Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy
bbc.com
bbc.com
To be clear, for a year, Facebook banned content that would have been consistent with what an impartial jury ultimately found about the case. Which would have corrected a misleading media narrative about the situation.
The NYT has a good video of what happened with Rittenhouse: https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000007409660/kyle-ritten.... Apart from the voice overs, it’s nearly identical to the pro-Rittenhouse videos circulating back in 2020. If you watched these videos, the jury verdict would have been totally unsurprising to you.
If you had left it at that, you’d have had a lot of agreement.
This decision by Facebook probably does reverse something that was a mistake in some vague, ethical sense, but I disagree with the characterization that Facebook should be responsible for people's personal worldviews. You can't just give up all personal responsibility to Facebook and then complain when they do bad things with that power. They made a decision for business and legal reasons and we can criticize them from a business or legal perspective, but the narrative that "Facebook should have known better and it's their fault that people were misinformed" is just odd to me. It feels like a "have your cake and eat it too" situation with personal responsibility for being informed about the world.
As a result, the general public's first impression of your story is never challenged, and it becomes accepted as truth, despite being blatantly false.
Does Facebook have no obligation, even if only a moral one, to let you at least defend your own reputation when it allows literal defamation about you to be published unmolested?
In your scenario, do I not have any other options for showing my side of the story other than Facebook?
One is supposed to be a news agency, the other is supposed to be an information sharing platform for private individuals. There is some conflict here whenever you decide to pump a specific narrative.
> In your scenario, do I not have any other options for showing my side of the story other than Facebook?
I guess you could go with alternative college newspapers? The town crier method? Creating a blog?
My point isn't necessarily that you have zero way to attempt to give your side of the story –after all, Rittenhouse's attorneys, people who saw the videos & defended Rittenhouse in public and even the NYT all produced content and were able to spread it among themselves–, but that your enemies have a tech-amplified bullhorn to distribute false claims about you (most of which are "opinion"), which you have been deprived of.
In my opinion, it's not hard to see that in the absence of additional rebuttal context, especially the kind that disrupts the original framing, people's first impression will become hardened into "their truth."
[0] https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/22/twitter-suspended-me-fo...
[1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/twitter-libertarian-party-kyle...
I think social media doesn't give people "the wrong opinion," I think it gives people opinions in general when they shouldn't have any.
The interesting thing about Rittenhouse is that even despite the NYT telling the truth through their video analysis, the rest of the press and tech monopolies ratcheted the story in one direction: that Rittenhouse was a "mass shooter" who was carrying out a white supremacist terrorist attack.
During the trial, my overlapping bubbles either had seen the videos and/or watched the trial and believed him innocent, or had only read the media reports, and believed him guilty.
Given the weird nature of this case, and how only one viewpoint about it was allowed on social media, I wonder if that constitutes defamation on the part of the social media companies, since they were in practice making an editorial decision that he was bad.
That said, I doubt any courts would ever actually find that section 230 does not shield tech monopolies when they do this, but I am curious.
Likewise, the videos shown on most media networks were very selectively edited to remove any bits that might hint at self defense.
Very few of the "Kyle is a murderer" crowd have seen the actual full-length, unedited videos of what happened.
If I can translate, your claim is that they are uninformed, which is plainly a fallacious argument. Just how could you know this? This is kind of an unrelated rant, but it reminds me just a little of Justice Scalia pulling a random and made up statistic out of his hat, something he couldn't possibly know about what most Americans believe that, oh yeah, was patently false, and used it to desecrate the 2nd Amendment, without 2/3rds majority of both houses of congress nor state legislatures, i.e. not the proper self-described way literally writ in the Constitution itself, and in fact beyond the scope of the Supreme Court's domain, effectively turning what Founders intended as a selfless right to fight tyranny into something the Founders debated and explicitly decided against including within the 2nd, a selfish, unimpressive and frankly mostly expressed cowardly, right of defense of self and/or property. It was far better before becoming redundant, as the right of self-defense predates the Constitution by some time, and the decision very uncharacteristic of Scalia, a life-long literal Constitutionalist, raising questions of senility and competence, especially because he died soon after. And it is merely one right among many that had been eroded around that time, including habeas corpus, the 5th and 6th Amendments, at least.
I've watched all the videos. I still think these deaths were felony murders. I think Rittenhouse is a coward like George Zimmerman. I know this is unrelated, but there were several accidental shooting deaths recently, little kids, babies, and the list of mass gun killings is astoundingly deep and still grows. The list of uncontested gun victims is massive. Where are their rights? Does a bunch of people's vane fascination with deadly weapons supersede an innocent person's right to exist? It is a fact that less guns leads to less gun deaths, and we will be much better off as society with what would be far smaller lists of mass punchings, kickings, pokings, stabbings and axings. It'd be more interesting to read about a malcontent that had punched 14 people before being subdued by authorities. We can, actually, outlaw guns, and it would cause less gun deaths and less gun crime, but we can never outlaw fists, and everyone knows you shouldn't hit people.
This is a fallacious argument, criminals don’t follow gun laws.
Sure, if a stranger was breaking into your house in the middle of the night and gets shot, there's probably no charges.
Outside of a pretty narrow window, it's likely to go to trial. From there, conviction is extremely likely no matter what. Juries have a definite bias to favor the prosecutor which in my opinion is why so many innocent people have been convicted over the years.
EDIT: Though, I think this only applies to news sources, which they've been ruled to be not as. Though that ruling may be overturned if they actively suppress certain information.
Facebook is entitled to only repeat whatever opinions it wants to repeat, by virtue of the first amendment.
My understanding is as follows. As a platform, the rationale for section 230 protections is that you are not the one making the comments, and are thus just a platform for the speech of others. The speaker, and not the platform, is thus the one liable for the speech. Conversely, a publisher, while not the one writing (contributors write, and the publisher publishes), still bears the brunt of the liability.
I thus think it is intuitive (to me at least), that after a degree of control is exercised, this flips into being more like a publisher than a platform, and should be treated as such. The question then becomes where to draw that line.
Before 230, there was already effectively a distinction in that, if you ran a forum and did absolutely no moderation, you were never liable for the content - but then you also couldn’t remove any content that was vulgar, racist, hateful to other users, etc. which is why section 230 is part of the “Communications Decency Act”. Without it, social media just choose between not moderating anything, and vetting every post (and probably only allowing posts from a small group of verified people and businesses).
LegalEagle has a good rundown: https://youtu.be/eUWIi-Ppe5k?t=4m18s
> that editorializing something such as [...] removing content or context
I suppose it would be permissible to draw a line where you could delete all or none of a users content, but not some, since that does sound content neutral. I don't believe anyone has drawn such a line though in law (and it would be quite the strange line to draw).
Like, if I write a note that reads: "The President of the United States should morn those that die of COVID." And the note is posted by someone else with "morn those that" removed, they can no longer point to me as the producer of the message. Likewise if video footage is edited to show a different story than reality, the person that did the editing is culpable for the resulting hoax, not the videographer. I think the same applies to editing information produced by multiple other people. The moment you edit information to conform to a certain narrative, you are then the source of that new narrative. In that way, I think Facebook, though they were editing the information available on their platform, are in fact the source of a new narrative that exists in the negative space of their editing.
It would indeed be super interesting to see this argued in court. It would make a really good balance to the free reign that platforms have now to curtail certain messages or information. If they were responsible for the story the surviving information creates, it would make them tread more carefully when censoring users.
You yourself acknowledge that it is a "viewpoint", or the term more common in law an "opinion". Opinions are protected speech by the first amendment (not section 230) and as such Facebook cannot be liable in any way for promoting one or silencing another.
To be liable for defamation, you would need to be stating false facts with reckless disregard for the truth (or malice, if Rittenhouse counts as a public figure), not just promoting an opinion. This is regardless of section 230 (which might or might not provide them further protection).
