NZ terrorist attack

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I'm not even sure "radicalized" is the right term. "Disenfranchized to the point of genuinely being sociopathic", might be closer to the "troll" psyche.

[hellfire]

It is not remotely similar to the Arab spring. That was millions of people rising up against authoritarian regimes. Interestingly that was coordinated entirely through the internet. Context here lads it was one attack by one person. If we took the total number of people involved in these communities and only one attacker then he is statistically insignificant. Taking away people's right to talk freely online because of one screwball is absurd. By that logic we should all be taking the blame for Joe Frankulin from Goatlord for all the ballacting of the  early black metal scene. Also, a read of the manifesto might be worthwhile. He details all of his grievances in excruciating detail in that. The media will never tone down coverage of mass killings and I'm not sure they should. He shot a hundred people and killed fifty. He would have been pretty notorious in the absence  of all forms of technology and networking. Talking shit on the internet is not the same as gunning people down. Never will be. I've said it a few times already but here goes. People blame the internet rather than the individuals concerned. 

We don't ban bars because booze destroys some people's lives, Korans because some people want to kill and maim people for their religion, bibles because they are promoted by the worlds largest paedophile ring or cars because people die in road accidents.  This hysteria as much sense as banning The Exorcist because Jamie Bulger got killed. Child proofing everything because of screw ups like him means everyone has to develop at the same pace as the slowest in society.

[Eoin McLove]

Not a single person in this thread has implied that anything should be banned.

[hellfire]

This killing has been used to promote censoring of certain sites as well as influencing how social media networks operate. Saying that sites/YouTubers are partly to blame is pretty much the same thing.

[Juggz]

There were calls for some standards and regulation long before last Friday. Perhaps they're a little more focussed now?

[Eoin McLove]

That's a predictable knee jerk reaction and is meaningless as other resources will spring up to fill the space and certainly won't change people's ideologies- more likely censorship will harden people's attitudes. I believe in free speech,  I just think it's often misused by people who think that it validates their cuntish behaviour.  That's an unfortunate side effect of something I'd view as being generally positive. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the current vogue for non-platforming has had a direct influence but it's not helpful in the grand scheme of things.  It just adds to the gulf between both sides and dialogue gets smothered.

Edit. It presents a real dilemma that goes back to another question I raised earlier.  How many people use that site for entertainment, or to appear to be badass? Just because most of us might find their sense of humour questionable/abhorrent and the fact that one person actually followed through on his fantasies, should that mean that everyone else's freedom should be curtailed?  Should people espousing extremist views on public forums be monitored? How do you tackle the likes of radical Islam without monitoring extremists,  and even then,  what percentage of people who may claim to be radical Islamists on their own forums really pose a danger to society?

[hellfire]

Unfortunately when everyone has the right to speak it makes you realise that you're surrounded by wankers. Banning and regulating are much the same word in the context of government involvement in the internet. I do have opinions on the no platforming thing too, but as I was saying he really doesn't deserve to have his grievances heard now. For me he doesn't fit into that wider debate about online censorship of everything right of Stalin. The free exchange of ideas is an important thing. Even when someone is talking through their hoop. He has done more to hurt the causes he cares about than anything. This will accelerate the speed of banning and provide what looks like a valid reason for it.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I'd largely agree that video games, movies, etc., don't inspire people to murder. I'm less sure about mass murderers not inspiring others though. And the cooler they make it seem, maybe all the more "inspiring". I think it stands to reason that there are many more latent killers than actual ones, and this is what makes the fear of influence understandable, even if you don't agree with how that fear is addressed.

[hellfire]

Soldiers need to be trained heavily to be able to kill people and I assume to cope afterwards. Even they would balk at the thought of killing 50 non-combatants. I don't believe the websites that are getting the blame (most of which I've visited at some point) are capable of conditioning someone to be able to perform such an act. This lad must have had ice in his veins for a very long time, possibly from birth. He would have found a cause eventually or if he didn't would have just done something like this for kicks.

[The Butcher]

Was listening to politicians over the other side of the pond, they want live streaming delayed by 30 seconds like a TV studio so that it can be turned off if needed -
these guys haven't a clue how the internet works...as if facebook has enough people sitting about monitoring everything.

