Judge rules YouTube, Facebook and Reddit must face lawsuits claiming they helped radicalize a mass shooter

I really don’t like cases like this, nor do I like how much the legal system seems to be pushing “guilty by proxy” rulings for a lot of school shooting cases.

It just feels very very very dangerous and ’going to be bad’ to set this precedent where when someone commits an atrocity, essentially every person and thing they interacted with can be held accountable with nearly the same weight as if they had committed the crime themselves.

Obviously some basic civil responsibility is needed. If someone says “I am going to blow up XYZ school here is how”, and you hear that, yeah, that’s on you to report it. But it feels like we’re quickly slipping into a point where you have to start reporting a vast amount of people to the police en masse if they say anything even vaguely questionable simply to avoid potential fallout of being associated with someone committing a crime.

It makes me really worried. I really think the internet has made it easy to be able to ‘justifiably’ accuse almost anyone or any business of a crime if a person with enough power / the state needs them put away for a time.

This appears to be more the angle of the person being fed an endless stream of hate on social media and thus becoming radicalised.
What causes them to be fed an endless stream of hate? Algorithms. Who provides those algorithms? Social media companies. Why do they do this? To maintain engagement with their sites so they can make money via advertising.
And so here we are, with sites that see you viewed 65 percent of a stream showing an angry mob, therefore you would like to see more angry mobs in your feed. Is it any wonder that shit like this happens?
- It's also known to intentionally show you content that's likely to provoke you into fights online
  Which just makes all the sanctimonious screed about avoiding echo chambers a bunch of horse shit, because that's not how outside digital social behavior works, outside the net if you go out of your way to keep arguing with people who wildly disagree with you, your not avoiding echo chambers, you're building a class action restraining order case against yourself.
- Absolutely. Huge difference between hate speech existing. And funneling a firehose of it at someone to keep them engaged. It's not clear how this will shake out. But I doubt it will be the end of free speech. If it exists and you actively seek it out that's something else.
I think the design of media products around maximally addictive individually targeted algorithms in combination with content the platform does not control and isn't responsible for is dangerous. Such an algorithm will find the people most susceptible to everything from racist conspiracy theories to eating disorder content and show them more of that. Attempts to moderate away the worst examples of it just result in people making variations that don't technically violate the rules.
With that said, laws made and legal precedents set in response to tragedies are often ill-considered, and I don't like this case. I especially don't like that it includes Reddit, which was not using that type of individualized algorithm to my knowledge.
- This is the real shit right here. The problem is that social media companies' data show that negativity and hate keep people on their website for longer, which means that they view more advertisement compared to positivity.
  It is human nature to engage with disagreeable topics moreso than agreeable topics, and social media companies are exploiting that for profit.
  We need to regulate algorithms and force them to be open source, so that anybody can audit them. They will try to hide behind "AI" and "trade secret" excuses, but lawmakers have to see above that bullshit.
  Unfortunately, US lawmakers are both stupid and corrupt, so it's unlikely that we'll see proper change, and more likely that we'll see shit like "banning all social media from foreign adversaries" when the US-based social media companies are largely the cause of all these problems. I'm sure the US intelligence agencies don't want them to change either, since those companies provide large swaths of personal data to them.
- Attempts to moderate away the worst examples of it just result in people making variations that don't technically violate the rules.
  The problem then becomes if the clearly defined rules aren't enough, then the people that run these sites need to start making individual judgment calls based on...well, their gut, really. And that creates a lot of issues if the site in question could be held accountable for making a poor call or overlooking something.
  The threat of legal repercussions hanging over them is going to make them default to the most strict actions, and that's kind of a problem if there isn't a clear definition of what things need to be actioned against.
- Reddit is the same thing. They intentionally enable and cultivate hostility and bullying there to drive up engagement.
Nah. This isn’t guilt by association
In her decision, the judge said that the plaintiffs may proceed with their lawsuit, which claims social media companies — like Meta, Alphabet, Reddit and 4chan — ”profit from the racist, antisemitic, and violent material displayed on their platforms to maximize user engagement,”
Which despite their denials the actually know: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-knew-radicalized-users-rcna3581
Yeah, but algorithmic delivery of radicalizing content seems kinda evil though.