Social media and corporate news outlets should let the courts do their job. They are constantly wrong and can't even get basic facts right.
It's all about the narrative and the party line backing up the benefactors.
How did they become arbitraters of truth?
my understanding is that you can't claim self-defense if you initiated violence yourself. Threatening unarmed people with a gun, pointing it at them is a credible threat of violence that the people have the right to defend themselves from, and that is what they tried to do in particular by chasing that gun wielding moron away. Unfortunately that aspect seems to have been totally overlooked.
If you threaten a person with bodily harm, I think it is reasonable to point a gun at them to get them to stop. Would you voluntarily get bashed in the head with a skateboard if you were in that position?
cause - the guy shoots an unarmed man and just coldly walks away from it. No victim check, no attempt to render first aid, no reporting to and waiting for police and emergency services... nothing what is reasonably expected in the situation of self-defense.
effect - reasonable perception that it is a killer on the lose, a threat to defend from.
>those Rittenhouse shot not only had weapons, but showed intent to use them.
these people were defending themselves and others around from Rittenhouse after he shot an unarmed man and just walked away not checking on the victim, nor waiting for police like one would do in a bona fide self-defense, and that made him to be reasonably perceived as an active shooter that is a threat to anybody around. Thus he created that violent situation of him being a threat and necessitating a defense against him, and he shot the people who were defending themselves and others from him. One shouldn't be able to claim self-defense in such situation.
Suppose there are two people at two corners of a dark alleyway. They both hear a gunshot towards the center of the alley and draw their pistols in self-defence. They take a few steps and now see each other holding a gun. Each one raises his gun at the other, thinking that's the shooter. One fires and kills the other. AFAIK it would be justified self-defense
a) he never threatened anyone. In fact, he demonstrated better gun safety than, say, a Hollywood actor/producer 3 times his age.
b) how can you claim the crowd was unarmed? Of the 3 people that stuck around to be searched, 2 of them had weapons. A skateboard used as a bludgeon. And a Glock pistol that was drawn from concealment and pointed at his head.
It's not as simple as "can't claim self-defence if you initiated violence yourself".
If you're targeted personally i suppose. When the violence isn't targeted your running away wouldn't change the situation if there are other people around who can be shot. That reminds about that veteran who attacked the shooter several years ago at the Oregon college - he could have fled i guess, yet he didn't. Did he had an obligation to flee? I don't think anybody there entertained even for a moment such nonsense idea as the shooter's self-defense against the veteran who attacked him and got wounded in that fight. In Kenosha though the shooter shot the guys who tried to stop him (and from any point of view he was the active shooter to be stopped as he didn't stay with his first victim calling/waiting for police and rendering help to the victim as one would do in a true self-defense situation, and as an active shooter he was a threat to everybody, a threat that the people have the right to defend themselves from), and it somehow got successfully sold as self-defense on his part.
I strongly disagree. He left out some very important details from the video. Whether by accident or not, doesn't really matter in this case, IMO. (I know he issued corrections/clarifications in the comments, but most people are not gonna read those)
In other words, it's not "plainly obvious", and this comes down to the context beyond the moments before he shot people. Wisconsin law says you can ignore that context, and that self defense is self defense even if you create the situation that requires deadly force or are the aggressor.
Wisconsin law has exceptions to this, that allowed Rittenhouse to use self defense despite having himself escalated.
This is a bad thing for a few reasons (two people who both shoot each other can legitimately claim self defense, taken not much further and Ahmaud Arbery's killers could claim self defense after he reached for their gun to defend himself), and anything but "obvious".
Let's look at the five rules of self defense as they apply pretty much everywhere in the US. The last one is the big difference in Wisconsin.
* Innocence (was he there to commit a crime or hurt someone) -- Rittenhouse was generally there to help people. The altercation was started because he put out a fire.
* Imminence (was the use of force against him about to be used) -- The video shows Rosenbaum cornering him and lunging. The gunpowder stippling pattern shows that Rosenbaum's hand was on the barrel of the gun too. He shot at Maurice Freedman (jump kick man -- his identity was known to the prosecutors, but they hid his identity) who was in the process of trying to kick his face in with heavy boots. He shot at a guy assaulting him with a skateboard. Finally, he shot someone pointing a gun at his face.
* Proportionality (not excessive force -- in this case, only deadly force can be stopped by deadly force). I don't know of any state where grabbing a gun, pointing a gun, hitting someone with a skateboard (they weigh around 11 pounds -- a baseball bat weights around 2 pounds), or trying to crush someone's face aren't considered deadly force.
* Reasonableness (would any other reasonable person in that situation fear for their life) -- If you were a naive teenager (or even an adult) and an adult said they'd kill you and then waited until you were alone to chase you into a corner, would you be afraid? Would you wonder if you were about to die?
* Avoidance -- this is the different one. Some states have clear stand your ground law. You never have to retreat from a fight if you are defending yourself. Some states have castle doctrine which says you have to retreat on the street, but not in your home or it's curtilage (the frequently used area around the house). Some states say you must retreat first in all situation up until you are completely cornered. 38 states are stand your ground. A few more like California, Illinois, or Oregon have castle doctrine. only a handful in the Northeast have duty to retreat everywhere.
Now, even if there were a duty to retreat, Rittenhouse did this too. He ran away until he was cornered and only then (and with Rosenbaum mid-charge) did he shoot the gun. Likewise, he did not shoot his gun at the others until he'd been hit in the head with a rock and collapsed to the ground a few steps later in the middle of retreating to the safety of the police line.
TL;DR -- This shooting would have been justified even in states with the most strict self-defense laws.
Both of the men Rittenhouse killed were unarmed.
I accept that every shot Rittenhouse fired fell within the framework of self-defence under the law. I also accept that he did have a legal right to be in Kenosha.
Whether he had a legal right to be carrying the gun or not is a little more contentious. Although his possession of the gun was in line with the letter of the law, it seems likely from the wording that the exception was intended to apply to minors hunting and is poorly written, rather than an intentional decision to allow 17 year olds to carry AR-15s. Poorly worded laws are read in favour of the defence, which is why the gun charge was dropped. He likely would not have been allowed to buy or possess the gun in his home state.
But whatever the legality, I don't think it's right that a guy can go tooled up to another city, kill two unarmed people, and pose for celebratory photos with white supremacists afterwards.
The flow of information today is too fast to wait for definitive, legal judgements on every case, and balancing free speech, opinion, and commentary against spreading false news and inciting hatred is an incredibly challenging task. In the aftermath of the shooting, it seems Facebook implemented their 'mass shooting' playbook, which is, from my perspective, completely reasonable.
Facebook choosing not to allow praise or support for a killer is, in my opinion, sensible and logical. Once it became clear that the killings were not illegal, then Facebook removed these restrictions. I'm not exactly an ardent defender of Facebook's policies, but in this case, especially given that none of the facts are in contention, I think Facebook did the right thing.
I wonder if two "unarmed" people were attacking you, would you just let them beat you to death? I can't understand this train of thought at all.
With regards to your point about Rosenbaum, I don't disagree. But the fact remains that the only weapon in that interaction was Rittenhouse's (unless you count a bag of underpants).
What about the 3rd assailant who admitted on the stand to pulling a gun and aiming it prior to being shot, or the man in the mob (that mob was shouting "get him" may I add) who unloaded a magazine into the air during the incident?
The third guy, Grosskreutz, did indeed have a handgun, which he drew and pointed at a man who had already killed two people.
Again, I'm not saying that Rittenhouse did not have a justification to fear for his life and limb in those specific circumstances.
But they were circumstances which were created largely by his own decisions (travelling to Kenosha, carrying a weapon, shooting Rosenbaum).
