YouTube and Reddit are sued for allegedly enabling the racist mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 dead

Youtube needs to be punished for their hypocrisy.

Average Joe gets a community guidelines strike for "promoting violence" because he said "Dead" instead of "Unalived", but Penis Prager can advocate for beating your gay kids till they turn straight and YouTube just throws it into everyone's playlists without so much as a "Boys will be boys"

Who is going to punish them? The leaders who agree with Prager that you can beat the gay out of your kids aren’t gonna get behind that.

A significant portion of our population is hoping for a way to degay their kids.

Man, I’m gonna be all doom and gloom when I go back to bed here in a few.

For me, it seems hopeless. We’ll all be further radicalized by the thing that I thought for most of my life would bring salvation, our access to the Library of Shitexander. A big old library filled with information, Ricky. Information on the workings of electricity. Information on the life and work of Isaac Newton. Information on how to cannibalize your neighbor. Information on how some grifter talks to god and knows exactly what he wants. We can learn useful skills like, how to hate black people and why we should. We can learn how to kickoff Armageddon, and why nuclear weapons are biblical and mutually assured destruction isn’t only a good thing, it’s what we should strive for.

And because we humans create information, we have arguments about who should decide what kind of information is available. Free speech absolutists will say that anything goes and is fair game. Others will say that some speech is dangerous because it influences hatred and bigotry. Each group has representation and has to compromise in order to keep things from escalating, oh but compromise might escalate things too.

Our species was born from chaos looking for a leader who didn’t exist.

I’m just gonna ride the rock until I’m not riding it any more and hope the people of the future don’t destroy each other and can someday figure out that that god ain’t coming back. What else can we do?

You guys have a good morning. I’m heading back to bed.
- Jesus dude, you gave me an existential crisis.
- When I was radicalized I learned how to ride my bike with no handlebars
- Personally I think everybody should shut the fuck up permanently.
Penis Prager

I see you're a person of culture as well... I know this reference.
There is a good reason for that, and that is that Penis Prager is a bigger payoff for Google.
- yeah but the hypocrisy is so blatant

I think the root of the problem is the Republican party. If you look at the language the shooter used in his manifesto, it's very very similar. There are things social media platforms can do to mitigate extremism, but people like this will continue to feel emboldened by the GOP.

Everytown Law is about to get a lesson on how Section 230 works.

Pretty sure SCOTUS has a case they’re hearing currently that may very well change the scope of section 230 so I’d maybe reserve your quips until after that shakes out lol
- The two big cases this year were already decided: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter,_Inc._v._Taamneh and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalez_v._Google_LLC
  
  Although both dodged the S230 claims, both made it clear that Twitter and Google, respectively, had no liability.
  
  Is there another case I missed?
- Ah, to be based on selective history and tradition.
- Big tech says no.
This isn't the first time they've forgotten how various laws work. And they keep losing. Kinda makes you wonder if it's intentional or not.
I don't really know what their goal is here. Surely they're not stupid enough to think they could actually win this?

This is so so stupid. We should also sue the ISPs then, they enabled the use of YouTube and Reddit. And the phone provider for enabling communications. This is such a dangerous slippery slope to put any blame on the platforms.

I think the thing isn't just providing access to the content, but using algorithms to promote how likely it is for deranged people to view more and more content that fuel their motives for hateful acts instead of trying to reduce how often that content is seen, all because they make more money if they watch more content, wether it is harmful or not.
- This.
  
  I don't know about Reddit, but YouTube 100% drives engagement by feeding users increasingly flammable and hateful content.
- Yeah, the difference is in whether or not the company is choosing what to put in front of a viewer's eyes.
  
  For the most part an ISP just shows people what they request. If someone gets bomb making directions from YouTube it would be insane to sue AT&T because AT&T delivered the appropriate packets when someone went to YouTube.
  
  On the other end of the spectrum is something like Fox News. They hire every host, give them timeslots, have the opportunity to vet guests, accept advertising money to run against their content, and so on.
  
  Section 512 of the DMCA treats "online service providers" like YouTube and Reddit as if they're just ISPs, merely hosting content that is generated by users. OTOH, YouTube and Reddit use ML systems to decide what the users are shown. In the case of YouTube, the push to suggest content to users is pretty strong. You could argue they're much closer to the Fox News side of things than to the ISP side these days. There's no human making the decisions on what content should be shown, but does that matter?
- Absolutely. I saw a Google ad the other day from maybe PragerU that was about climate change not being real, while I was searching for an old article that was more optimistic about outcomes. They actually said by the ad that they were showing it as a suggested thing, and thankfully you could report it, which I did immediately. It pissed me off a ton.
  