I don't think you understand the issue. I'm very disappointed to see that this is the top comment. This wasn't an accident. These social media companies deliberately feed people the most upsetting and extreme material they can. They're intentionally radicalizing people to make money from engagement.
They're absolutely responsible for what they've done, and it isn't "by proxy", it's extremely direct and deliberate. It's long past time that courts held them liable. What they're doing is criminal.
- Proving this "intent to radicalize" in court is impossible. What evidence exists to back up your claim beyond a reasonable doubt?
- I do. I just very much understand the extent that the justice system will take decisions like this and utilize them to accuse any person or business (including you!) of a crime that they can then “prove” they were at fault for.
I think the distinction here is between people and businesses. Is it the fault of people on social media for the acts of others? No. Is it the fault of social media for cultivating an environment that radicalizes people into committing mass shootings? Yes. The blame here is on the social medias for not doing more to stop the spread of this kind of content. Because yes even though that won't stop this kind of content from existing making it harder to access and find will at least reduce the number of people who will go down this path.
- I agree, but I want to clarify. It's not about making this material harder to access. It's about not deliberately serving that material to people who weren't looking it up in the first place in order to get more clicks.
  There's a huge difference between a user looking up extreme content on purpose and social media serving extreme content to unsuspecting people because the company knows it will upset them.
- Is it the fault of social media for cultivating an environment that radicalizes people into committing mass shootings? Yes.
  Really? Then add videogames and heavy metal to the list. And why not most organized religions? Same argument, zero sense. There's way more at play than Person watches X content = person is now radicalized, unless we're talking about someone with severe cognitive deficit.
  And since this is the US... perhaps add easy access to guns? Nah, that's totally unrelated.
Systemic problems require systemic solutions.
- Sure, and I get that for like, healthcare. But ‘systemic solutions’ as they pertain to “what constitutes a crime” lead to police states really quickly imo
Do you not think if someone encouraged a murderer they should be held accountable? It's not everyone they interacted with, there has to be reasonable suspicion they contributed.
Also I'm pretty sure this is nothing new
- Depends on what you mean by "encouraged". That is going to need a very precise definition in these cases.
  And the point isn't that people shouldn't be held accountable, it's that there are a lot of gray areas here, we need to be careful how we navigate them. Irresponsible rulings or poorly implemented laws can destabilize everything that makes the internet worthwhile.
- I didn’t say that at all, and I think you know I didn’t unless you really didn’t actually read my comment.
  I am not talking about encouraging someone to murder. I specifically said that in overt cases there is some common sense civil responsibility. I am talking about the potential for the the police to break down your door because you Facebook messaged a guy you’re friends with what your favorite local gun store was, and that guy also happens to listen to death metal and take antidepressants and the state has deemed him a risk factor level 3.
- Everyone on lemmy who makes guillotine jokes will enjoy their life sentence I'm sure
This wasn't just a content issue. Reddit actively banned people for reporting violent content too much. They literally engaged with and protected these communities, even as people yelled that they were going to get someone hurt.
Also worth remembering, this opens up avenues for lawsuits on other types of "harm".
We have states that have outlawed abortion. What do those sites do when those states argue social media should be "held accountable" for all the women who are provided information on abortion access through YouTube, Facebook, reddit, etc?
I dunno about social media companies but I quite agree that the party who got the gunman the gun should share the punishment for the crime.
Firearms should be titled and insured, and the owner should have an imposed duty to secure, and the owner ought to face criminal penalty if the firearm titled to them was used by someone else to commit a crime, either they handed a killer a loaded gun or they inadequately secured a firearm which was then stolen to be used in committing a crime, either way they failed their responsibility to society as a firearm owner and must face consequences for it.
- This guy seems to have bought the gun legally at a gun store, after filling out the forms and passing the background check. You may be thinking of the guy in Maine whose parents bought him a gun when he was obviously dangerous. They were just convicted of involuntary manslaughter for that, iirc.
- If you lend your brother, who you know is on antidepressants, a long extension cord he tells you is for his back patio - and he hangs himself with it, are you ready to be accused of being culpable for your brothers death?
And ironically the gun manufacturers or politicians who support lax gun laws are not included in these “nets”. A radicalized individual with a butcher knife can’t possibly do as much damage as one with a gun.