I'm not trying to say that the people Rittenhouse shot at were angels. But none of them killed anyone.
They attempted to kill Kyle, but he defended himself. The reason Kyle wasn't murdered is not due to their sense of morals but instead their incompetence as combatants. It seems the rioters had more experience assaulting women and children and were ill equiped to assault a young man.
Again, not trying to paint these guys as angels, but it does not seem that this is correct:
- the 'mob' chasing Rittenhouse that led eventually to him opening fire on Rosenbaum were shouting 'get him', and may even have shouted 'kill him'. We know that at least one of these people had a gun, but this gun was fired up into the air, rather than at Rittenhouse, and Rosenbaum threw a bag of clothes at Rittenhouse. Yes, Rosenbaum was approaching Rittenhouse, and Rittenhouse was probably scared, but it doesn't look like Rosenbaum was about to kill him.
- Huber's half-hearted hit with the skateboard hardly seems like the kind of force he could have mustered if his intent were to smash Rittenhouse's head in (it also seems from the video as though Huber was already moving away from Rittenhouse by the time Rittenhouse shot him)
- Grosskreutz approached Rittenhouse with his pistol drawn and pointed at Rittenhouse, but did not fire at him, instead opting to try to disarm him. If he'd been trying to kill him, he'd have had the chance to do so.
Thanks for the discussion though, always interesting to hear someone else's point of view, even more so when neither of us has any different facts to the other.
Anyone stupid enough to charge someone carrying a weapon is not the kinda person you wanna take a chance being in close proximity with. You expect him to just stand there and take a beating? Or try to talk it out while the mob is threatening to kill him. How much time should he spend analyzing the situation?
Feel free to stand around and get beat down by a mob while you try to explain yourself. I think the rest of us would rather deal with a jury.
Maybe children shouldn't have guns. Maybe children shouldn't get themselves into situations where they feel the only way they can survive is to shoot and kill people.
Maybe enforcement should do their job so children don't have to try to do their job for them.
Completely agree on this one.
If he believed Kyle was an active shooter why would he "pull" his punches so to speak. If he didn't believe Kyle was an active shooter than he didn't have any reasons to attack and disarm him.
My personal opinion is that he wasn't trying to use the skateboard as a weapon, he was trying to use it as a shield, or to give him a bigger surface to push the gun with.
Either that or that the idea came to him too late to swing fully.
Those are both good questions though, and I don't have answers to either.
I think it is incredibly likely that if Rittenhouse did not have a gun, then the two people he killed would still be alive, and I find it unlikely that Rittenhouse would be dead today.
You are correct that I don't believe that these specific circumstances that led to these deaths should be legal.
I don't believe all attempts to defend oneself are wrong, nor do I believe that it's inherently wrong to use 'unbalanced' force in the context of self-defence (ie: just because someone is unarmed does not mean that you should never use deadly force against them).
My opinion is that he had a gun he shouldn't have had, was in a place he shouldn't have been, causing trouble he shouldn't have been involved in, and killed two people who shouldn't have died.
As it turns out, none of that is illegal.
There’s a case (I think it might still be pending) about a drunk guy who hits someone one time and kills them. I’ve seen a video of a kid hitting his friend and killing them. In fact, a lot of people have died from being hit just one time the wrong way.
Even if he weren’t armed, Rosenbaum still chases him down. Rosenbaum’s buddy Zaminski had a gun too. If they’d pinned him down, they might have shot him given all the trouble they went through to ambush him.
Also, Grosskreutz is interesting. He ran down Rittenhouse while pulling a gun. At the same time, he testified he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone.
Mob mentality is crazy. Loads of people have died at the hands of unarmed mobs. Any individual would never hurt anyone else, but together, the mob mentality results in something terrible happens.
> I don't believe all attempts to defend oneself are wrong, nor do I believe that it's inherently wrong to use 'unbalanced' force in the context of self-defence (ie: just because someone is unarmed does not mean that you should never use deadly force against them).
Your other points are all good and interesting - one in particular caught my eye:
> If they’d pinned him down, they might have shot him
That's true, but they might not have. You can't just go around shooting people because you're afraid that their friend might come and shoot you.
He wasn't worried about that. He was worried about they guy trying to grab the gun in his hands (as proven due to the powder stippling on half of Rosenbaum's hand).
We've got the Joker just released from the mental hospital. He beats up the woman he's supposed to love and He's trying to burn down the city. How much self control will he have toward a complete stranger who is foiling his plans?
You seem to be arguing that there's nothing to fear in this situation.
What other options are there once the situation is inevitable?
This is the second time you're telling me what I'm arguing, and the second time you're wrong.
I absolutely, completely believe that Rittenhouse was in mortal fear for his life when he killed Rosenbaum.
But he should never have had a gun, and he should never have been in that situation.
- Rittenhouse did something legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy.
- An external agent intervenes, causing the incident
- "Well, he shouldn't have been there to begin with" vs "Well, she knew that was a bad part of town"
Main differences there would be that he defended himself successfully, so to some, victim and aggressor get flipped.
I would probably think that a potential rape victim who successfully defended him or herself was justified in doing so.
But there is a scale.
You can't go and stand on the sidelines at an orgy, then shoot anyone who looks at you funny. You can't go and shoot someone who offers to buy you a drink on the off-chance they might slip a roofie in it. You can't just turn around and shoot someone who is walking behind you in case they might be a rapist. On the other hand, if you shoot a guy who tries to drag you into his car, that's pretty clearly a sensible defence.
There are grey areas here too. What if a guy runs up behind you and you spin around and shoot, and it turns out you'd left your phone at the bar, and he was trying to catch up and give it to you.
> 'legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy'
This does describe both 'drinking a lot' and 'going with a gun to a riot', but I don't think it does justice to the differences between the behaviours.
Drinking too much, wearing short skirts, etc. does not imply any kind of consideration of consequences. Bringing a gun to a riot DOES. It shows that Rittenhouse was aware of the increased likelihood of violence, and had already decided that he was prepared to respond with deadly force.
Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
Agreed. You're in luck here, as I've actually just rewatched the Fox clip of Grosskreutz's court appearance just before I saw this, and cross referenced it with the NYT visual investigation just to account for selective clipping.
In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. As to why I believe so, lets go over what happened post Rosenbaum.
In the initial confrontation, Rittenhouse retreats, trips and falls to the ground. Huber hits Rittenhouse with a skateboard and gets shot in the chest. Grosskreutz then advances with his gun, then gets shot as well.
Why do I consider this proportionate? First: Rittenhouse made an attempt to retreat. Only after the first physical attack (skateboard) and an attempted disarming, did Rittenhouse fire. After which, as per Grosskreutz's own admission, Rittenhouse did not fire when he backed off with his arms raised. Only after he ~returned to a firing position~ lowered his firearm and advanced did Rittenhouse fire on him as well. As he was armed and advancing with a firearm, I'd consider that a proportional response.
>Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
Apologies, I'm not too sure of the context before that as I've only personally seen the bit where Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse. However, if Huber and Grosskreutz did believe that they had an active shooter, they might ALSO be justified. Both sides here may have a sufficient justification in this case.
However, in my opinion, and this is contingent on the accuracy of the NYT's report and the above assumption of "active shooter", the only ones who weren't justified, and are thus the root cause, are Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse, and whoever that idiot shooting a pistol into the sky while Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse was.
There's of course more to this, but I'll leave it open for response.
Also, thanks for keeping it civil, it's much appreciated when discussing this sort of controversial topic.
Same!
Just briefly on this:
> Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse
I don't think it's been clearly established why Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse's testimony on this sounds hollow and unlikely, and the narrative that Rosenbaum was unhinged after getting out of hospital doesn't quite tally with the fact that there were people with him - he wasn't a lone actor here.