  A friend recently shared a similar suggested video/ad they got on YouTube, which was saying "Ukrainians are terrorists". PragerU or TPUSA.
  
  I can see the argument for allowing these ads to exist as a freedom of speech thing, fine. But actively promoting these ads is very different. The lawsuit would have merits on this. I'd prefer if this content was actively minimized, but at the very least it shouldn't be promoted.
- What if it isn't algorithms but upvotes? What if Lemmy is next?
If you were head of a psychiatric ward and had an employee you knew was telling patients "Boy, I sure wish someone would kill as many black people as they could", you would absolutely share responsibility when on of them did exactly that.

If you were deliberately pairing that employee with patients who had shown violent behaviour on the basis of "they both seem to like violence", you would absolutely share responsibility for that violence.

This isn't a matter of "there's just so much content, however can we check it all?".

Reddit has hosted multiple extremist and dangerous communities, claiming "we're just the platform!" while handing over the very predictable post histories of mass shooters week after week.

YouTube has built an algorithm and monetisation system that is deliberately designed to lure people down rabbit holes then done nothing to stop it luring people towards domestic terrorism.

It's a lawsuit against companies worth billions. They're not being executed. There are grounds to accuse them of knowingly profiting from the grooming of terrorists and if they want to prove that's not the case, they can do it in court.
Do ISPs actively encourage you to watch extremist content? Do they push that content toward people who are at risk of radicalization to get extra money?
the isps don't encourage people to see content that makes them mad
I think to blame/sue the company that is nearest to the user should work fine. (following is hyperbolical) If you don't do it that way, then yes it would be slippery because the big bang would need to be sued. But that makes no sense.
- So if an attack is planned via mail you think we should sue the postal service? The phone company if it's done over the phone?
I agree that his parents are culpable.
Then what just give up hold Youtube account for their actions
- This comment would have really benefitted from some punctuation

They should be suing the Conservative Party. That’s the enabler of gun violence.

hm yes, let's look at who commits the most gun violence in the US, surely it is conservatives!
- Yes?
- "The conservative party enables gun violence" and "conservatives commit the most gun violence" are completely separate and independent statements. The person you're replying to is saying the former, not the latter.
  
  In other words, they aren't saying that Republicans commit the majority of gun violence, but that the policies championed and implemented by Republicans are responsible for gun violence occurring.
  
  And whether or not Republicans like it, they admit this all the time, although not the way you'd think. The GOP likes to say that mental health is the driver of gun violence and mass shootings, but simultaneously, the GOP votes against improved mental healthcare and even slashes funding for it.
- Quit being obtuse. You know as well as I do that conservatives ENABLE the gun violence we see every day. It’s baked right into the bullshit policy they enact, the laws they block, and the gun manufacturers that pay them their salaries.

If youtube is still pushing racist and alt right content on to people, then they can get fucked. Why should we let some recommender system controlled by a private corporation have this much influence American culture and politics??

I sub to primarily leftist content and their YouTube shorts algorithm insists on recommending the most vile far right content on the planet. It is to the point that I'm convinced YouTube is intentionally trying to shift people far right
- I primarily watch woodworking or baking content on Youtube. I feel like the far right content is super prevalent with Shorts. I'll watch something like a quick tool review, and the next video will be someone asking folks on the street if it's ok to be white. What color you are isn't your decision, but what you do every day is, and being some dumbass white kid accosting black tourists in Times Square for shitty reaction content is just gross.
  
  It doesn't matter how often I say I dislike the content, block channels or whatever, Youtube has just decided it's going to check in from time to time and see if I want to let loose my inner Boomer and rage with Rogan.
- It could be that pushing videos on the other side of the political spectrum gets interactions in the form of people sharing/commenting on it. Even if you disagree, going "Why does YouTube recommend this, this is awful" is still a share.
  
  The algorithm prioritises interactions above all else, and fewer things get people interacting more than being wrong, or them disagreeing vehemently.
- This is happening on my FB video feed. I watch a funny chick called Charlotte Dobre and she does funny reaction videos. I honestly love her, but all my algorithm shows me for recommendations are these cop brutality videos with comments praising the cops, and right wing crap that praises Abbotts wall and desantis dictatorship. It drives me nuts, and no matter howany pages I block I always get more right wing recommended crap videos
- Wow I am so surprised by this. I watch mainly tech and gardening YouTube and my shorts have been extremely applicable to me.
  