Add Fox news and Trump rallies to the list.

Don't forget Marilyn Manson and videogames.
/s
- Marilyn Manson led a charge to overthrow the government??
- Idk why you're getting downvoted for an obvious joke lol
- People don't appreciate having spurious claims attached to their legitimate claims, even in jest. It invokes the idea that since the previous targets of blame were false that these likely are as well.

I don't understand the comments suggesting this is "guilty by proxy". These platforms have algorithms designed to keep you engaged and through their callousness, have allowed extremist content to remain visible.

Are we going to ignore all the anti-vaxxer groups who fueled vaccine hesitancy which resulted in long dead diseases making a resurgence?

To call Facebook anything less than complicit in the rise of extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs, is extremely short-sighted.

"But Freedom of Speech!"

If that speech causes harm like convincing a teenager walking into a grocery store and gunning people down is a good idea, you don't deserve to have that speech. Sorry, you've violated the social contract and those people's blood is on your hands.

Not just "remain visible" - actively promoted. There's a reason people talk about Youtube's right-wing content pipeline. If you start watching anything male-oriented, Youtube will start slowly promoting more and more right-wing content to you until you're watching Ben Shaprio and Andrew Tate
- I got into painting mini Warhammer 40k figurines during covid, and thought the lore was pretty interesting.
  Every time I watch a video, my suggested feed goes from videos related to my hobbies to entirely replaced with red pill garbage. The right wing channels have to be highly profitable to YouTube to funnel people into, just an endless tornado of rage and constant viewing.
- YouTube is really bad about trying to show you right wing crap. It's overwhelming. The shorts are even worse. Every few minutes there's some new suggestion for some stuff that is way out of the norm.
  Tiktok doesn't have this problem and is being attacked by politicians?
- it legit took youtube's autoplay about half an hour after I searched "counting macros" to bring me to american monarchist content
"But freedom of speech"
If that speech causes harm like convincing a teenager walking into a grocery store and gunning people down is a good idea, you don't deserve to have that speech.
In Germany we have a very good rule for this(its not written down, but that's something you can usually count onto). Your freedom ends, where it violates the freedom of others. Examples for this: Everyone has the right to live a healthy life and everyone has the right to walk wherever you want. If I now take my right to walk wherever to want to cause a car accident with people getting hurt(and it was only my fault). My freedom violated the right that the person who has been hurt to life a healthy life. That's not freedom.
- In Canada, they have an idea called "right to peace". It means that you can't stand outside of an abortion clinic and scream at people because your right to free speech doesn't exceed that person's right to peace.
  I don't know if that's 100% how it works so someone can sort me out, but I kind of liked that idea
- Very reasonable, close to the "Golden Rule" concept of being excellent to each other
This may seem baseless, but I have seen this from years of experience in online forums. You don’t have to take it seriously, but maybe you can relate. We have seen time and time again that if there is no moderation then the shit floats to the top. The reason being that when people can’t post something creative or fun, but they still want the attention, they will post negative. It’s the loud minority, but it’s a very dedicated loud minority. Let’s say we have 5 people and 4 of them are very creative time and funny, but 1 of them complains all the time. If they make posts to the same community then there is a very good chance that the one negative person will make a lot more posts than the 4 creative types.
- Oh absolutely, and making something creative takes days, weeks, months.
  Drama, complaining, conspiracy theorizing, and hate-videos take a few minutes to make more than the video itself lasts.
What about youtube? That had actually paid those people to spread their sick ideas, making the world a worst place and getting rich while doing it.
- YouTube will actually take action and has done in most instances. I won't say they're the fastest but they do kick people off the platform if they deem them high risk.
Ok...don't complain to me later when the thing you like gets taken down.

Nice, now do all regigions and churches next

Please let me know if you want me to testify that reddit actively protected white supremacist communities and even banned users who engaged in direct activism against these communities

I was banned for activism against genocide. Reddit is a shithole.
- i was banned for similar reasons.
  seems like a lot of mods just have the ability to say whatever about whoever and the admins just nuke any account they target.
- Well yeah it is but... what did you think would happen?
Send your evidence to the lawyers, couldn't hurt.

Back when I was on reddit, I subscribed to about 120 subreddits. Starting a couple years ago though, I noticed that my front page really only showed content for 15-20 subreddits at a time and it was heavily weighted towards recent visits and interactions.

For example, if I hadn't visited r/3DPrinting in a couple weeks, it slowly faded from my front page until it disappeared all together. It was so bad that I ended up writing a browser automation script to visit all 120 of my subreddits at night and click the top link. This ended up giving me a more balanced front page that mixed in all of my subreddits and interests.

My point is these algorithms are fucking toxic. They're focused 100% on increasing time on page and interaction with zero consideration for side effects. I would love to see social media algorithms required by law to be open source. We have a public interest in knowing how we're being manipulated.

I used google news phone widget years ago and clicked on a giant asteroid article, and for whatever reason my entire feed became asteroid/meteor articles. Its also just such a dumb way to populate feeds.
- Yo dawg, I heard you like asteroids. So I populated your entire feed with articles about asteroids.
YouTube does the exact same thing.
- thats why i always use youtube by subscribed first, then only delve into regular front page if theres nothing interesting in my subscriptions
I agree. It's important to remember the only "conspiracy" is making money and keeping people on the platform. That said, it will cause people to go down rabbit holes. The solution isn't as simple as "show people content they disagree with" because they either ignore it or it creates another rabbit hole. For example, it would mean that progressives start getting bombarded with Tim Pool videos. I don't believe Tim is intentionally "alt right" but that's exactly why his videos are the most dangerous. They consist of nothing but conservative rage bait with a veneer of progressiveness that allows his viewers to believe they aren't being manipulated.

YouTube feeds me so much right wing bullshit I'm constantly marking it as not interested. It's a definite problem.

