Oculus founder didn’t expect “so many death threats” after Facebook deal | Hacker News Reader

Oculus founder didn’t expect “so many death threats” after Facebook deal

arstechnica.com

59 pointssizzle41 comments

Death threats are obviously inexcusable. This shouldn't even have to be said.

But this is a classic PR strategy. When you do something that makes many people very angry, all you have to do is wait for someone to say something incivil. Then make headlines with whatever it is they said.

Then the message shifts to how you've been wronged. And any time anyone complains or argues against what you did, associate the critic with the death threats and demand that they distance themselves from them. At this point there is no way for the critic to be heard again, and the line of inquiry is broken. Either they halt their criticism and turn to apologizing for something they didn't have anything to do with, exactly as if they were responsible - or they can be effectively smeared as supporting or even responsible for death threats. If not that individual, then whatever group they are part of can be effectively stereotyped as vicious animals who make death threats.

For example, this is what the Adria Richards people did when it became apparent that their case was controversial and Richards' actions were subject to criticism: they changed the subject to death threats, and the conversation of the original event never really resumed.

Actually, nobody really even has to say anything incivil in reality. It only has to be plausible that SOMEONE might send a death threat. (This is ALWAYS plausible; there are so many crazy people out there.) Then it's easy to claim or fake the evidence.

I agree with you that it looks like a legitimate PR strategy, but in this case I don't buy that.

Look at the context of how this info was delivered. This wasn't some response to a journalist or a press release, it was a reply to a reddit thread that Palmer has frequently chatted on. At around about the same time that evening he also went in to if Star Wars lore about the Expanded Universe was being killed by Disney or not, or if Yuuzhan Vong was a force power in the balance prophecy. It seems unlikely this was a centrally masterminded PR strategy but just someone saying what was on their mind at the time. He may have good PR instincts, although even thinking that seems cynical to me, and it seems random enough to be an honest comment.

Yep. If they're really receiving death threats, that's something they take up with the authorities. Articles like this are just a transparent attempt at getting brand sympathy. They do nothing else.

Unfortunately death threats are a very real and toxic problem in the gaming community. I'd say not only is it believable, but both Oculus and Facebook were somewhat naïve for not expecting them. Or perhaps they weren't expecting the stalking and harassment to be serious.

Either way, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because it does commonly happen and they have every right to be annoyed about it.

Hell, even the creator of /flappy bird/ received death threats, that's how common they are online.

I don't agree with this at all.

I am a person. I have never had a death threat. If I get a death threat, I would probably be rather upset, and inclined to say something about it. I don't think there is too much else going on here.

Then you've done nothing controversial on the Internet.

Death threats are simply background noise. As a hosting provider I don't think a day goes by we don't get one about something or other from some crazy. Most of these people send these off with about as much care as folks post on 4chan, and really don't put much weight behind the words they are typing.

Used to bother me, but you get over it pretty quick. Cost of business of doing anything that gets even a remotely large following on the Internet, bonus points if you get some controversy.

Directly made me think of this scene in season 1 of House of Cards. Brilliant.

Deleted comment

It doesn't require that Ars be in on it - or even necessarily Facebook.

But why do you think it's improbable for a company and their acquisition to plot a PR move?

PR people for corporations lie all the time - look at the Sim City release for EA, and the obvious lies about the online component from their PR person.

Edit: For the record, I don't think that it's what happened. I think it was just crazy people being crazy. However, your objection is nonsense and doesn't preclude what the GP was alleging to be the case.

No collusion is necessary. It works with any number of people.

Even if just one person receives* a single death threat then they can change the subject. Everyone in that person's tribe, already disclined to listen or accept any criticism of their partisans, will line up to condemn the death threats and welcome the change of subject. They might recognize this as part of a PR strategy, or not, it doesn't affect the execution.

That's assuming there is no intent to handle the PR disaster. Most organizations in this position will have or appoint someone to come up with some messaging strategy, whether that is a spokesman or PR firm or private mailing list. But the effect is really the same.

No conspiracy required.

- Oculus founders have an interest in tuning out the negativity

- Ars (or the media) has an interest in hyperbole and sensationalism to get views

- No one has anything to gain by making death threats...

It's pretty embarrassing for them that their response is incredulousness. Facebook is largely regarded as a necessary evil by many people, especially technical folks, and yet these guys are surprised that people might worry that you'll need a Facebook account in order to use it? Or that Facebook will insert some microcode or firmware doing satan-knows-what and requiring authorization for any usage? That's not paranoia or irrational hand wringing; it's exactly the kind of thing these folks are up to because their business model isn't charging for a service, it's selling people's information to other businesses.