  Even when I use a new computer like at work the shorts are mostly pop culture.
  
  Didn't make shorts any less annoying though
- I literally only get Marvel Snap/general gaming, College Humor, tech, educational, stand up comedy, and drones. That's it. I don't mean to victim blame, but it learns what you click and what you stay to watch.
I wonder if this differs from country to country? Or is it different in Europe vs US? I get maths, engineering, music. Nothing too awful. But there is clearly a fully conscious and malicious push to the right going on on all large platforms. It seems Europe is trying to step in and limit that shit from big US platforms before it's too late. Then we have censorship looming on the other side of the picture.
- I'm in UK and I often get YouTube shorts made by/for US alt right. These include Ben Shapiro, Tucker, Tate and Jordan Peterson - also people complaining about Bud Light. I always dislike this content and alot of the Tate stuff needs reporting.
  
  I'm left wing and very rarely get left wing content. I don't remember ever being shown any extreme left wing content.
  
  The left wing UK content I get is MPs is Westminster's making speeches, the UK right wing content is manufactured publicity made by the Tories.
  
  Additionally being in Scotland and liking music seems to cause Google to serve you YouTube shorts of Scottish marching bands. Google doesn't seem to realise flute (not traditional bagpipe/kilt bands) in Scotland are mostly hate groups. These orange bands are the group that became the KKK in America. They just aren't recognised as a hate group in the UK because they support monarchy, unionism and are actively courted/involved with both Tories and Labour. Despite playing music encouraging the death of other religious groups and using their marches as intimidation.
I recently started to get a few right wing channels starting to show up but I promptly clicked not interested and blocked them with a Firefox extension
- If you ever go on YouTube not logged into your account (or in a provate browser), the default stuff on the homepage are: one lo-fi stream, Mr. Beast latest video, and the rest is all right wing feaemonger stuff.

If you look at anything even remotely related to "men's interests" YouTube will begin showing you alt right fascist bull shit.

Seriously. I spend a little too much time watching a short that is clearly designed to get me worked up about stereotypical communication difficulties between men & women from a "women, am I rite?" perspective, suddenly I'm getting Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. I spend a little too much time watching a video about certain Ukrainian war equipment or a Slo Mo Guys video involving guns (wood stock hunting guns, I felt like it was the early 80s all over again before everyone decided they needed assault weapons), suddenly I'm getting served tacticool idiots with kitted-out murder machines. Or I watch a Bart Erhman video (secular New Testament scholar with a large lay audience) and suddenly I get served muslim da'wah/apologetics videos and Catholic catechism ads.
- Lots of stupid, emotionally driven teenagers on the platform who think their opinion is reality, so you have a lot of Tate/Peterson/Rogan riders on the platform. Add in the fact 'controversial' (blatantly wrong or insane) content gets lots of comments/engagement, so it is pushed by the algorithm. Then there are just lots of idiots in general who don't want to consider self-reflection or change their vies, so they will eat up all the ideology that shifts the blame or gives them a chance to 'get to the top.' They are victims of modern society. But somehow see every 'problem' except for the real one, the one of neoliberal ideologies around capitalism and individualism.
If you look at anything even remotely related to “men’s interests” YouTube will begin showing you alt right fascist bull shit.

Or if you don't. Youtube shorts recommends Rogan constantly.
I watch a lot of model trains stuff, I don't get alt-right fascist stuff. At worst I get shit like ShoeOnHead who seems reasonable enough.
- She is an anti-feminist and basically alt right entry point.

They should sue Facebook too. Facebook is rife with Nazis. And they're fine with it.

Considering the Facebook algorithm will introduce you to neo-nazis, that would actually make sense.
- Facebook says this guy's face is fine: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086229708504&mibextid=ZbWKwL
- Have the been any legal cases on these algorithms?

Good. Civil court is where they're most vulnerable, this is called tort law.

In criminal cases, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers. In a civil lawsuit, the defendant is only innocent until a judge, or jury, depending thinks they're 51% likely to be guilty, what they call the preponderance of evidence.