It's amazing how often I get a video from some right wing source suggested to me companting about censorship and being buried by youtube. I ended up installing a third party channel blocker to deal with it.
I can't prove that they were related but I used to report all conservative ads (Hillsdale Epoch times etc) to Google with all caps messages how I was going to start calling the advertisers directly and yell at them for the ads, about 2-3 days after I started doing that the ads stopped.
I would love for other people to start doing this to confirm that it works and to be free of the ads.
- That worked for me also. I like a lot of sports docs on YouTube. That triggered non stop Joe Rogan suggestions and ads for all kinds of right wing news trash.
- I quit drinking years ago and I reported every (e alcohol) ad explaining that I am no longer their target market and the ads are literally dangerous to me. They were gone within a few weeks - haven't seen a booze ad in 5+ years.
Is fucking insane how much that happens I stopped using Instagram for that reason at least yt listened to my "not interested" choices. I also have revnaced so IDK what ads it would shoot at me.
YouTube started feeding me that stuff too. Weirdly once I started reporting all of them as misinformation they stop showing up for some reason...

I just would like to show something about Reddit. Below is a post I made about how Reddit was literally harassing and specifically targeting me, after I let slip in a comment one day that I was sober - I had previously never made such a comment because my sobriety journey was personal, and I never wanted to define myself or pigeonhole myself as a "recovering person".

I reported the recommended subs and ads to Reddit Admins multiple times and was told there was nothing they could do about it.

I posted a screenshot to DangerousDesign and it flew up to like 5K+ votes in like 30 minutes before admins removed it. I later reposted it to AssholeDesign where it nestled into 2K+ votes before shadow-vanishing.

Yes, Reddit and similar are definitely responsible for a lot of suffering and pain at the expense of humans in the pursuit of profit. After it blew up and front-paged, "magically" my home page didn't have booze related ads/subs/recs any more! What a totally mystery how that happened /s

The post in question, and a perfect "outing" of how Reddit continually tracks and tailors the User Experience specifically to exploit human frailty for their own gains.

Edit: Oh and the hilarious part that many people won't let go (when shown this) is that it says it's based on my activity in the Drunk reddit which I had never once been to, commented in, posted in, or was even aware of. So that just makes it worse.

Its not reddit if posts don't get nuked or shadowbanned by literal sitewide admins
- Yes I was advised in the removal notice that it had been removed by the Reddit Administrators so that they could keep Reddit "safe".
  I guess their idea of "safe" isn't 4+ million users going into their privacy panel and turning off exploitative sub recommendations.
  Idk though I'm just a humble bird lawyer.
Yeah this happens a lot more than people think. I used to work at a hotel, and when the large sobriety group got together yearly, they changed bar hours from the normal hours, to as close to 24/7 as they could legally get. They also raised the prices on alcohol.

"Noooo it's our algorithm we can't be held liable for the program we made specifically to discover what people find a little interesting and keep feeding it to them!"

I wonder if you built a social media site where the main feature was that the algorithm just showed you things in sequential order like in the old days, would it be popular
- I enjoy using Lemmy mostly that way, just sorting the feed by new / hot / whatever and looking at new posts of random shit. Much more entertaining than video-spamming bullshit.
- No, there is too much content for that nowadays. YouTube has over 3 million new videos each day. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram also has ridiculous amounts of new posts every day. Browsing Reddit on New was a terrible experience on r/all or even many of the bigger subs. Even on the fediverse sorting by new is not enjoyable. You are swarmed with reposts, and content that's entirely uninteresting to you.
  It works in smaller communities but there it isn't really necessary. You usually have an overview of all the content anyhow and it doesn't matter how it's ordered.
  Any social media that plans on scaling up needs a more advanced system.
- People complain about mastodons lack of algorithms a lot. Its part of how misskey, ice shrimp, and catodon came to be
- So a paper encyclopedia set? How is Britannica doing?
I find it very weird to be living in a country legalizing drugs and assisted suicide (even for depression) but simultaneously trying to severely curtail free speech, media freedom and passing legislation to jail people at risk of breaking the law who don't meet the "conspiracy to commit" threshold".
- What exactly are you referring to here?

Good.

There should be no quarter for fascists, violent racist or their enablers.

Conspiracy for cash isn't a free speech issue.

for fascists, violent racist or their enablers.
Take a good long look in the mirror (and a dictionary printed before 2005) before you say things like this.
- Fuck off, symp.

I gave up reporting on major sites where I saw abuse. Stuff that if you said that in public, also witnessed by others, you've be investigated. Twitter was also bad for responding to reports with "this doesnt break our rules" when a) it clearly did and b) probably a few laws.

I gave up after I was told that people DMing me photographs of people committing suicide was not harassment but me referencing Yo La Tengo's album "I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass" was worthy of a 30 day ban
- I remember one time somebody tweeted asking what the third track off Whole Lotta Red and I watched at least 50 people get perma'd before my eyes.
  The third track is named Stop Breathing.
- On youtube I had a persistent one who only stopped threatening to track me down and kill me (for a road safety video) when I posted the address of a local police station and said "pop in, any time!"
- Laws against threats to kill, rape and assault tend to be pretty constant across the world.. 🤷‍♂️
- That's true, but a lotnof things are illegal eeverywhere. Sexual Harassment or death treads will get you a lawsuit in probably every single country of the world.

