlier examples. If they are not held financially liable for this, will they have sufficient incentive to act differently in the future?

gretch 4y ago
> Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically without mass media of some kind inspiring it, contrary to what you have asserted. Dude what? So what if we go back even further? Spanish Inquisition? Crusades? Genghis khan slaying anyone in his path? Colonialism? What about the thousands of small and undocumented tribal wars fought before people even had written language? It’s as if you are saying racism and tribalism aren’t in basic levels of the human psyche and that it’s really just 1 or 2 bad ppl with a megaphone. Dangerous stance imo
- legutierr 4y ago
  >> Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically > So what if we go back even further? > Spanish Inquisition? Crusades? Genghis khan slaying anyone in his path? Colonialism? I did not say that mass media is always is the only driver of violence. What's important is that in the modern era, mass media has often driven violence, as it did in this case. Your original comment made the assertion that Facebook did not cause this outcome, because the murder would have happened anyway, whether or not Facebook was involved. My point was that there are many examples where mass media has inspired ethnic violence that wouldn't have happened anyway without the mass media's involvement—so it shouldn't be surprising that in this case these Facebook posts inspired violence that wouldn't have happened anyway. Are you really asserting that the plaintiff's father would have been killed even if the Facebook post in question hadn't been made? Or if Facebook hadn't existed, somehow the same people would have been inspired to kill the same man?
  - gretch 4y ago
    >Or if Facebook hadn't existed, somehow the same people would have been inspired to kill the same man? Yes absolutely I am directly saying this and imo your points support my argument. When there is no Facebook, ppl use the radio to incite violence. When there is no radio, ppl use newspapers to incite and organize violence. And when there is no newspapers, ppl find a way to get their hate killing done anyway. There’s thousands of years of examples. I don’t know what definition you are using for the word “often” but it seems like it’s not the usual definition of being frequency based. This is because, again, thousands of years of human ethnic violence happened where humans didn’t not have the capability of broadcast media. If we just count up the number of data points, it doesn’t make sense to apply the word “often” here at all.

gretch 4y ago

> Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically without mass media of some kind inspiring it, contrary to what you have asserted. Dude what? So what if we go back even further? Spanish Inquisition? Crusades? Genghis khan slaying anyone in his path? Colonialism? What about the thousands of small and undocumented tribal wars fought before people even had written language? It’s as if you are saying racism and tribalism aren’t in basic levels of the human psyche and that it’s really just 1 or 2 bad ppl with a megaphone. Dangerous stance imo

legutierr 4y ago
>> Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically > So what if we go back even further? > Spanish Inquisition? Crusades? Genghis khan slaying anyone in his path? Colonialism? I did not say that mass media is always is the only driver of violence. What's important is that in the modern era, mass media has often driven violence, as it did in this case. Your original comment made the assertion that Facebook did not cause this outcome, because the murder would have happened anyway, whether or not Facebook was involved. My point was that there are many examples where mass media has inspired ethnic violence that wouldn't have happened anyway without the mass media's involvement—so it shouldn't be surprising that in this case these Facebook posts inspired violence that wouldn't have happened anyway. Are you really asserting that the plaintiff's father would have been killed even if the Facebook post in question hadn't been made? Or if Facebook hadn't existed, somehow the same people would have been inspired to kill the same man?
- gretch 4y ago
  >Or if Facebook hadn't existed, somehow the same people would have been inspired to kill the same man? Yes absolutely I am directly saying this and imo your points support my argument. When there is no Facebook, ppl use the radio to incite violence. When there is no radio, ppl use newspapers to incite and organize violence. And when there is no newspapers, ppl find a way to get their hate killing done anyway. There’s thousands of years of examples. I don’t know what definition you are using for the word “often” but it seems like it’s not the usual definition of being frequency based. This is because, again, thousands of years of human ethnic violence happened where humans didn’t not have the capability of broadcast media. If we just count up the number of data points, it doesn’t make sense to apply the word “often” here at all.