In other words, "probably" is good enough when you sue someone. It is not good enough if the state is trying to throw you in prison. This makes it more efficient to process the 99% of civil court cases, which are usually just dumb shit, like which of these two arguing neighbors needs to pay for having a tree on their property line cut down or something. It also results in our civil system being a very effective weapon though, as a lot of wealthier and more powerful people know pretty well.

edit for italics

edit2: If anyone doubts me you can just google "tort" and read all about our American system on wikipedia, or any number of other places.

edit3: juries in civil too.

I don't really know why you emphasized judge. Jury trials are very common in civil cases. This will be a pretrial dismissal or summary judgement without a jury, however. There's nothing to discover or evidence to review that's contested.
- True, jury trials are common in civil. They're just not the majority, and I'm trying to draw a simplified picture I suppose. It'll edit it again.

Feels good to be reading this somewhere other than reddit

I mean lookingbat the details for the basis of the suit. They think they can sue someone for teaching a criminal how to do something. They think they can sue the makers of body armor for selling a guy who was not a criminal at the time of purchase, an unregulated commercial product. They think they can sue YouTube for providing motive for whatever he did.

In the law world theres a word for this. Its called a shakedown. This is grieving family's who are vindictive. They dont care who pays, but somebody has to pay in their eyes. Sadly on the merits this case will die in court pretty fast and nobody is gonna see a dollar unless alphabet and spez's lawyers decide they are feeling charitable. Which they won't because settling would cause implications of guilt in the public eye.

This is grieving family’s who are vindictive.

I'd blame it on the lawyers.

They dont care who pays, but somebody has to pay in their eyes. Sadly on the merits this case will die in court pretty fast and nobody is gonna see a dollar

The family's lawyer is getting paid either way.
- Yeah some families are vindictive but ALL lawyers are ready to press a case like this as long as they think they can win.
Former Australian Deputy Premier won a case against Google in 2022 arguing that the YouTube platform enabled journalist FriendlyJordies to make fun of him, and he won a $715,000 settlement.

Edit: Thanks for the correction, guys

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/06/google-ordered-to-pay-john-barilaro-715000-over-friendlyjordies-youtube-videos
- Also, not a former Australian prime minister. He was the deputy premier of New South Wales.
- YouTube may end up being protected by Safe Harbor laws:
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/08/powerful-us-laws-could-shield-google-from-paying-john-barilaro-defamation-damages-experts-say
- 715 thousand. Not millions
nailed it
Yeah, they should also sue the ISP, the power company, the company who built the criminal's house and the people who paved the road he used. /s

Oh not wait they are suing ISPs for zeroes and ones that flow through their cables. Strange world we live in. No one would have sued the postal service for a letter they got, or their telco for a call they received before the www.
sadly... this case will die in court

Only part I disagree with. It's a very good thing that this case dies in court. It really does suck for the families, sure, but if these kinds of lawsuits worked it would cause a whole lot more problems than it solves.
How is this a "shakedown"?
- They literally explained why it was a shakedown. I don't know what else needs to be said.
  
  The parents of the victims are suing organizations that have no chance of being held liable in the hopes that they get some form of payout. That's what a shakedown is.
  
  It's tragic and I get their anger, but this isn't going to succeed. Any legal team worth its retainer fee will successfully defend this.

You have klan members in Congress, supreme court, churches and every police department, but sure, YT and Reddit are the problem.

There can be two problems.
- The two problems can have disproportionate sizes. Drumming up hysteria about reddit and yt is basically a distraction when you have people in public life endorsing the fringe ideas floating on these platforms.
At the very least, they shouldn't be promoting this content. There's a difference between hosting content and actively suggesting it to users.
Reddit, youtube, and tiktok are quickly becoming the new, "video games cause violence" cry from reactionaries. Hell you see people here claiming tiktok is going to make all the kids have 2 second attention spans. It's all just scapegoats for other systematic failures in culture, education, and social saftey nets, but those are hard to fix. Easier to just blame the platform and not make any real changes.
- it's not republicans that are suing over this...
- It’s all just scapegoats for other systematic failures in culture, education, and social saftey nets, but those are hard to fix. Easier to just blame the platform and not make any real changes.
  
  You mean like blaming guns?

Will be dismissed on section 230 grounds.

Their content promotion algorithms are not protected by section 230. Those algorithms are the real problem, pushing more and more radical content onto vulnerable minds. (The alt-right YouTube pipeline is pretty well documented. Reddit, I think, less so. But they still promote "similar content")
- Section 230 requires "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#:~:text=good faith removal or moderation of third-party material Selection of click-bait algorithms is a choice. At least, they could select out promotion of murder and maiming without a sled ride.