Excuse me what in the Kentucky fried fuck?

As much as everyone says fuck these big guys all day this hurts everyone.

I agree with you, but ... I was on reddit since the Digg exodus. It always had it's bad side (violentacrez, jailbait, etc), but it got so much worse after GamerGate/Ellen Pao - the misogyny became weaponized. And then the alt-right moved in, deliberately trying to radicalize people, and we worked so. fucking. hard to keep their voices out of our subreddits. And we kept reporting users and other subreddits that were breaking rules, promoting violence and hatred, and all fucking spez would do is shrug and say, "hey it's a free speech issue", which was somewhere between "hey, I agree with those guys" and "nah, I can't be bothered".
So it's not like this was something reddit wasn't aware of (I'm not on Facebook or YouTube). They were warned, repeatedly, vehemently, starting all the way back in 2014, that something was going wrong with their platform and they need to do something. And they deliberately and repeatedly choose to ignore it, all the way up to the summer of 2021. Seven fucking years of warnings they ignored, from a massive range of users and moderators, including some of the top moderators on the site. And all reddit would do is shrug it's shoulders and say, "hey, free speech!" like it was a magic wand, and very occasionally try to defend itself by quoting it's 'hate speech policy', which they invoke with the same regular repetitiveness and 'thoughts and prayers' inaction as a school shooting brings. In fact, they did it in this very article:
In a statement to CNN, Reddit said, “Hate and violence have no place on Reddit. Our sitewide policies explicitly prohibit content that promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability, as well as content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or group of people. We are constantly evaluating ways to improve our detection and removal of this content, including through enhanced image-hashing systems, and we will continue to review the communities on our platform to ensure they are upholding our rules.”
As someone who modded for a number of years, that's just bullshit.
Edit: fuck spez.
- Yep that’s how the Nazis work on every site. The question is who lets them on these sites so easily to do this work on society. And why do sites fight for them to stay? Are Nazis high up in government? Is it the wealthy? Probably something like that.

media: Video games cause violence

media: Weird music causes violence.

media: Social media could never cause violence this is censorship (also we don't want to pay moderators)

Since media (that you define by the trophes of unsubtantiated news outlets) couldnt sensibly refer to a forum like reddit or even facebook, this makes no sense.

Sweet, I'm sure this won't be used by AIPAC to sue all the tech companies for causing October 7th somehow like unrwa and force them to shutdown or suppress all talk on Palestine. People hearing about a genocide happening might radicalize them, maybe we could get away with allowing discussion but better safe then sorry, to the banned words list it goes.

This isn't going to end in the tech companies hiring a team of skilled moderators who understand the nuance between passion and radical intention trying to preserve a safe space for political discussion, that costs money. This is going to end up with a dictionary of banned and suppressed words.

Plus more demands for brackdoors in encryption.
This is going to end up with a dictionary of banned and suppressed word
Do you have some examples?
- It's already out there. For example you can't use the words "Suicide" or "rape" or "murder" in YouTube, TikTok etc. even when the discussion is clearly about trying to educate people. Heck, you can't even mention Onlyfans on Twitch...

I think there's definitely a case to be made that recommendation algorithms, etc. constitute editorial control and thus the platform may not be immune to lawsuits based on user posts.

I will testify under oath with evidence that Reddit, the company, has not only turned a blind eye to but also encouraged and intentfully enabled radicalization on their platform. It is the entire reason I am on Lemmy. It is the entire reason for my username. It is the reason I questioned my allyship with certain marginalized communities. It is the reason I tense up at the mention of turtles.

Love Reddit’s lies about them taking down hateful content when they’re 100% behind Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians and will ban you if you say anything remotely negative about Israel’s govenment. And the amount of transphobia on the site is disgusting. Let alone the misogyny.

Do you mean "behind" like responsible for or in favor of?
- I think from context we can assume in favor of. I don't think anyone is accusing Reddit of masterminding the Gaza conflict. I haven't been to /r/conspiracy in a while through.
- In favor of. As in they support Israel unquestioningly. Though as someone else commented I wouldn’t put anything past r/conspiracy these days.
Lol, yeah I moderated major trans subreddits for years. It was entirely hit and miss if we’d get support from the admins

Goddamn right they do. Meta should be sued to death for the genocides too.

Right in the IPO price!

It's never the parents, is it?

Ask those parents in the Michigan case
- Ask the parents of the Menendez brothers, oh wait.
You mean the "responsible gun owners" who don't properly secure their weapons from a child?
I couldn't work this out from the article is it the parents raising this suit or the victims families?

I don't understand how a social media company can face liability in this circumstance but a weapons manufacturer doesn't.

