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Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

Why should this video be taken down?

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

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

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

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

https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html

And comparison of every death type by coverage:

https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html

Exactly there is the huge problem that if you look at how humans learn, you will quickly come to the conclusion that 99.9% of human behavior is copying others' behavior.

That means it is very responsible to:

1) partly cloud or obscure methods/reasons for suicice

2) partly cloud or obscure motives for serious crimes

This does NOT mean to lie about the events. Or even make that information to truly not be available. Just hide it ... just a bit so it doesn't pass through everyone's mind who just reads some news.

There have been incidents in the past where news messages lead to copycats in both cases.

The fact of the matter is that crime is not illogical or "evil". Crimes are committed for a specific purpose. Making people realize that "hey you can do this", or making people think about what a crime would accomplish vs what not doing a crime would accomplish will inevitably lead some to conclude the crime is the preferable option, and thus damage others.

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

Yes.

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

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

It’s a horrific act against humanity and plastering it everywhere will probably only encourage copy cats. IMO we shouldn’t make the perpetrators famous at all. Don’t put any name on every news channel but refer to them as cowards.

I can think of a few reasons.

Because it’s upsetting to see innocent people get slaughtered.

Because it will be used to radicalize more terrorists.

Because nobody is obligated to host it on their platform.

Because leaving it up won’t stop crimes either.

You can make good counter-arguments to all of those. This isn’t a math problem with 1 answer.

I'd imagine they don't want a video of a massacre on their sites. Pretty far-fetched, I know.

Because it's ok to show some empathy for the victims and their families. Most people don't want to see this stuff either. This is one sort of private censorship I have no problem with.

Because it shows the murder of over 40 people?

And what does your local holocaust museum show?

Not videos of people dying?

EDIT: I'm removing this comment, as I feel it bordered on ad hominem and didn't add anything to the discussion. As you've been downvoted anyway, I don't really think I've anything else to add.

To protect whatever dignity the victims still have left?

I find this the most convincing argument. While I feel there is a moral journalistic right to accurately report crime, I feel there is also a moral right to not have footage of undignified acts committed against you published, whether this be your murder, or even a practical joke.

Taken down and taken off social media aren't the same thing. Nobody's going to be able to kill the magnet links or stop Wikileaks from distributing his twitter history, but if there's any content that shouldn't appear in your YouTube recommendations this is it.

>Why should this video be taken down?...

Same reason links to child rape videos should be taken down, it's disgusting. That's the consensus view. We realize not everyone is going to agree and you can go to Gab or 4chan or 8chan or wherever to see that sort of thing if you like.

This isn't about stopping crimes, it's about not presenting people with something that can be traumatizing.

It's also about stopping the glorification of these heinous acts - you can bet there are people who would find this edifying to watch.

It's not evidence, it's propaganda.

I get and sympathize with what you're saying, but in a literal sense it's obviously both. Obviously it's going to be entered as evidence during the trial.

Yes and no. At the trial, the prosecution is not going to need to pull a fresh copy off of YouTube to present as evidence. That is, yes, it's evidence and will be used as such. No, its continued availability on YouTube is not related to it being evidence.

Of course it should go without saying that a great deal of evidence has no business getting posted publicly on social media.

That ship sailed years ago when Youtube started removing videos of the Syrian civil war [1]. Many of these videos were intended as propaganda for rebel/terrorist groups. They were also useful because the combat footage they contained could be analyzed independently to get casualty counts and locations of fighting. I would personally have preferred that they stayed available, even if they might have worked as propaganda on some people. But Youtube made a decision and stuck to it.

Removing this terrorist's video is just applying a standing policy to remove reported terrorist videos.

[1] For all I know the policy started even earlier, but I followed the SCW closely for several years and I noticed a big change in video availability over time.

It's important to remember that regardless of your stance on censorship and the legality of the content, Facebook and Youtube are generally intended to be safe-for-work platforms.

So are you okay with all the propaganda videos of isis and other such groups being posted on social media. This is the just the opposite side of the same coin.

FWIW, yes, I am.

10 years ago I might have agreed with you but now I feel most humans are too dumb and easily led. Flat earth, anti vaccine, global warming deniers and so much other crap is easily spread and believed. If I owned a platform I would not be happy allowing it to be used to spread this.

Fortunately, nobody is "deleting" the "evidence". It will still be available for trial after Youtube has taken it down.

This is perverse. Since when did we incentivize murder by free broadcast? Seriously the parent is a disgusting comment.

Common decency and respect for the victims and their families?

Because it encourages other people to copy the act

Many consider it a crime to delete evidence of the holocaust. Why would people support deleting the evidence of this atrocity???

Many of the same people consider it to be a crime to create content that glorifies the holocaust.

The evidence won't go away. The point of removing the video is to stop glorifying this atrocity.

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