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Comment by jasonbentley | Hacker News Reader

A kid broadcasts his death on your service, allegedly egged on by your community, and your CEO statement falls back on cut-and-paste boilerplate?

Do better. Fast.

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>> your CEO statement falls back on cut-and-paste boilerplate? >>

You HAVE to fall on boilerplate or you will be crucified, by your lawyer if no one else. You just have to pick the right boilerplate:

If what you say has happened, that is a terrible tragedy. We will be conducting an internal investigation of the matter. Justin.tv in no way condones comments of the nature you have described. If we find that someone has breached our acceptable comment policies, we will deal with it as harshly as allowed to by law.

It's entirely possible, and should be second nature for any CEO, to draft a statement that's both legally prudent AND shows a modicum of empathy. What they shouldn't do is try to throw their own role into question until the facts are on the table.

Try this:

"Everyone at Justin.tv is deeply shocked and saddened by this news. In the upcoming days, we will conduct a thorough investigation of the events surrounding this incident, and will cooperate fully with local police and federal authorities. Once all the facts have been gathered and analyzed, we will release an additional statement. Until that time, we will refrain from further comment, except to say that our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Biggs's family and friends as they come to grips with a sudden, tragic loss."

Its not what you say that matters but the action - what you feel and do.

Yes Justin.tv can say for PR "oh I am deeply shocked and we here would all mourn for 30 days." Lets restrict animated false talks.

edit: I know I am going to be downmodded for being bluntly realistic.

I'd wager that everyone at Justin.tv is shocked and saddened. Too bad nobody knows that for sure.

Thats better. Act is supreme than statements given to press. All this press and legal are forcing everyone to lead a false life. one of their true self and one for the press and legal.

Then again, no one knows if you are shocked and saddened either since all you've posted are complaints about the CEO's response. That's the line of reasoning you are taking, isn't it?

I know the response isn't good PR, but I'm not sure why I or anyone else is supposed to be worried about what the CEO of Justin.tv thinks about the suicide. Maybe they could make it clear to their users to treat such incidents as serious where possible, but how are some kind words supposed to help the situation?

I think is that the CEO was asked for a response, and all he said was something about this being against terms of service. Nothing emotional whatsoever, which is understandable but a bit lame.

And I think we care because Justin.tv is a YCombinator site, and, more importantly, they all post here and they're good guys. (Bill in particular usually has got stuff worth saying. Maybe others and I don't realize it's them.) So people respond like they do because they know that J.tv people will read it.

I respect what you're trying to say here, but seriously: stop.

It's easy to be a critical asshat on the internet. How much different is your criticism from that of the forum members involved in this incident?

You can tell these guys all about how to respond when it's your business on the stump. Maybe they can't show empathy because it weakens their legal position. I just don't know.

It's natural to mourn, to be empathetic, and for some people it's natural to be assholes. Let's try to keep cool heads in this community and show support for both the family of Abraham K. Biggs, and for the startup involved. They will learn something from this. I hope we all do.

At which point his lawyer would phone up and tell him what a pillock he was, how open it left them and to please use the damn boilerplates that the qualified lawyers wrote :)

It seems like it was mostly the bodybuilding.com (currently down) forum members that were doing the egging. Justin.tv happened to be caught in the middle.

Google cache: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:iCJ0Fwq-DVwJ:forum.body...

Also: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:r5eE7w8sqEQJ:forum.body...

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Y6Es8cNik58J:forum.body...

Be interesting to see if some of those guys get tried with second degree manslaughter or something similar.

I don't really see anyone "egging him on". All I see is a bunch of people not taking him seriously.

This comment is so depressing that I am going to kill myself. I hope you get indicted for second degree manslaughter when I die.

(My point phrased less cynically: telling a commenter on a forum to kill himself should not be the same crime as flattening someone with your car.)

Well, it isn't, but it is rather distasteful.

Watching someone dying and not doing anything about it is different than telling someone to kill himself on a forum. Also, read my comment again. I never said I hoped they get charged with something, I said it would be interesting to see if they do. There will be a public outcry and no doubt some prosecutor is going to try to pin some charges against them.

Watching someone dying and not doing anything about it is different than telling someone to kill himself on a forum.

Yeah, I hate it when consenting adults make their own decisions. I mean, the nerve!! Don't they know that dying is Really Bad?

There will be a public outcry and no doubt some prosecutor is going to try to pin some charges against them.

You do know that this is not the first time that someone has killed themselves on a webcam, right? No charges have ever stuck before, so I don't see why they would this time.

It would seem to me that they should have planned on this kind of scenario. It doesn't have to be specific they just have to be able to plug some words into a statement about something tragic, but uncomfirmed on their network.

It's basic risk management.

That said, people are always going to pick holes in whatever words you use. They are either not enough or too insincere.

"people are always going to pick holes in whatever words you use"

That's precisely why you should have the boilerplate prepared by PR and law professionals.

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