Or individuals who repeatedly spreading the specific hateful ideology that radicalize people and also encourages them to act on it

Honestly, good, they should be held accountable and I hope they will be. They shouldn't be offering extremist content recommendations in the first place.

How does Lemmy pick which articles are at the top of my feed? Does anyone know how All is sorted?

Same as sort settings for subscribed.
Active, top for the past x hours/days/month/all, new, etc. You pick, Lemmy doesn't.

The trifecta of evil. Especially Reddit, fuck Reddit... Facebook too.

Facebook will have actively pushed this stuff. Reddit will have just ignored it, and YouTube just feeds your own bubble back to you.
YouTube doesn't radicalize people, it only increases their existing radicalization, but the process must start elsewhere, and to be completely fair they do put warnings and links to further information on the bottom of questionable videos, and they also delist quite a lot of stuff as well.
I don't know what's better to completely block conspiracy theory videos or to allow them and then have other people mock them.
- Hard disagree that YouTube doesn't radicalize people. It's far too easy to have Ben Shapiro show up in the recommendations.
- Why do you believe "the process must start elsewhere"? I've literally had YouTube start feeding me this sort of content, which I have no interest in at all and actively try to avoid. It seems very obvious that YouTube is a major factor in inculcating these belief systems in people who would otherwise not be exposed to them without YouTube ensuring they reach an audience.
- YouTube would hit me hard with religious messaging and rightwing stuff. Which is not at all reflective of what content I want to view.

So, I can see a lot of problems with this. Specifically the same problems that the public and regulating bodies face when deciding to keep or overturn section 230. Free speech isn't necessarily what I'm worried about here. Mostly because it is already agreed that free speech is a construct that only the government is actually beholden to. Message boards have and will continue to censor content as they see fit.

Section 230 basically stipulates that companies that provide online forums (Meta, Alphabet, 4Chan etc) are not liable for the content that their users post. And part of the reason it works is because these companies adhere to strict guidelines in regards to content and most importantly moderation.

Section 230(c)(2) further provides "Good Samaritan" protection from civil liability for operators of interactive computer services in the good faith removal or moderation of third-party material they deem "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."

Reddit, Facebook, 4Chan et all do have rules and regulations they require their users to follow in order to post. And for the most part the communities on these platforms are self policing. There just aren't enough paid moderators to make it work otherwise.

That being said, the real problem is that this really kind of indirectly challenges section 230. Mostly because it very barely skirts around whether the relevant platforms can themselves be considered publishers, or at all responsible for the content the users post and very much attacks how users are presented with content to keep them engaged via algorithms (which is directly how they make their money).

Even if the lawsuits fail, this will still be problematic. It could lead to draconian moderation of what can be posted and by whom. So now all race related topics regardless of whether they include hate speech could be censored for example. Politics? Censored. The discussion of potential new laws? Censored.

But I think it will be worse than that. The algorithm is what makes the ad space these companies sell so valuable. And this is a direct attack on that. We lack the consumer privacy protections to protect the public from this eventuality. If the ad space isn't valuable the data will be. And there's nothing stopping these companies from selling user data. Some of them already do. What these apps do in the background is already pretty invasive. This could lead to a furthering of that invasive scraping of data. I don't like that.

That being said there is a point I agree with. These companies literally do make their algorithm addictive and it absolutely will push content at users. If that content is of an objectionable nature, so long as it isn't outright illegal, these companies do not care. Because they do gain from it monetarily.

What we actually need is data privacy protections. Holding these companies accountable for their algorithms is a good idea. But I don't agree that this is the way to do that constructively. It would be better to flesh out 230 as a living document that can change with the times. Because when it was written the Internet landscape was just different.

What I would like to see is for platforms to moderate content posted and representing itself as fact. We don't see that nearly enough on places like reddit. Users can post anything as fact and the echo chambers will rally around it if they believe it. It's not really incredibly difficult to radicalise a person. But the platforms aren't doing that on purpose. The other users are, and the algorithms are helping them.

Moderation is already draconian, interact with any gen Z and you gonna know what goon, corn, unalive, (crime) in Minecraft, actually mean.
These aren't slangs, this is like a second language developed to evade censorship from those platforms, things will only get worse.
- It's always been that way though. Back in the day on Myspace or MSN chatrooms there were whole lists of words that were auto censored and could result in a ban (temp or permanent). We literally had whole lists of alternates to use. You couldn't say sex, or kill back then either. The difference is the algorithm. I acknowledge in my comment that these platforms already censor things they find objectionable. Part of that is to keep Section 230 as it is. A perhaps more relevant part of it is to keep advertisers happy so they continue to buy ad space. A small portion of it may even be to keep the majority of the user base happy because users who don't agree with the supposed ideologies on a platform will leave it and that's less eyeballs on ads.

Maybe this will lead to a future where Stochastic Terrorism isn't a protected activity?