It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side. As I mentioned in another comment, the drone footage shows Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still 20 feet away from him. To my mind, it's far from certain that this was the first time Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Rosenbaum, but we'll never know.
Now to my main point:
> In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate.
If I think to how I personally would have acted in Rittenhouse's position from the moment Rosenbaum threw the bag at him, I think I would probably also have been in a state of adrenaline-fueled panic, and I would have probably made very similar choices.
I don't really have any arguments that Rittenhouse only fired his gun at people he (reasonably, whether rightly or wrongly) believed were attacking him. I do think it's a stretch to think that they were all trying to kill him, particularly Huber (is this further evidence to support my hypothesis above that maybe Rittenhouse escalated the lesser threats of being disarmed or of being detained to threats of deadly force? Hard to say).
To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. He chose to go to a location where he was expecting people to get injured, brought a gun with him, and associated himself with a band of people who believed that they were some kind of private security force.
No-one died that night (or any other night of the unrest) apart from the people Rittenhouse killed, there were no other reported injuries from gunshots, no mob attacks[0], which makes it seem relatively unlikely that anyone would have died if Rittenhouse had not been there, or had not brought his AR-15.
Whatever the ins and outs and the specifics of the case might be, I still think that Facebook were right to err on the side of caution here - technically he may not have committed a crime, but he still killed people, and although the doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty' holds, his 'innocence' hung on an affirmative defence, which sort of swings it the other way to a certain extent.
[0]: I gather there were some minor injuries to a firefighter and a police officer, but couldn't find details on the circumstances.
At that time tempers were already flaring nationwide and I find both the above, as well as it's inverse, plausible. Most likely, both sides were clashing, as is oft the case in situations as volatile as this.
Returning to the NYT's video of Rosenbaum, there's a few things to note. One, that he was potentially mentally ill (relevant?), and two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia", sufficiently so that the other protestors felt it necessary to stop him [1].
In the later part, of the same video (note that there's a cut though), Rosenbaum seemingly suddenly pursues[2] and continues chasing. Only after he gets quite close (in my opinion; 18:04 or so), do we hear the first shots. There could be a hypothetical in between to fill in the gap, but given the available evidence that I'd observed, I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.
>To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. ...
So, I think that while I'd agree with you that yes, the problem started long before the first shot, I would think that it's better to evaluate it at point of firing. Otherwise we'd be chasing this rabbit hole till the end of time.
The protestors and rioters shouldn't have been there earlier as curfews were in place, and the police should have been enforcing law. The side arguments of open carry vs gun ownership and the inherent lethality increase a gun brings to any conflict, all the way to "gun rights". These arguments however are all applicable to the situation but are far more general, and I feel, a too tempting distraction.
I thus divide these into two different questions (or more, if necessary) so they can be addressed piecemeal. 1: At the time of firing, was Rittenhouse justified. 2: All the other bits and bobs about the context of the situation and who should have been there.
For the first, I've continued to make my case above, while for the second (rest?), this comment is long enough as it is, and I'll leave it open for now if you want to pick that one up.
><On facebook's topic ban> This one is a bit more dear an issue to me, being a question of speech rights. But it's also one of those which I haven't come to anything solid. However, picturing myself in that situation, I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked.
EDIT:
Oops, I missed your line on Rittenhouse's belief in his immediate danger. I think we've already come to the same conclusion in a different thread in which the government, and it's dereliction of it's duty to maintain order is probably the one who should be most at fault (correct me if I've misplaced your position).
[1] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=846 [2] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=1056
Agreed.
> two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia"
Again, we see a part of the story here which definitely supports that interpretation. There's also a part of the video you linked to which (I believe) shows the police asking the 'militia' not to point their guns at people[0], which to me suggests that they had been doing this prior to the request from the police. I think it's impossible to know whether Rosenbaum's behaviour was in response to some (perceived?) aggression against him in the first place.
> I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.
Potentially. However, Rittenhouse is running, with his gun, towards a location where Rosenbaum's 'side' are up to something. Maybe Rosenbaum believes Rittenhouse is going to go and shoot some of the other protestors (or vandals, whatever), and that's why he starts chasing. As you say, it's a long chain back to where the first 'provocation' may have happened. It's clear that the situation developed over the course of the whole day, rather than in the 15 seconds leading up to the killings.
> I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked
Yes, but at the end of the day, you shot and killed not just one person, but two. The president of the USA was publicly in his corner[1]. I'm not sure I'd say that the opposition to the narrative was blocked, it was just against Facebook's policies. They get slammed when they don't react quickly enough[2], strongly enough[3], etc., and then they get slammed when they do take stronger action, so frankly it's hard to see how they could get it right. I get the free speech implications, but if your only forum for free speech is through Facebook, we have much worse problems in society than whether they allow you to post 'Rittenhouse is a hero' or not.
> the government [...] should be most at fault
That's a pretty accurate summary of my position. Failing to properly maintain order led to the formation of vigilante groups (and it seems these were even encouraged by law enforcement), which ultimately led to the clashes which resulted in Rosenbaum and Huber's deaths.
[0]: https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=980 [1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racia... [2]: https://www.politico.eu/article/facebook-content-moderation-... [3]: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-15/facebook-tw...
Grosskreutz stated outright during the trial that he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone. Despite this, there is video of him pulling his gun while he was chasing Rittenhouse down. Maybe this was just mob mentality Maybe this is because he was associated with violent revolutionary groups to the point that he was invited to speak at their rallies.
If going to a riot with a gun is stupid, chasing a guy with a gun is at least as stupid. The fact that he was running toward where EVERYONE knew the police were lined up makes this even more strange. Why risk your life when you can corral the shooter into the police?
Could you share a link? I could only find part of his testimony where he says that he thought Rittenhouse was an active shooter.
2:11:20 -- Grosskreutz denies he was chasing Rittenhouse.
2:23:30 -- he establishes that when he saw Rittenhouse, he was just helping people
2:27:00 -- he says he believed there was an active shooter, but had no information about who it was and apparently had no way to say why he believed this to be the case.
On the video Grosskreutz was taking with his camera, it is shown that Rittenhouse says that he is going to the police. Grosskreutz claims he though Rittenhouse said "he shot first" even though they sound absolutely nothing alike.
2:30:00 -- he says he was NOT chasing Rittenhouse. Instead, he just happened to be coincidentally pulling his gun while he happened running in the same direction. At the same time, he says he was running that direction because Rittenhouse was. Make of this inconsistency what you will.
2:31:00 -- he sees people mobbing Rittenhouse
2:32:00 -- he says he was concerned about Rittenhouse's safety. This DIRECTLY argues against the idea he believed Rittenhouse was an active shooter.
2:35:00 -- he believed Rittenhouse was in physical danger (even though he just denied seeing jump kick man kick Rittenhouse)
2:36:00 -- he says Huber was slinging his skateboard by the trucks (note: a skateboard is 11 pounds while a baseball bat is only 2 pounds). He says that as a medic, this concerned him. He says he believed Rittenhouse was in danger of head trauma and being seriously hurt. He even claimed in his police report that he told Huber to stop hitting Rittenhouse (though he says in hindsight this was untrue). Once again, there is no reason for concern if he believed Rittenhouse was a dangerous active shooter.
2:37:30 -- he claimed to the police that Rittenhouse just shot him. He completely left out that he had a gun and was advancing and that no shots were fired when he put his hands up.
2:38:30 -- he claims the anesthesia somehow made him forget about the gun while still allowing him to remember everything else with perfect clarity.
2:44:00 -- delving into prosecutorial misconduct where the prosecutors suddenly decided to tell the detectives not to execute a search warrant (they don't want Brady evidence is my read given all the other misconduct allegations).
2:48:00 -- he testifies that EVERYONE who put up their hands and backed off -- even the guy with a club -- do NOT get shot. Once again, this is not what an active shooter does.
