
Facebook, YouTube Blindsided by Mosque Shooter's Live Video - deegles
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-15/facebook-youtube-blind-sided-by-mosque-shooter-s-live-video
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asabjorn
When this attacker explicitly says that his goal is to get the US left to
censor the right in the hope the right will react strongly is one of the most
disconcerting parts of this story. Especially when it seems like the ball is
rolling towards his goal.

It is worthwhile to ask what the role of media, social media or traditional,
is when extreme individuals on the fringes are empowered to cause us all to
destruct each other.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _It is worthwhile to ask what the role of media, social media or
> traditional, is when extreme individuals on the fringes are empowered to
> cause us all to destruct each other..._

Just curious, are you one of the people who would say that Pewdiepie has a
role in this shooting and all the division as well?

~~~
asabjorn
No. We clearly have an unproductive homeostasis between the radical left and
radical right, and the rest of us is uncomfortably caught in the middle.

The radical left call everyone that is effective at expressing any other
opinion alt-right, which is where the unfounded and silly assertion that
Pewdiepie is related to any of this comes from.

~~~
mercer
I wouldn't quite put Pewdiepie in the 'caught in the middle' bucket though.
First there's the jokes he's made:

\- using the N-word (more than once) \- doing a nazi salute and dressing up in
nazi garb \- paying two Indians(?) to hold up a sign with 'death to all jews'
on it.

On top of that he not only subscribes to quite a number of radical/far right
people (Stefan Molyneux, Lauren Southern), but did a shout-out to a channel
that is pretty far down the far-right side of the spectrum (E;R).

Then of course there's the fact that this support works two ways. The 'far
right' really seems to like him a lot!

To be clear, I'm not saying he _is_ a white supremacist, a racist, or even
'far right'. I'm really not. I can't read his mind, and obviously it's true
that if one wants to troll, the above is a very effective approach.

(Although he could also, I dunno, mix it up by doing some far left stuff.
Promote communism, make a Stalin shrine or guillotine the rich jokes. Or do
any of many other things that are provocative that aren't as much associate
with the far right. defend PHP?)

But the least that I _would_ argue is that he's definitely not part of the
middle that is 'caught' in between all this. Not in behavior, and not in
effect. And in that context I don't care too much about intent (which we can
never really know).

------
mosquethrowaway
I read his "manifesto" and it didn't look to me that it was an attack of
passion or by someone mentally deranged. It was calculated. His references to
past events, including Roterham seem to resonate well with the dark side of
the internet.

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oysterfish
Why on earth did the shooter tell viewers to subscribe to pewdiepie? this is
pretty surreal.

~~~
minikites
PewDiePie panders to the "alt-right":

[https://www.vox.com/2018/12/13/18136253/pewdiepie-vs-
tseries...](https://www.vox.com/2018/12/13/18136253/pewdiepie-vs-tseries-
links-to-white-supremacist-alt-right-redpill)

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/10/18134748/pewdiepie-er-
pe...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/10/18134748/pewdiepie-er-pewnews-
youtube-hateful-content-anti-semitic)

[https://www.thisisinsider.com/pewdiepie-response-nazi-
youtub...](https://www.thisisinsider.com/pewdiepie-response-nazi-youtube-
channel-2018-12)

~~~
FilterSweep
Why is this comment being downvoted?

Look at PewDiePie’s twitter followers. Many are white nationalists.

~~~
vldx
> Many are white nationalists.

He has ~17 million followers — what is your methodology in determining with
such precision the demographic profile of his followers?

~~~
happytoexplain
I agree with the parent post's assessment, but only using personal experience
and relativity (i.e. even a minority of pro-white-nationalism followers may be
many multiples the percentage of white nationalist followers for other public
figures).

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jstanley
Why should this video be taken down?

You can't stop crimes just by deleting the evidence.

~~~
nemild
I won't speak to censorship, but I will speak to the distribution incentives
in social media algorithms.

If these attacks got less free distribution, they might be less likely to
occur. Part of the incentive around horrific attacks like this is to get free
marketing (aka, earned media) for a cause (as the killer makes clear in his
manifesto).

And to add some data, here's my analysis of Islamic terrorism vs. homicide
coverage in the NY Times (as you can imagine, the scarier or more horrific the
attack, the more distribution it gets in the press):

[https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html](https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html)

And comparison of every death type by coverage:

[https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-
films.html](https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html)

~~~
mtgx
Forget social media for a moment -- doesn't the _regular_ media publicize non-
stop terrorist attacks, too?

~~~
forgottenpass
Yes.

The advice from psycologists to the media about how to cover mass murder in a
way to avoid causing to more is basically to minimize their coverage.

They take the psycologist's advice when it comes to covering suicide causing
more suicide (see the suicide prevention resources in every suicide article
you've ever read), but with mass shootings the media can't help themselves.
They (at best) cynically want the exposure and ad revenue, or (at worst) think
so highly of their reporting's benefit to society that negative side effects
won't happen.

------
joeshmoe23
There is an inherent conflict of interests when traditional outlets try to
make every crisis into a referendum about social media.

------
m_ke
And this is one of the top posts on reddit / the_donald:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/b1czmd/aussie_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/b1czmd/aussie_pede_checking_in_my_senator_fraser_anning/)

~~~
fxfan
While that place is vile, I don't see how it's relevant here, unless you
specifically go hunting every morning to find whatever bad exists on the other
side and gloat that you're better? (in which case you aren't)

~~~
minikites
It's one of many examples showing how "both sides" are not the same and "both
sides" are not equally responsible for events like this. Lots of traditional
media outlets and many ordinary people like to believe that comforting lie.

~~~
jcims
Individual positions are typically located along spectrums in many dimensions.
The idea that there are just ‘two sides’ and that an example from one can
meaningfully be extrapolated to represent the rest is pretty regressive.

~~~
minikites
I agree, but the fact remains that this is how the media narrative is
structured and how many people operate.

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anoncoward111
Regardless of whether you believe Youtube FB and Twitter "should be allowed"
to remove such videos from their platform, the reality is that some percentage
of people will continue to use their computers to host and view these videos.

Whether that is on the clear web or dark web is debatable, but it would be
impossible to fully censor any file 100% of the time.

And if it isn't on the internet, it'll be on the sneakernet.

EDIT: I wasn't arguing if it should be removed or not. I was stating my
prediction about what I think will happen.

"Regardless of whether asteroids should be allowed to strike the Earth, they
will continue to do so"

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
That argument doesn't work - people will speed, others will get murdered,
emails will get leaked, measles will spread, yet we try to limit those all
too.