As much as I believe it is a breeding ground for right wing extremism, it's a little strange that 4chan is being lumped in with these other sites for a suit like this. As far as I know, 4chan just promotes topics based on the number of people posting to it, and otherwise doesn't employ an algorithm at all. Kind of a different beast to the others, who have active algorithms trying to drive engagement at any cost.

Are the platforms guilty or are the users that supplied the radicalized content guilty? Last I checked, most of the content on YouTube, Facebook and Reddit is not generated by the companies themselves.

Those sites determine what they promote. Such sites often promote extreme views as it gets people to watch or view the next thing. Facebook for instance researched this outcome, then ignored that knowledge.
most of the content on YouTube, Facebook and Reddit is not generated by the companies themselves
Its their job to block that content before it reaches an audience, but since thats how they make their money, they dont or wont do that. The monetization of evil is the problem, those platforms are the biggest perpetrators.
- Its their job to block that content before it reaches an audience
  The problem is (or isn't, depending on your perspective) that it is NOT their job. Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit are private companies that have the right to develop and enforce their own community guidelines or terms of service, which dictate what type of content can be posted on their platforms. This includes blocking or removing content they deem harmful, objectionable, or radicalizing. While these platforms are protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which provides immunity from liability for user-generated content, this protection does not extend to knowingly facilitating or encouraging illegal activities.
  There isn't specific U.S. legislation requiring social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit to block radicalizing content. However, many countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, have enacted laws that hold platforms accountable if they fail to remove extremist content. In the United States, there have been proposals to amend or repeal Section 230 of CDA to make tech companies more responsible for moderating the content on their sites.
is the pusher guilty? last time I checked he didn't grow the poppies or process them into heroin.
- I never liked that logic it's basically "success has many father's but failure is an orphan" applied.
  Are you involved with something immoral? To the extent of your involvement is the extent of how immoral your actions are. Same goes for doing the right thing.
- That's why we have separate charges for drug manufacturing and distribution.

Tonight we investigate the hacker known as 4chan. More at 9.

Who is this "Four Chan"?

Can we stop letting the actions of a few bad people be used to curtail our freedom on platforms we all use.

I don't want the internet to end up being policed by corporate AIs and poorly implemented bots (looking at you auto-mod).

The internet is already a husk of what it used to be, what it could be. It used to be personal, customisable... Dare I say it; messy and human...

.... maybe that was serving a need that now people feel alienated from. Now we live as corporate avatars who risk being banned every time we comment anywhere.

It's tiresome.

Facebook and others actively promote harmful content because they know it drives interactions, I believe it's possible to punish corps without making the internet overly policed.
I agree with you in spirit. The most common sentiment I see among the comments is not to limit what people can share but how actively platforms move people down rabbit holes. If there is not action on the part of the platforms to correct for this, they risk regulation which in turn puts freedom of speech at risk.

What an excellent presedent to set cant possibly see how this is going to become authoritarian. Ohh u didnt report someone ur also guilty cant see any problems with this.

Ohh u didnt report someone ur also guilty cant see any problems with this.
That's... not what this is about, though?
“However, plaintiffs contend the defendants’ platforms are more than just message boards,” the court document says. “They allege they are sophisticated products designed to be addictive to young users and they specifically directed Gendron to further platforms or postings that indoctrinated him with ‘white replacement theory’,” the decision read.
This isn't about mandated reporting, it's about funneling impressionable people towards extremist content.
- And they profit from it. That’s mentioned there too, and it makes it that much more infuriating. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they do it on purpose, for money.
  And at the end of the day, they’ll settle (who are the plaintiffs? Article doesn’t say) or pay some relatively inconsequential amount, and they’ll still have gained a net benefit from it. Another case of cost-of-doing-business.
  Would’ve been free without the lawsuit even. Lives lost certainly aren’t factored in otherwise.
- Youtube Shorts is the absolute worst for this. Just recently it's massively trying to push transphobic BS at me, and I cannot figure out why. I dislike, report and "do not recommend this channel" every time, and it just keeps shoving more at me. I got a fucking racist church sermon this morning. it's broken!
- U can make any common practice and pillar of capitalism sound bad by using the words impressionable and extremist.
  If we remove that it become: funnelling a market towards the further consumption of your product. I.e. marketing
  And yes of cause the platforms are designed to be addictive and are effective at indoctranation but why is that only a problem for certain ideologies shouldnt we be stopping all ideologies from practicing indoctranation of impressionable people should we not be guiding people to as many viewpoints as possible to teach them to think not to swallow someone elses ideas and spew them back out.
  I blame Henry Ford for this whole clusterfuck he lobbied the education system to manufacture an obedient consumer market and working class that doesnt think for itself but simply swallows what its told. The education system is the problem anything else is treating the symptoms not the disease.
- That means that the government is injecting itself on deciding what "extremist" is. I do not trust them to do that wisely. And even if I did trust them, it is immoral for the state to start categorizing and policing ideologies.
You could make a good point with better spelling, grammar, and word choice.
- Yes i could. I could spend the extra 30seconds fixing it or i could not bother and still have my point comprehendable.