2:51:30 -- the point where the prosecution lost case. He contradicts his testimony to the prosecutor in the face of an image of his bicep being vaporized (his word) while his gun is pointed directly at Rittenhouse's head.
I admit though that I’ve only seen the highlights of the cross, which I why I asked for a link.
I might go away and watch the rest of cross this evening.
All of this just leads me to believe that no one of "good quality" shows up to those events with the idea of causing excess trouble (outside of peacefully demonstrating). How else could it be that the three people who he shot had vast criminal back grounds (which don't apply to his self defense because he did not know about the criminal history when he was shooting them) being that of a child molester and domestic abusers and Kyle himself was on video beating up some girl.
When bad situations happen amongst a crowd of people, the "good quality" people see themselves out and try to leave while the "bad quality" people get hype and try to instigate further.
Well put, I disagree only with your last sentence, unless cynical. I think prosecution made a mistake going after intentional homicide charges. All resources and focus should have been on a successful felony gun conviction. Only then should the prosecutor turned to felony murder charges. Even with the jury's finding, the judge should have partially overturned the jury's finding, and found guilty on lesser but included charges to ensure at least a few years of incarceration.
I'd also have to ask. The jury, with more exposure to the evidence than anyone else here found him not guilty. What exceptional case/point would you make to say that would show Rittenhouse's guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt". Furthermore, the maximal, and I mean maximal, punishment for the misdemeanor is 9 months, far less than the few years you suggest.
The intentional homicide charge was the right thing for the state to do, but I also think it was right he was found not guilty.
Based on the law as it's written, I don't think there's anything that Rittenhouse could actually have been charged with that he could have been found guilty of (except possibly the dismissed curfew violation charge). I just can't reconcile that with the fact that a kid took a gun to a protest and killed two people, which I think almost everyone would agree is not a good outcome for society (although I know there have been discussions about the value of human life around Rosenbaum particularly).
He had a gun he had a right to have, in a place he had a right to be, at a protest that he had a right to be involved in as much as the protesters, and killed two people rightfully in self defense. What's the problem here? If people don't want to be killed, I would recommend they don't chase down an armed man and imminently threaten his life.
I think Rittenhouse had reason to fear for his life, but I don't agree with the statement that they were imminently threatening his life as a fact.
It may be true that Rosenbaum had threatened Rittenhouse's life. But neither Huber nor Grosskreutz had done so.
You may ask whether Grosskreutz pointing his gun at Rittenhouse constitutes threatening his life, and the answer to that is... maybe? But if the fact alone of pointing a gun at someone is threatening someone's life, then we have to rewind and look at whether Rosenbaum had reason to fear for his life.
We have video evidence of Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still at least 20 feet away.
Not legally speaking. A skateboard can easily be classified as a deadly weapon. Same as a baseball bat, a big branch or similar stuff.
Wisconsin defines a deadly weapon (actually they use the term 'dangerous weapon') as "any firearm, whether loaded or unloaded; any device designed as a weapon [...] or any other device or instrumentality which, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is calculated or likely to produce death or great bodily harm."
You might say that the skateboard was 'likely to produce great bodily harm in the manner it was used', which I think is plausible, although clearly Huber was not skilled in using his skateboard in this way.
I would point out though that it would be *completely wrong* to say that Huber was 'armed' because he was carrying a skateboard. Although he did hit Rittenhouse with it, it doesn't seem as he was carrying the skateboard as a weapon, it was just an opportunistic usage.
Although I would say that the way Huber hit Rittenhouse with the skateboard doesn't really seem as though it's intended to kill or seriously injure, it seems more like he's using it to try to push the assault rifle away from him.
We'll never know, unfortunately.
I don't think you are arguing in good faith.
With regards to your specific point, my very next phrase explains what I see in the video instead of an intention to kill or seriously injure.
You might disagree, which is your right, but please don’t accuse me of not arguing in good faith.
It's pretty clear the attacker was part of the attempted beating of Rittenhouse. You wrote it seems like he was just "using it to try to push the assault rifle away from him" to justify the attacker's actions, but you failed to mention the obvious consequence that Rittenhouse would die / be beat up had the attacker succeeded in disarming Rittenhouse.
Everyone can see high quality video footage at 0:15 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iryQSpxSlrg
He hit Rittenhouse with his board, sure. Whether it was attack or defence is questionable.
> that tried to blow up a gas station
Can you support this with evidence? I haven’t seen anything that suggests they were trying to blow up the gas station.
> one of the attackers was a convicted child molester
Disgraceful but ultimately irrelevant, unless you think that Rittenhouse knew that and acted on his knowledge.
> attempted beating [… with] the obvious consequence that Rittenhouse would die / be beat up had the attacker succeeded in disarming Rittenhouse.
This is not obvious by a long shot, although it is possible. The police were a few hundred yards down the road, and it is plausible that Rittenhouse would have been held on the ground until police arrived, or marched down to the police, etc.
I have seen the footage and I stand by what I said. If Huber’s intention was to kill or seriously injure Rittenhouse, he would have swung harder and from further away. From 0:14 in your linked video, you can see Huber approaching with his skateboard held at waist height, almost as though he has forgotten he’s carrying it. Others have made a big point about how heavy a skateboard is, but Huber doesn’t leverage any of that weight, by swinging it, he instead sort of jabs with it.
Rittenhouse was running towards the police and away from the mob. He ran after Rittenhouse to attack him instead of fleeing.
> Disgraceful but ultimately irrelevant, unless you think that Rittenhouse knew that and acted on his knowledge.
> This is not obvious by a long shot, although it is possible. The police were a few hundred yards down the road, and it is plausible that Rittenhouse would have been held on the ground until police arrived, or marched down to the police, etc.
We are not debating Rittenhouse self-defense as that it is obvious from the video footage and the trial. The fact that one of the attackers was a convicted child molester is one of the signals that indicate that the attackers would beat up (and possibly kill) Rittenhouse. Other signals include the fact that there were previous beatings in those riots, that rioters previously attacked police, etc.
You are derailing the conversation and I do not want to repeat myself or extend my time on this. You can see the trial for more information.
And yet when Rittenhouse turns and shoots Rosenbaum instead of continuing to flee, that's self-defence?
> We are not debating Rittenhouse self-defense [...] You are derailing the conversation and I do not want to repeat myself or extend my time on this.
No, we were debating Facebook's response. I said that I thought it was reasonable for Facebook to act with an abundance of caution around the killing of two unarmed men.
Someone objected to me calling him 'unarmed'. My contention is that although a skateboard can be used as a weapon, that wasn't how Huber used his skateboard.
I'm not sure what I'm 'derailing', or what you think 'the conversation' is, but you're welcome to stop commenting if you don't want to debate further.
Surely the hard question is "the line drawing". Claiming you support his right to be in a place at a time with a gun and defend himself from attackers who were intent on injuring him... feels extremely reasonable? As though it should be protected.
Far from saying Facebook needs to allow "lol I'm glad those fuckers are dead" posts to stay up but surely advocating for his innocence of any crime is not a thing that should be censored?
All of the people Rittenhouse shot at were armed. Multiple witnesses including the state's testified to the fact that Rosenbaum, the pedophile screaming the N-word repeatedly that night (and he was white in case you're wondering) who was shot first, was lunging and trying to grab the gun. A person becomes armed when he attempts to take another person's weapon.
The second man shot at, "jump kick man," was using his feet as weapons when he was shot at. When we use even our bodies in a violent manner, they become weapons.
The second man shot was in the act of wielding his skateboard as a weapon, and also grabbed the gun. He became armed when he started using the skateboard as a weapon, and further when he grabbed the gun.
The final person shot was literally armed with an illegally-possessed handgun. He was not shot until he approached Rittenhouse and pointed it at Rittenhouse's head.