I feel like our problem isn't that social media companies are not liable but that they are too big, like imagine this happening on mastodon. Generally I feel like mastodon would not allow this unless the instance was specificlly facist like the KF instance

I dont think the Fediverse is a good example of not allowing certain activities.

🤔 so if gun violence is a problem... and they've already banned violence... what if one would ban the other thing - oh wait no it's definitely the goofy gamer machinimas 🤭 stop giggling y'all, this is serious. you don't wanna turn into criminals

Are you suggesting "banning guns"? If so, genuine curiosity, how would you go about doing it?
- I guess a good start would be document gun holders digitally and not on a pile of paper where nobody finds anything and has water damage. Another approach would be not having guns sold in the supermarket. Furthermore, you could ban ads for guns and make it very hard to buy heavy stuff used only in war zone. And lastly restrict who and how weapons are allowed to be transported on man. Of course, one has to have a valid reason to have a weapon on them. Going shopping with a gun out of fear is mot a reason.
  
  First we have to stop bringing new weapons to people, than we can think about collecting
  
  I’m Swiss, we have nearly as many private weapons per household as Americans have, but we have way less shootings, all the things above apply here and I think it kinda works.
- The same way we banned private ownership of nuclear missiles.
- Could ask Australia
- I would copy-paste what already worked in Australia, which used to have similar gun rights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aGGOK4kAM
They banned violence. Clearly banning things is effective. It worked when they banned drugs. And 100 years ago when they banned alcohol. And there's definitely no sex workers because prostitution is banned.
- Yet somehow, the bans on hand grenades, landmines and giant bags of anfo have worked. It's almost like it's easier to control the production of weapons and dangerous goods than plants and sex.
  
  Gun control works the world over.
- Noone is saying ban guns. People are saying we should have more thorough background checks, mandatory training, and close gun show loop holes. No, banning things doesn't completely solve the issue. But putting obstacles in the way generally stop most crimes. Of course there will still be people who go above and beyond to commit a crime, but with the number of shootings drastically lowered you can start to address the rest more easily.
- Ever wonder why no one is walking about with their own personal bazooka?
- So you would legalize kiddie porn because it still exists?
- Bad news...tons of people want to ban guns thinking it'll stop the violence....

They blamed books for copy cat killers, movies and video games for shootings now they want to blame websites...

now they are trying to sue people because of hindsight? this isn't Minority Report. this is 'lets throw allot of torts and other legal bs on the wall and pray something sticks'

Making legal precedent so that they AVOID showing the offending content instead of PROMOTING the offending content is probably the goal

About 30-40 times a day, Youtube shorts shows me videos actively advocating violence, and I know for sure that Google has enough money and resources currently to prevent these videos being shown, considering it AUTOMATICALLY SUBTITLES THEM
- I had to manually report a 100k views short showing someone killing a snail with an air gun. It got removed almost instantly.
  
  Sure, it's a snail, and sure, it's an air gun, but exactly this type of videos are breeding grounds for sickos. And no YouTube, the 1mil sub Minecraft channel that said "kill a creep" is not really violent, neither is some who says "fuck" in the first 30 seconds.
  
  Gosh I hate the platform.
- What are you searching for that YouTube shorts shows you this?
- I'm guessing you're algorithms from search results generate that content cuz I never see this kind of stuff

Reddit enables more than just racist, it's a nasty cesspool the like of 4chan, riddled with bots, the CEO himself is a POS.

It's a fucked up website but if you think it's remotely as bad as 4chan then I've assumed you've never been to /pol/. Reddit doesn't allow the n word.
… I mean you’re preaching to the choir.
Agreed. Spez's support of The_Donald was the beginning of the end (although as he was a mod of jailbait before it was banned, it was clear that Trump wasn't the genesis of Spez's sickness), and now there's nothing left of the communities that made it great. There's hasn't been anything rewarding about contributing there since about 2014.

It's weird that this is a link to the exact same 25 day old post on the same community.

Much as I dislike Reddit, I dont think they are to blame here

Reddit worked very hard to protect all anti-nazi imagery and stop people from posting anti-nazi sentiment. I'd like for someone to acknowledge that they silence anyone who posts anti-nazi shit and who speaks about killing Nazis.

