> “Susan, I’ve known your address since last summer. I’ve got a Luger and a mitochondrial disease. I don’t care if I live. Why should I care if you live or your children? I just called an Uber. You’ve got about seven minutes to draft up a will. … I’m coming for you, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”
Were any of these celebrities [1] deplatformed for threatening Republicans?
Does anyone on the left consider that their hateful rhetoric might be inspiring their own followers to violence when that happens?
1: https://www.thewrap.com/hollywood-stars-donald-trump-violent...
Another example at this link is the NYC Public Theatre's presentation of Julius Caesar, which typically is a modern adaptation of Caesar where Caesar is depicted as whoever is currently in charge; and they did a production where Caesar is dressed like Trump. It's been a while since I've read Caesar, but the premise of Julius Caesar is that the conspirators who overthrow the man they believe to be a tyrant are themselves tyrannical. Caesar is not depicted well, but he's not the bad guy and the play isn't glorifying or calling for violence against Caesar, it's depicting the tragic spiral of consequences as a result of the coup against him. It's not even commentary about Trump, it's a running thing they do with whoever the contemporary leader is. They have previously done productions with an Obama-Caesar. I think they may have also had a Clinton-Caesar.
Another linked example involves a music video where a robot that looks like Trump explodes. Do you think this is threatening violence against Trump?
I just mention this because I'm trying to understand what possessed you to link to this to draw an equivalence. The only example given that seems at all comparable is the Big Sean lyric, and even then, I'm not sure I accept the premise that we should take a lyric from a song to be directly equivalent to an apparently straight-faced declaration of intent.
Do you think you could elaborate a bit on how you believe the linked examples are equivalent to his without saying "the left"? Like, specifically, which of the linked examples do you think is most directly comparable to this, and specifically, which of the threats would you ban if you controlled YouTube and those threats were made on YouTube?
Donate that paycheck to a good charity, I just responded.
But while I can see reason in the argument for banning her, I think such a position also calls for banning depictions of people holding up severed heads of their opponents (as in two of the cases in the link) or "joking" about smothering them with a pillow or beating them with a Louisville slugger (as in two other cases).
You seem to have chosen the most "fictional" of the examples (video games, theatre) and ignored the very explicit depictions of violence and "jokes" that are nothing more than descriptions of violent acts.
Were you personally convinced by the strength of the article you linked that there is an epidemic of threatened violence against Republicans?
I highlighted examples that I believed were being alleged to be threats. You did not clarify that you linked an article you thought was filled with nonsense examples but you wanted to talk about Kathy Griffith.
Kathy Griffith seems like a stupid idiot. She did get "deplatformed" after the Trump thing, which appeared in a magazine. Most of her work since then has been talking about how she can't get booked anymore. She lost a bunch of work. This is all fairly well documented. You must know this, since you were aware enough of the wave of leftist celebrity violence incitement to have the link to the article on hand. Why did you pivot to saying I should engage more thoroughly with her case but leave out the details?
But if we really want to unpack it, you've conceptually slipped from "threatening violence in a literal and direct way", which the 14 year old shithead definitely did, to "depicting violence" or "doing something everyone knows is a joke but that is arguably violent." Kathy Griffith's thing is a stupid tasteless stunt by a comedienne whose entire career is being stupid and tasteless. But I don't see even the slightest comparison between that and this.
You also call attention to the "smother with a pillow" Larry Wilmore line. The "joke", such as it is -- Wilmore's show was terrible and so I am not surprised the joke was terrible too -- is that some far-right figures believed in a conspiracy that Antonin Scalia was smothered with a pillow. Antonin Scalia was not smothered with a pillow. It is difficult to argue that a joke about conspiracy theorists should be construed to otherwise be a dead serious threat.
Should I take this to mean that you believe Antonin Scalia was smothered with a pillow? This might be off topic, but I think it's relevant as to your ability to adjudicate whether there is an epidemic of leftist incitement to violence against Republicans, which was your original argument, apparently in support of your position that no one should be banned for making direct and personalized death threats on social media.