All armed.
> Whether he had a legal right to be carrying the gun or not is a little more contentious. Although his possession of the gun was in line with the letter of the law, it seems likely from the wording that the exception was intended to apply to minors hunting and is poorly written, rather than an intentional decision to allow 17 year olds to carry AR-15s. Poorly worded laws are read in favour of the defence, which is why the gun charge was dropped. He likely would not have been allowed to buy or possess the gun in his home state.
It seems to me that banning sixteen and seventeen year olds from possessing sawed-off shotguns and pistols makes sense outside of a hunting context. I personally didn't find the law particularly strangely worded, unless we're going in with the expectation that it will nail a kid.
FWIW, Rittenhouse testified on the stand that he had asked police for advice before his friend bought the rifle, and was told their arrangement complied with the law. That may not be a real legal defense, but I mean, sheesh. Hard to fault anyone who takes pains to comply with the law.
> But whatever the legality, I don't think it's right that a guy can go tooled up to another city, kill two unarmed people, and pose for celebratory photos with white supremacists afterwards.
His father and grandmother live in Kenosha. He had a job there. He had in fact been photographed cleaning graffiti from the walls of a Kenosha high school earlier that same day. It was "his city" as much as anyone else's.
What's been most shocking about the media coverage over this matter, and the incessant, unfounded claims of "white supremacy" on the part of Mr. Rittenhouse, is that without actually saying it, the media has strongly implied to the average normie that Kyle killed black people.
For one example, see https://twitter.com/sarahbeth345/status/1458593872557133825
>He added: “I wasn’t able to, because then there was a mob forming and calling for my execution to get him and kill him.”
What did you expect him to do? EMTs are not gods that reverse death, nor was he wrong getting away from a violent crowd. He offered first aid, where did he say he was an EMT?
Did you actually watch the video or read the interview?
His father lives there, it is just a few miles from his legal residence.
I don't think that this was discussed at trial (and probably rightly), but I do question how much he actually visited his father.
It seems as though he lived with his mum and sisters half an hour away from Kenosha.
His mother and sisters were in the courtroom when the verdict was read.
Anyway, I don't argue that the simple fact that he was in Kenosha was wrong. Being exactly where he was, at the time he was, with a weapon...
I don't really know what I want from this. I certainly don't think that the government should pass laws stopping people from travelling, or from being wherever they want to be, but nonetheless, I feel as though the whole thing was avoidable and ended in tragedy for three families, and yes, I include the Rittenhouse family here.
Even though it's been established that Rittenhouse is not guilty of the charges, the rumours about the family history are saddening. I don't believe he went out planning to kill people, I think he was playing policeman, but the fact remains that he killed two people and has to live with that
Plus I'm sure there are civil suits to follow.
I don't think that's quite true. Biden's initial comment was "Look, I stand by what the jury has concluded," he said. "The jury system works, and we have to abide by it."
His handlers went on to later change the narrative.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/19/politics/joe-biden-kyle-ritte...
"Handlers" is quite the term.
Do we believe the President or not? If we can't believe what they say and other people have to speak and do for them, why don't we elect one of those people? instead?
If only the Tsar knew!
I feel like I sound like one of the right wing sympathizers but I'm honestly just curious how things work over there, are you willing to explain?
Can you cite the specific German statute or case history that says this? Or is it just what you intuitively expect to be true?
> There is a good reason why only highly trained government forces are allowed to carry a weapon let alone some teenager.
For what it's worth, I wish that were the case in the US too. But whether carrying a gun is illegal is a different question from whether using it in this specific situation makes you also guilty of the additional crime of murder.
It is a valid excuse in penal law, yet it does not apply to civil liabilities. You can still be sued for damages. An official prosecutor told me that you can use it once in your life to beat somebody up. After that, they will not believe you anymore.
However, I completely agree that it does not make sense to judge the Rittenhouse case by German law.
In every state of which I’ve ever been a resident, responding with lethal force in such a case is in fact legal.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__32.html
What makes you think the case would’ve been adjudicated differently in Germany?
Edit: to be clear, certainly bringing a gun to a protest at all is illegal in Germany, so he could presumably be prosecuted for that, but it's not at all clear why he'd have been guilty of murder.
Of course in the UK he'd be looking at multiple years in prison just for the gun offence, and it's also less likely someone else would be waving a gun around in his direction.
Although perhaps it would be enough to get it downgraded to manslaughter.
I'd love to hear from a lawyer on this TBH.
Me too! I'm not at all sure I'm right -- but then again, neither are (or should be) the people with hot takes shot from the hip about how obviously he would have been found guilty of murder in enlightened Europe. Thanks for the interesting discussion.
Pepper spray is also illegal in the UK.
> If during that hypothetical protest, there were people jump kicking him and swinging skateboards at him, and he used the pepper spray, would he be charged with battery for bringing the pepper spray in the first place?
Basically, going prepared with any form of weapon in the UK is illegal.
If you picked up something off the street, a piece of 2x4 that was lying around, that sort of thing, then you're likely to be OK if it's clear you were under attack. But if you're packing weapons ahead of time to go out to an event then you should either not go or expect that you will be charged with a criminal offence if you get involved in any trouble.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/offensive-weapons-kniv...
“any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person”.
Aren't there any acceptable scenarios were lethal self defense can be applied?
Kyle Rittenhouse isn't guilty of murder under US law, and the killings have been determined to be self defence. OK then.
But you have a young person being driven to a counter-protest by a parent, picking up a firearm on the way, ostensibly to use the threat of deadly force to help prevent property damage to some businesses as part of some sort of vigilante militia. There is just so much wrong with this picture before we even get to the (inevitable IMHO) tragedy.
This is where I stopped reading, because you're incorrect about basic facts of the case:
https://news.yahoo.com/kyle-rittenhouses-mother-did-not-1838...
OK great, the mother wasn't involved, TIL. But the rest stands, there is so much wrong with the whole picture leading up to the (inevitable) tragedy.
When a person manages to be wrong so efficiently, why on Earth should they feel entitled to partial credit for supporting arguments to a factually incorrect main idea?
Then you misunderstood the thesis of my comment. Who provided the transport was the least part of it.
The main idea is that the picture is pretty damn f'd up when teenage civillians are going armed to protect private property at/from a protest.
That his mother didn't drive him makes it slightly less messed up, but the overall picture of US society it paints is pretty much the same giant WTF as it was before.
I disagree. It's all a huge mess. Armed citizens setting themselves up as effective vigilante defence forces is terrible both for the circumstances that lead there, and the action itself. It really looks like a broken society, and is something I'd expect in far less developed countries.
> Take away the 2nd, there'd be more damage
Maybe, but maybe there would be more people alive.
Now, when the state fails to uphold its obligations and the social contract is broken, what happens is that people either flee the area, or they turn to vigilantism. Doing nothing is a privilege few can afford. The people living in these communities do not want to flee. They have tried calling the police, but the police do not come. They have tried voting, but it doesn't work. They hear of another impending riot. They decide to defend their community. This is the setting of the Rittenhouse saga, and many other such sagas soon to come. Yes, it is a 'weird' situation in a first world country, but it is not weird at all in the annals of history. The case resonates emotionally about more than guns — he is either a hero who stood up when no one else would to stop this madness and defended himself from the violent hordes, or he is an instigator who inserted himself into a lawful anti-racism event and joyfully gunned down the peaceful protesters.
Judging Rittenhouse as if he was in Germany makes no sense. Watch the video—this wasn’t Germany, it was Iraq. In Germany, the police would never have allowed armed rioters to burn down multiple city blocks over two days.
It’s fine, you can say out loud that you don’t value the lives of people you disagree with.
That's a law enforcement role in most of the rest of the western world.
[0] I have no source, but it seems consistent with the police behavior observable in the videos.