Events like this create their own momentum. Moderate voices can be drowned out quickly, seeds are sown and the hornets nest kicked. It's a push for some sort of censorship and I reckon it will be more for political gain than anything else. Will do nothing but erode trust and force people onto the dark net and other echo chambers.

Hatred of Muslims must be tackled - EU rights agency

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2019/0319/1037347-rights-agency-report/

Also completely agree with this guy on global economic management since 2008 ->
https://www.afr.com/news/world/oceania/not-enough-done-for-disaffected-says-nz-politician-20190318-h1cig6

[hellfire]

Nothing the EU do would surprise me anymore. Convenient for them that most people who are anti mass immigration are almost always anti Brussels. They've been dying to filter news to only include trained lapdogs for years now. They have banned a few sites I use in Australia and New Zealand now. Most people that use 4Chan and Bitchute would be quite capable of changing their DNS settings or configuring a VPN. They may also be forgetting one of the cardinal rules of the internet. Never piss off 4 Chan.

[Juggz]

Was listening to politicians over the other side of the pond, they want live streaming delayed by 30 seconds like a TV studio so that it can be turned off if needed -
these guys haven't a clue how the internet works...as if facebook has enough people sitting about monitoring everything.

Facebook don’t have anybody moderating anything, they switched it over to AI a few years ago. There is no human approval or review required for anything posted, either as personal posts or the kind of micro-targeted sponsored political content I referenced earlier.

[ochoill]

Facebook don't have anybody moderating anything, they switched it over to AI a few years ago. There is no human approval or review required for anything posted, either as personal posts or the kind of micro-targeted sponsored political content I referenced earlier.

There is still a human element, this article shows how fucked the FB moderation system is and makes for a good read.

Lot of solid point and good argument in this thread that there's no use in reiterating, but generally it is the fault of the person and not the medium whatsoever.  Politicians and prominent public journalists & bloggers will use it as a platform to discuss censorship pros and cons anyway much like they will with any medium of information (or art).  "The Internet" is an easy bogeyman for people who look at it as some sort of unknown collective force, which it has shown to be occasionally but is not actually even remotely that.  Fractured groups of loud people with poor ideas in an echo chamber does not constitute it's whole but its easy to paint it that way for the sake of argument in the wake of any tragedy.  It's an easy stance to take.

I was fairly steeped in internet culture through years spent fucking around on 4chan, encyclopedia dramatica, various other forums and sub sections of twitter & fb - see 'Jeffbook' for an incredibly light hearted and wholesome take on modern forum culture surviving through private facebook tag groups.  It's jarring to see this bleed over into the man's manifesto and see his whole attack designed for a very particular internet subculture, but given the types of people /pol/ puts on a pedestal and designs their memes around it's not surprising.  This man's method of being remembered forever isn't through the actual massacre, it's by doing everything he can to become engrained into that subculture as a meme.  Shocking level of dissociation from reality, exacerbated by exposure to other people and sites that worship these things mostly ironically, but not created by it.

[Pedrito]

Just on that point, I've worked in multinationals and they have small teams dedicated to monitoring what should and shouldn't be on their platform. Take the recent Twitter/Rogan interview. Rogan asked how many people they had working for them in the context of monitoring what goes up and is taken down by them in terms of content. The CEO says 4000, and Rogan seems impressed until the CEO has to clarify saying that they have 4000 ppl working for them, full stop. That includes directors, all their engineers, lads making coffee, interns, legal, accounts, marketing, HR, et  etc etc. So really they have a couple hundred people worldwide(at a push) monitoring and making decisions on millions of Tweets everyday. It's one example but it sums.up a lot of  silicon valley type companies where profit comes before any sense of regulation/ownership of responsibility. So that's the other end of the scale..massively influential platforms and companies but very little in terms of monitoring/due diligence etc. Those departments are important, but they are usually understaffed and overworked. Sales departments, on the other hand, would be very different.

[Pedrito]

So they're banning the sale of what is essentially a self help book in NZ's largest store in the wake of the shooings. Jordan Peterson's book banned and a fellowship in Cambridge Uni rescinded. He's about as mild as they come. I'm reading Nietzsche at the moment and if they start taking him at face value, and out of context, we could start seeing book burnings. I see Pew dee pie, who is nothing more than a celebrity gamer, was repotedly quoted as a main inspiration by the killer. The lad is some limp wristed Swede who likes video games and books, I've actually watched him a good few times. Where does this absolute nonsense end?