Many are here because of that.
- Got banned for posting anti-nazi memes comparing 45 and his supporters to Hitlet and his. It gets scary drawing parallels between the beer hall putsch and jan. 6...
- They kept the_donald around for years after they helped organize a nazi rally.
- It could be the killing part not the nazi part that they silenced you.
- Reddit is seriously dogshit. Shitty admins, shitty users and shitty investor interests ruined the site completely. The platform will never turn back. It's gone fully into the hive-mind/censorship direction, likely because it keeps people on the site and maximises revenue.
TD literally was a breeding ground for incel hardcore altright racists and nothing was done about it.
- What's TD?
- Wasn't it banned? That feels like more than "nothing"
Reddit has edited content, that IMO opens them up this. Once they start removing legal but undesirable content they are tacitly approving the content they haven't removed.

The gun(s) are the most significant enablers of mass shootings.

Complete lack of accessible mental health counseling enters the room.
- You know it can be both right?
- Plenty of countries have issues providing enough healthcare, only one has the US gun culture.
- Curing every single man, woman and child in America of "mental illness", including people who don't seek nor want treatment, for no cost, to a level far beyond our current medical knowledge, in less time than it takes to buy a gun and so completely that they will never relapse, all so that the public can be indiscriminately sold semi-automatic weapons without any balancing of risk, is not nearly as reasonable a solution as the pro-gun community pretends it is.
  
  Even if that paradise could be built, it's not the America that people are living in now where domestic terrorists, armed with semi-automatic weapons and political views functionally identical to most of the pro-gun community, are routinely firing into crowds of people with legal, easily acquired weapons that are perfect for firing into crowds.
  
  So how about this as a compromise: America can adopt strict, risk-based gun laws in line with the rest of the world today to address the maximising of damage that is happening now.
  
  Then, once you've finished building your air-tight mental-health-for-all system, you can have your dogshit gun laws back.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

YouTube, Reddit and a body armor manufacturer were among the businesses that helped enable the gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, according to a pair of lawsuits announced Wednesday.

The complementary lawsuits filed by Everytown Law in state court in Buffalo claim that the massacre at Tops supermarket in May 2022 was made possible by a host of companies and individuals, from tech giants to a local gun shop to the gunman’s parents.

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.

YouTube, named with parent companies Alphabet Inc. and Google, is accused of contributing to the gunman’s radicalization and helping him acquire information to plan the attack.

“We aim to change the corporate and individual calculus so that every company and every parent recognizes they have a role to play in preventing future gun violence,” said Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law.

Last month, victims’ relatives filed a lawsuit claiming tech and social media giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Google bear responsibility for radicalizing Gendron.

The original article contains 592 words, the summary contains 192 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

This lawsuite is ridiculous. You should hold the shooter liable for there actions. Not reddit, the gun shop or anyone else.

You can however, blame the policies that helped turn the shooter into what he is.

Like an actual common sense gun law that doesn't sell guns to mentally ill people.
- If the gun shop knew he was I'll they wouldn't of sold him the gun
How's that been working out?
- Not well with silly lawsuites like these.

Or, I don't know, ban guns.

As a European, it's amazing to see how many (probably) US citizens cling to their guns and downvote every single comment suggesting it might make sense to ban them. Like, dude, what do you need a glock for? Like seriously?
- Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Everyone was responsible except the shooter. Welcome to Lawyer World.

Liability is nuanced, ya doughnut.

It's almost like the world exists outside of a third grade understanding man woman toaster TV.
- And there is no liability here, ya bagel
Shootings do not happen in a vacuum. They happen due to external factors such as political or religious radicalization or "just" bullying. This does not absolve the shooter of the responsibility of course since the response to, let's say, the Great Replacement Theory lies in the hands of the shooter. The shooter could have not shot non-white people.

But then we have the people spreading the Great Replacement Theory. The people that tell their audience day in and day out that if they are not careful, there may be no whites anymore. If you keep hearing this or other racist shit day in and day out for many many many years and do not trust another source of information because the same people tell you that the other media is corrupt... You're bound to turn "crazy" one way or another.

There's probably even more nuance but my point is: We really shouldn't let the people turning responsible gun owners into shooters through propaganda just get away with it, should we?

Especially in the right wing where this is a known tactic. They radicalize people and if something goes awry, they just disavow it. The right wing pundits disavowed the Jan 6 rioters they themselves "inspired" to fight for democracy. They disavowed the Club Q shooter they themselves "warned" about trans people.
It's obviously not the shooter's fault. The gun is 100% responsible.