>That's a law enforcement role in most of the rest of the western world.
Might want to take a step back and realize what they were protesting.
The problem is that when the government is derelict in it's duty (or, if critical mass of people believe so), this is the expected outcome. If people lose faith in the government to protect them, they're not going to roll over and die, they'll take whatever measures they deem fit to defend themselves and their property.
Law Enforcement exists for a reason. Maintenance of a degree of order keeps the populace happy while professionalism and codification of enforcement moderates the response (at least in the general case). Ideally, it's the "win-win" scenario where the perpetrators get to be treated well enough, while the populace is confident that violations of their safety and rights will be addressed.
When the destruction starts, it stops being a protest, and there is no between.
That's IMO essentially the same statement. Why shouldn't you have deterrence?
[1]: Guardian (2012) https://archive.ph/0HnBB#selection-2031.1-2031.153
The two police in the vehicle testified during the trial.
He called his friend who owned the gun. No need to call the police when they were less than a block away. I'd also imagine that 911 was swamped given how so much of the city was being destroyed.
The protests were about perceived police brutality.
Cop's view:
A guy had a knife in the seat that they'd seen previously. He was wanted for raping his a woman and was in the process of stealing her van and kidnapping her kids. Even if there were no knife, you don't allow the rapist to get into the deadly weapon and take kids as hostages.
To them, the riots were unjust and a lot of them probably wanted to stop the city burning, but they were told to cordon off the area and basically forbidden from doing anything. At the same time, if they had to use force against a violent rioter, it would be all over the press and that officer would probably be fired. This leaves the armed citizens as the only line of defense (and a line without the police politics). This seems like the reason why they praise them in their interactions.
Politician's view:
The city is run by one family of Democrat politicians. Their party officially supported the riots with the now current Vise-President actually raising funds for the rioters. Going against the mob would not only go against the party, but it would cause the mob to show up at their houses (this happened in other cities) and might even throw their family's dynasty out of power. They didn't care about the part that was burning because it was the poorer parts of the city.
Citizen's view:
The politicians ordered the police to abandon them. They had signs like "we have little children here" in an attempt to keep their families safe (it seems that even having BLM support signs wasn't enough). The businesses were generally either not insured or under-insured. Lots of people worked at those places and were looking at not having a job. Everyone's cars were being demolished or burned. For many of them, everything they spent their entire life working on was ruined in a few hours.
Amed Citizen's view:
We've been hiding in fear for two days now as the police do nothing. If they won't, we will. Today, we're putting a stop to this.
Rioter's view:
I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds. Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!”
Humanity is the same everywhere and looking at history shows this to happen every time a local power vacuum is created and mobs begin to rule.
>Had he not posed with an assault rifle in the first place two people would not be dead today
Had the victim not defended himself the offender could still offend today. I don't understand this victim-blaming, I really don't. If I see a guy with a rifle protecting his property, somehow its his fault I get shot after I charge at him?
In those scenarios the state no longer has a monopoly on violence.
Also assault rifle isn’t a thing. The term is a made up classification of a weapon.
Yes, caliber does not make an Assault Rifle.
No, it's not a, "made up term."
Shotguns, hunting rifles and pistols are optimized for specific activities and generally become less effective as the circumstances diverge from that optimized range or shooting position.
This makes them less ideal for killing humans everywhere we are found.
Assault rifles are optimized for human to human combat.
They are optimized to deliver a large number effective rounds down range, from a variety of positions at a variety of distances.
These tools are far more effective and efficient at killing human beings over an extended duration firefight in arbitrary circumstances.
It's the shape, flexibility and effectiveness of the platform that we're referring to when we say, "Assault Rifle."
Please don't muddy the waters here simply because the US legal system isn't able to overcome NRA bullshit.
>They are optimized to deliver a large number effective rounds down range, from a variety of positions at a variety of distances.
This is precisely where a blanket term like “assault rifle” becomes pretty impossible to specifically define, and consequently regulate.
>large number effective rounds down range
Based on this comment, you’re referring caliber? And capacity? And perhaps action? So what about a semi-auto 5.56 with a pencil barrel and a 5 round magazine? Still an “assault weapon?”
>from a variety of positions at a variety of distances
How would you interpret this into characteristics of a rifle? Does this mean it has to have a folding bipod? It has to be under a certain weight? *Any* rifle can be more or less effective at a variety of ranges. The cartridge and shooter have more influence over that criteria than the rifle.
>It's the shape, flexibility and effectiveness of the platform
This is feels territory. Because none of these are concrete characteristics inherit to this claim. Define “effective”, or define “ineffective”. Tell me how the “shape” would designate or exclude one specific rifle over another…
In the US, there are something like 3-400 rifle shootings compared to 40-50,000 pistol shootings. When you look up mass shootings, you'll see pistols used all the time because 20-30 rounds in a tiny pistol are about as lethal as 20-30 rounds in a rifle at close range against unarmored targets while being TONS more maneuverable.
Tavor x95 is 26.4" with a 15.5" barrel. The M1 carbine (already cut down from the M16) is 7.5" longer despite having a shorter 14.5" barrel and although the weight is technically the same, the Tavor seems 2-3x lighter because the weight is right next to the body rather than a foot away.
Tavor x95 Carbine (22.5" long) is almost a foot shorter and 3/4 lb lighter than the M4 carbine. The M4 CQRB blinds the shooter in dark rooms and loses tons of stopping power with the 10" barrel, but is still a quarter-pound heavier and 3.5" longer. Those inches have a huge impact on time to target which is critical indoors.
Despite this, countries like Canada which ban the "assault rifles" like the AR-15 still allow the Tavor. It's not about the style of rifle.
I'd also put forward that if efficiency were the goal, 6.5 Grendel would be used instead of 5.56 as it has almost 2x the momentum, 20% more kinetic energy, and 4x lower ballistic coefficient while only increasing weight 10-15% (still half the weight of 7.62).
The US has tried to move away from the AR-15 platform numerous times (and a ton of special forces who have the option already have). Each time, they run into the issue where the training costs (hundreds of hours for millions of people), rifle costs, and cost to replace billions of rounds of ammo are just too high despite the efficiency increases.
AR isn't the best. It's just the most pragmatic at the moment.
The ISSUE in this microcosm of the discussion is the CONFLATION of the terms Assault Rifle" with "Assault Weapon", which a a made up term by people trying to vilify firearms, especially scary black ones.
So basically Rittenhouse 'morally accountable' for not foreseeing the unforseeable. How silly.
Rittenhouse attended a protest while legally carrying a firearm. 2020 had seen tens of thousands of people do the same. How many people were forced to fire their guns in self-defense at a protest? I can't think of a single one. Any risk he was incurring would have been remote and purely hypothetical. For that you hold him morally responsible for these men's deaths?
What about the actions of those men who he killed? Unlike Rittenhouse's attendance at the protest, their decision to attack Kyle Rittenhouse was decidedly not legal. Unlike Rittenhouse's choice to attend the protest, which carried only hypothetical danger, his attackers would have had no doubt that attacking a man with a gun carried risks that were neither remote nor hypothetical.
Remember, when conflict seemed imminent, Rittenhouse ran away, attempting to avoid conflict. His attackers chased him down and forced the issue.
The jury didn't conclude that Rittenhouse is a good person, or that his victims deserved to die, or that they were bad people or looters. The jury didn't conclude that America needs more people like Rittenhouse, or that we should celebrate his actions.
The jury concluded that he wasn't guilty of murder. That's all. You're a lawyer, you know that.
Perhaps if their blocks were successful in preventing his legal defense, they could now claim to be justified by a guilty verdict..
Mill:
> First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.
The last point is the least obvious. Pro-Rittenhouse views were "held in the manner of a prejudice" by those who had them because they were censored. When those views aren't censored and there's a healthy back-and-forth, moderacy tends to prevail.