Yes, I heard she was deplatformed by some media outlets, but not by YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/user/officialkathygriffin
So if YouTube now has a policy of deplatforming violence, I'd like to see it enforced fairly.
That doesn't mean I necessarily approve of that policy, but that's not my decision and I can see that it's a reasonable policy, if enforced fairly.
That will have to be all for now, I have other things to do, but if you'd like to continue I'll try to respond later.
The reason YouTube did not ban Kathy Griffith under rules for threatening violence is because: 1) The purported threatened violence was not threatened on YouTube, it was for a magazine. 2) The purported threatened violence was not a threat of violence, it was a depiction of violence. Those are not the same thing, but I'm totally fine with banning for the latter. You're the one that isn't fine with the thing you're arguing for. 3) The threat occurred at a time before YouTube put these rules in place. Updating your rules isn't being a hypocrite because you didn't time travel after doing so. It's also literally what the left has been asking for for years.
But separate from that, your position was that the left didn't deplatform her, and unsurprisingly, it did. CNN, Home Of The Left Biased Anti Trump Fake News, fired her immediately. So great, it is agreed that celebrities face significant reputational consequence for doing things that aren't threatening violence but are adjacent and might be perceived as uncouth.
Again, I need to stress that the person in the OP directly threatened violence. She didn't say "I hope the people who own YouTube get shot". She didn't say "If I was alone in a room with YouTube lady, I'd punch her in the face". She didn't do a music video of robot YouTube getting exploded. She did a direct and personal threat to murder a specific named individual. And you thought the really important aspect of this story was talking about Kathy Griffith.
Let's recap the thread: You think that no one should be banned for threatening violence on YouTube. To support this argument, you link a bunch of people, some of whom were deplatformed, most of whom aren't threatening violence, and most of whom weren't doing the thing they're accused of on YouTube. You then insist I'm being uncharitable to the evidence by not taking more seriously the threats of violence, which again are mostly not threats, and again, you don't think we should take actual threats of violence seriously.
You should advance the argument you actually believe in, not do a bizarre strawman devil's advocate where you say "I don't believe in banning people, but imagine if I did because I was a tyrannical anti-speech leftist, then I would be a hypocrite, because I wouldn't ban this anti-Trump celebrity, which makes me a hypocrite, checkmate".
And the policy here at Hacker News is to consider the strongest version of an argument. You did the opposite, cherry-picking the weakest examples.
> you linked a list of 15 bad examples
No, a list (that I didn't make) with some examples that were stronger than others, and you tried to ignore the strong ones. Even you admitted that Kathy Griffin's actions led to deplatforming from some platforms. And you've again ignored the cartoonist who also depicted Trump's severed head. And you're dismissing talk about beating someone up because you disagree with them as an "off-color joke".
You also misrepresented my position.
> your position was that the left didn't deplatform her
This is a discussion about YouTube's policy, it's natural to assume I meant YouTube, which I did. Again, respond to the strongest version of my argument, not a different argument that's easier to attack.
And my point is simple: YouTube should have a consistent policy and enforce it fairly, not ban haphazardly when they feel like it. What you call "whataboutism" shows that the policy isn't enforced consistently or fairly.
I don't know why that's hard to work out when I said it in the first post.
A non-response isnt a response
> specifically, which of the threats would you ban if you controlled YouTube and those threats were made on YouTube?
I answered that. I personally wouldn't ban any of these including the 14 year old in question.
> specifically, which of the linked examples do you think is most directly comparable to this
I don't think any of them is "equivalent", but a policy that bans one should ban the other. I'm not in favor of "rules lawyers" constructing an elaborate system that bans some threats and depictions of violence but excuses others.
I assume the police saw a 14yo who can't take an Uber by themselves and cannot buy a gun and said "yeah, no way he could follow this one through".
Edit: I'm not saying the kid shouldn't be punished, or that the law shouldn't be something else. This is just answering how that particular tweet that was being discussed was interpreted by police to not constitute a "credible threat"
Please stop spreading disinformation.
https://i.imgur.com/NpvySvG.jpg (Pewdiepie)
(It's edgy humor/let kids play on their skateboard)