Our only hope for sensible gun rights is that accountability needs to be beyond just the person who pulled the trigger.

Sure the parents who are truly to blame for not raising their child properly

I am all for this

tech giants, a local gun shop, and the gunman’s parents.

Can't help but feel like the last two have the lions share of the responsibility here... Especially the last one. If your kid goes on a killing spree, you did a fucking shit job of parenting.

Hell no, algorithms constantly pushing rage, lies, and instigating violence are causing immense harm all over the world. It's about time tech giants paid for their disgusting algorithms constantly radicalizing the terminally online.
- I don't disagree completely. With YouTube, I've seen people go from normal people that you can have interesting conversations with, to doubting Covid existing, to having opinions about Hunter Biden and thinking Russia was right to invade Ukraine. Scary to see people go down hill like that, and not stupid people either. Anyone can fall victim to this.
  
  But Reddit? It lets you find bubbles of racists and incels, sure, but it's not doing the algorithm dance like YouTube does. It's going to be a thin argument for a court case.
  
  The hate was there way before the social media giants, they just group it all together in echo chambers. Before that we had IRC and normies had TV and tabloid newspapers. The hate will still be there when the last gen Z-er turns off TikTok for the last time. Not sure there's any solution for it. Reduce inequality so people don't feel constantly like they've got a fucked up life and it's somebody else's fault? Maybe don't let kids who aren't even old enough to drink have guns? Mental health awareness? But none of these are as enticing as "foreigners stole your jobs!"
- This is "video games cause school shootings" with extra steps
Parents are a funny one... At a point I really don't think you have control of your kid... they become their own person and their friends play a major influence in their life.

If they have good friends that are better than the parents that can be a good thing.

If they have bad friends that are worse than the parents, well that's a bad thing.

You can say "well they never should've let them associate with those friends!" but I'm immediately suspicious of easy answers, and that's as easy of an answer as they come.

I think a lot of us saw this in our teen years if we're being honest. We typically tell ourselves stories that make only the good things cases of "self development" (oh that kid is so much better than his parents) but I'm sure it happens the other way. I don't think all evil people can be blamed on evil (or even bad) parents (which is terrifying if you think about it).

Riiight blame youtube and reddit. First music then videogames now youtube and reddit?

The difference between reddit/youtube and a video game is that a video game doesn't have an algorithm that creates an echo chamber.

Social Medias want clicks, so they create echo chambers. Go watch one alt right video on YouTube and you will see them pop in your feeds
- How far do you go, do you blame what he ate that day or lack of and was hangery? Just cause you get served videos from whatever source that doesn't change it from just being what it is, information. If a psycho decides to do something with that information, he's a psycho criminal. This is perfect to continue further censorship. Getting rid of echo chambers is impossible unless they get rid of the algos all together and people go back to building their own rss feeds but thats not gonna happen and even if all you craft is the same echo chamber what changes, nothing still a psycho. Hard to rationalize the irrational.
Don't blame youtube and reddit directly.

But do blame their algorithms that fuel the fires for engagement.
- I blame the shooter. Motives are motives but he still pulls the trigger.
- Algorithms show you what you want. That's literally what they're designed to do. There is no difference between your algorithm and the shooter's, or mine and the shooter's, and I see 0 of the content he saw.

Seems like an overreaction to me.

I dont even use youtube anymore, i just use freetube and select the content i wanna watch by myself. Private frontends are the best. No spyware or bloated webpages or anti-adblock. Freetube even has support for external media players like mpv and vlc and smplayer and others. It even has optional tor and invidious support. Sponsorblock and Dearrow support as well.

Blame everything but the shooter great

Nah, this is in addition to. No one is saying the shooter was faultless, so stop pretending anyone said that.

I'll post this link.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/07/yet-another-study-debunks-the-youtubes-algorithm-drives-people-to-extremism-argument/

We all know that there's horrible, racist shit on youtube. But it seems like you have to actively search for it before it's offered as a recommendation.

One of the top subs on Reddit is literally called "master race" but if you call them out on it they say "it's just a joke".

im not particularly convinced that the shooter was acting in name of a pc gaming fan club
- Don't you know? PC stand for 'People of non Color' so r/pcmasterrace is super racist.
Well it is a meme stemming from a Zero Punctuation video on The Escapist's YouTube Channel.

I don't think it has anything to do with actual racism.