I've heard some very bad hot takes that basically amount to "he should have killed those people". Advocating for killing people is way less controversial than whatever "nuance" people want to assign to the case regarding legal standing of guns and various self defense laws.
Its not crazy to imagine someone thinking to just ban that whole discourse from a platform, even if takes some "genuine" and not-murderous conversations with it - simply to avoid people advocating death.
this article talks about a post the family of a recent school shooter made praising/defending him on facebook - so obviously facebook is applying this rule very selectively. I think it would help their credibility if they had examples of other times they apply these rules - but it seems more like they make up the rules on the spot and apply them based on their internal politics.
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/arlington/article25...
Of course large companies setting narratives is not a new problem for us - large media conglomerates have done similar things for decades. But the scale at which Facebook operates and the reach it has, to say that support of Rittenhouse was disallowed as an opinion on the entire platform - just gives me serious pause.
I get that "freedom of the press" does not include freedom to use someone else's press, and the owner has the absolute right to decide who may use his press. That said, we have a legal differentiation between "publisher" and "common carrier", and by culling §230-protected content in a clearly biased manner Facebook etc is establishing themselves as "publisher" culpable for libelous & criminal content.
No, they aren't. True, if it were not online, Facebook's involvement with selection of which provided content to promote might make them a publisher (it's kind of hard, because both bookstores and other distributors and publishers, offline, actively select content in very biased ways, but face very different liability regimes). But while you reference “§230-protected content”, you fail to understand the operative language of § 230: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Note that there is no “unless, as a provider, they choose to promote that content in a ‘clearly biased’ manner” caveat. Just a bar against the provider being treated as a publisher of content that originates from someone else.
No, I don't, because there aren't any that are relevant here.
> which speak heavily toward good faith and minimal impact
No, 230 has an additional immunity for good faith effort by a provider or user to restrict access to material “the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected” [47 USC § 230(c)(2)], which is in addition to the blanket protection from being treated as a publisher [42 USC § 230(c)(1)]. But note that since this is for material the provider feels is objectionable, the “good faith” involved is nothing like neutrality. There is no “good faith” caveat of any kind on the immunity in § 230(c)(1).
“Minimal impact” doesn't figure into it at all; neither the phrase nor any condition or restriction accurately summarized by it appears anywhere in § 230. That's complete fabrication.
Arbitrary culling of content which does not constitute "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" is exactly what "publisher" applies to, and which is the point of this thread.
We can agree to disagree, while watching Kyle Rittenhouse sue Facebook (maybe not quite into oblivion, but the number of digits in the settlement check should be striking) and the court clarify exactly which of us is right to what degree. Popcorn?
There might be some extra context here. When I searched for Ralph Waldo Emerson censor Facebook, older articles about James Woods and Donald Trump using a very different Emerson quote popped up. Tech companies censored those so it may have made them overly sensitive to anything involving Emerson, perhaps even using automated systems that are still running (the locket photo that was sanitized for our protection was posted earlier this week).
Social media platforms have become the public squares of the 21st century, and as such we need to treat the right for free speech on those platforms as important.
That doesn't mean we can't change these platforms to favour desirable engagement. If our physical public square were very small, everyone might be reduced to yelling to hear each other. So we make our physical public squares large and open! Maybe if we put a tree in the middle, it will calm us down and help us engage with each other.
But we will never appoint a public square moderator who arbitrarily decides what can and cannot be said. Neither should Facebook.
That said, it's clear they are not in a position to act as a neutral platform for civic discourse.
I try to support technologies and platforms that provide a voice to all. Decentralized over centralized.
I try to curate my own list of sources, rather than rely on third-party curation.
How else can I ensure a healthy and diverse information perspective?
This is just changing the source of said influence, not removing it.
but the facebook/social media isn't "controlled from the top down" - it's people deliberately choosing to _only_ consume them (thus giving those media companies defacto control over people's tuned set of information sources).
I'm saying that most people don't care enough to look for separate sources and do their own critical thinking.
- Facebook is generally considered in colloquial terms, a "platform".
- Expectations by the users are thus that Facebook (the entity) does not dictate opinion, but instead provides an avenue for hosting and discovery of individual opinion.
- Thus, to the userbase, Facebook is not a Single source, but is instead a aggregation of multiple sources of "information" (or opinion; Scare quotes were intentional)
- One-sided enforcement of opinions on topics breaks the above assumption, converting it from "platform", to "publisher".
- This represents far more centralization of information control than the previous "platform" state. I think "centralization" captures my intention here more than the previous "top down" descriptor.
One of the assumptions of a free democracy is that people, as individuals, are permitted to discover their own opinion from available information. It's imperfect, but it's pretty important. If we severely restrict the pool of available information to just the slice amenable to whoever is in power, that's in effect the same as forcing their opinion. After all, you can't form the opposing opinion on something if everything you can find supports it.
Addendum:
On the gotcha of "Facebook's right to free speech". I'm of the opinion that this must be taken in light of scale and the subsequent threats to the individual right to free speech. Here, I declare (unilaterally, agreement may vary) that the individual right to free speech should be held above that of the corporate right, especially when scale is considered. I very much consider the largest digital spaces the closest analogue to the modern public square (some would disagree here) due to their scale and ubiquity.
I don't expect I'm particularly resistant to it.
I am keen to learn more about what I can do.
An alternative might be to focus on local community matters. I think this is common in practice.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/01/donald-tru...
It is still up.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/01/donald-tru...
If the alternative to vigilantism is mob rule I'll choose vigilantism. The real issue here is that this should not be an issue for those living in a western-style representational republic or democracy to deal with, this being the task of the police.
If the monopoly on violence - i.e. the police - is not used to keep the violent at bay others will have to take up that task or the violent will rule - there are plenty of examples in the world where this has been and /or still is the case. That those "others" can end up resembling those they were formed to keep in check is an unfortunate aspect of that type of society and one of the reasons why the monopoly on violence was created. The solution to this conundrum is therefore to refrain from unilateral pacification when confronted with violent opponents. It also means that those politicians who acted upon and/or instigated the "de-fund the police" sloganeering have a lot to answer for, this being as stupid as de-funding the fire brigade when the city just caught fire (which it, incidentally, did in a number of cases).
Vigilantism is not good. Sure, if you are under threat or the ones you care about are under threat, you have every right to protect yourself.But you can read about Ahmaud Arbery's shooting to consider where vigilantism was at play and he was shot to death.
I fear if more people are emboldened by the court's decision to acquit Kyle to take the law into their own hands especially in cases where the self defense angle is not justified, it is a slippery slope to be on. Ahmaud Arbery's case is one such example also.
In my opinion, this and many other issues in the past few years are due, almost exclusively, to reporters viewing themselves as activists instead of reporters of fact. This specific case has too many examples of this to be coincidence, from the way the Jacob Blake story was reported initially( failing to report on the knife), to the intentional misrepresentation of the facts in the Rittenhouse case.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/did-media-bury-mass-shooting-becaus...
I am fairly certain that he isn't considered a public figure, aside from the trial itself, so the bar for libel and slander is much lower than if he were a celebrity.
Nick Sandmann got absolutely massive settlements; I am curious as to the extent that the situations are similar or different.
Also, being accused of a criminal offense and making the news is pretty much the definition of being a public figure.
> Nick Sandmann got absolutely massive settlements
Nick Sandmann had no public presence before.
Rittenhouse stayed out of the politics for the trial(very smart) and later he revealed that he was in the "Yang Gang"
"I'm going to get a lot of hate for this but I was a pretty big Andrew Yang supporter before all this,"
He was far left and the left wing are who attacked him as white supremacist and all that.
Just goes to show how the media is just completely full of shit.