What about shutting down the whole internet?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A New York state judge on Monday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against several social media companies alleging the platforms contributed to the radicalization of a gunman who killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York in 2022, court documents show.

In her decision, the judge said that the plaintiffs may proceed with their lawsuit, which claims social media companies — like Meta, Alphabet, Reddit and 4chan — ”profit from the racist, antisemitic, and violent material displayed on their platforms to maximize user engagement,” including the time then 18-year-old Payton Gendron spent on their platforms viewing that material.

“They allege they are sophisticated products designed to be addictive to young users and they specifically directed Gendron to further platforms or postings that indoctrinated him with ‘white replacement theory’,” the decision read.

“It is far too early to rule as a matter of law that the actions, or inaction, of the social media/internet defendants through their platforms require dismissal,” said the judge.

“While we disagree with today’s decision and will be appealing, we will continue to work with law enforcement, other platforms, and civil society to share intelligence and best practices,” the statement said.

We are constantly evaluating ways to improve our detection and removal of this content, including through enhanced image-hashing systems, and we will continue to review the communities on our platform to ensure they are upholding our rules.”

The original article contains 407 words, the summary contains 229 words. Saved 44%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

anything but gun regulation, i guess.

They're appealing the denial of motion to dismiss huh? I agree that this case really doesn't have legs but I didn't know that was an interlocutory appeal that they could do. They'd win in summary judgement regardless.

Here comes more censorship from Big Tech. 🤦‍♂️

Judge hasn't ruled yet, this was just them saying the case has some merit and won't be dismissed. This will go to trial, after which the judge will make their ruling.
Reading comprehension is important. As is a highschool level understanding of how our legal system works.

Personally I believe in free will. Nothing should take any responsibility away from the one that chose to kill.

Justice isn't a zero sum game. More than one person can contribute to the same crime.
- sure, if there were multiple shooters

So now anyone who says things is going to be held accountable for crazy people being crazy
Nope, that's just you being melodramatic. The judge has acknowledged there is grounds for the case to be argued so it won't he dismissed. That's all. They haven't been found guilty of anything. They're not being lined up and shot.
What would you prefer we did to determine if a company is culpable? Just ask you because you read a headline?

Platforms should be held responsible for the content their users publish on them, full stop.

So if some random hacker takes over your network connection and publishes illegal content which then leads back to you, you should be held responsible. It's your platform after all.
- If it’s your server, then yes you should have responsibility with how you deal with said content.
Then user generated content completely disappears.
Without the basic protection of section 230, it's not possible to allow users to exist or interact with anything. I'm not sure you could even pay for web hosting without it.
Content creators should be held responsible for their content. Platforms are mere distributors, in general terms, otherwise you're blaming the messenger.
Specific to social media (and television) yes, they bank on hate, it's known - so don't use them or do so with that ever dwindling human quality called critical thinking. Wanting to hold them accountable for murder is just dismissing the real underlying issues, like unsupervised impressionable people watching content, easy access to guns, human nature itself, societal issues...

Completely different cases, questionable comparison;
social media are the biggest cultural industry at the moment, albeit a silent and unnoticed one. Cultural industries like this are means of propaganda, information and socilalization, all of which is impactful and heavily personal and personalised for everyone's opinion.
thus the role of such an impactul business is huge and can move opinions and whole movements, the choices that people takes are driven by their media consumption and communities they take part in.
In other words, policy, algorhitms, GUI are all factors that drive the users to engage in speific ways with harmful content.
- biggest cultural industry at the moment
  I wish you guys would stop making me defend corporations. Doesn't matter how big they are, doesn't matter their influence, claiming that they are responsible for someone breaking the law because someone else wrote something that set them off and they, as overlords, didn't swoop in to stop it is batshit.
  Since you don't like those comparisons, I'll do one better. This is akin to a man shoving someone over a railing and trying to hold the landowners responsible for not having built a taller railing or more gradual drop.
  You completely fucking ignore the fact someone used what would otherwise be a completely safe platform because another party found a way to make it harmful.
  polocy and algorithm are factors that drive users to engage
  Yes. Engage. Not in harmful content specifically, that content just so happens to be the content humans react to the strongest. If talking about fields of flowers drove more engagement, we'd never stop seeing shit about flowers. It's not them maliciously pushing it, it's the collective society that's fucked.
  The solution is exactly what it has always been. Stop fucking using the sites if they make you feel bad.
Yeah, good thing we don't have evidence of any social media company's algorithms radicalizing and promoting more and more extreme content to people.
Could you imagine? Companies actively radicalizing people for money??
- Fuck it's almost like they promote things that have high engagement and rage and fear happen to be our most reactive emotions.
  Could you imagine? A coincidence without a malicious conspiracy??
The examples you came up with hit that last line to a T!