But death threats are not acceptable. I just wanted to respond to my shock at learning the Oculus guys were so surprised. Clearly they do not understand how Facebook is regarded outside of some wine parties in the Valley.

Completely agree. That's all I got out of the article. Those guys are so out of touch with why people are pissed.

Death threats are obviously unacceptable regardless.

Jesus Christ. Death threats? Harassing phone calls to their families?

I mean, I understand that a lot of the community supporting them has a visceral hatred towards Facebook. I don't share the negative response towards Facebook's purchase of Oculus, but I certainly understand where it's coming from.

But death threats? That's insane. What is wrong with these people??

There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people responding to this news - why wouldn't some of them just be crazy?

There's no reason to think that this is widespread or representative of the general response. However, they're expecting that people like you will distract the conversation from their terrible business move by worriedly talking about how a small portion of the response is from crazy people, and surely we must do something about it!

Because crazy people generally don't know what an Oculus is? You have to be an early adopter, independently rich and well-enough off to be involved in a super early-stage company at the dev kit/vision stage. Also, you have to be supportive of a new enterprise, both in deed and with actual dollars.

It is very hard to imagine any of them turning around and making a death threat to an employee's family member. It's just a different sort of group.

Your premise is wrong, as another commentator pointed out.

If anything, there's an above average correlation between the early adopter tech crowd and crazy people who drastically overreact to news of things.

Also, because of things like Minecraft associations, a widely popular Kickstarter (which generated news), and the general media love of new technologies (such as VR), I think more people are aware of Oculus than you're admitting.

Sure, but I didn't mean insane overreactions on blogs, twitter, and hackernews. I meant actual credible threats from real crazy people.

I mean legitimately insane, whether or not the threats are credible.

[citation needed]

The corollary of Sturgeon's law is that there is a significant portion of everything which is so crap that you wouldn't believe it actually exists.

The more people you have interested in any subject (flowers, stamps, virtual reality equipment), the more likely it is that you have "crazy people" who become emotionally attached to a particular product and react quite irrationally to any news about the product.

I'd love to hear your explanation of why "crazy people generally don't know what an Oculus is" that doesn't work on the flawed assumption that everyone who knows about virtual reality is perfectly sane and in all other respects just like you.

Right, even you personally for example (manicdee) might well become so emotionally attached to something that you might literally type what amounts to a death threat were certain things to transpire. Even your name is "manicdee", which doesn't exactly scream mental stability. On the other hand that wouldn't be a credible death threat or anything to be afraid of. You're just some normal guy (in my estimation.)

In the 80's when source code for programming books was distributed on floppies I had irate people track me down and spew vitriol at me because they thought my examples didn't compile. Of course it was because they were too cheap to buy the diskette and they had typos. So, yeah, I expect somebody made threats. Whenever you do something in public some people are going to say intemperate things. As others here have pointed out, making yourself out to be a martyr because of that is a ploy to get sympathy.

This is very common in the game industry, unfortunately, and Oculus so far has only sold and marketed their product to early adopters, many of which are hardcore gamers. It happens to both AAA and indie game developers(http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/15/4622252/plague-of-game-dev-...) regularly. Attacks like this are inexcusible, but in no way surprise me. In fact I'd be surprised if Palmer didn't get any death threats, considering the internet reaction to the FB acquisition.

This happened: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

I'm not surprised. I quit playing multi-player online games (Starcraft) because of excessive violence threats and verbal abuse. It's an unfortunate side effect of the gaming community, and I feel the Oculus appealed to that community.

Actually my first thought was also, "well, it is targeted toward gamers". But Starcraft? Was your handle "uglyblacklesbianexxonexecutive"? I play starcraft II almost every day and I find the community very polite. The worst I ever see is occasional gloating after a victory or accusations of cheating in defeat. Most matches the only chat is "glhf" and "gg".

I don't think I've seen anybody acting badly either. I've even had people talk to me after thrashing me to give me hints on how not to lose so thoroughly next time. I've played since SC1, there's never really been anybody malicious in a decade or whatever it has been since then.

Yeah if most players are anything like me they're just trying to keep their production going. Firing off the standard insults you'd hear in CoD or Halo takes too much time.

Oculus VR was in trouble soon as Sony and Microsoft started to develop very quickly their own VR headsets. There was just very little market let for Oculus VR that mattered. I think they basically took advantage of Facebook with some grand and likely unrealistic vision.

I would be surprised if Oculus VR ever lives up to its vision. Rather we will be using Sony and Microsoft VR headsets in the next decade if VR does in fact go mainstream for gamers -- which is still up in the air I think.

How can you make such predictive statements when not one of the companies you've mentioned has actually released their consumer product? There was no market grab by Sony or Microsoft because there is no market currently operating.

The combination of some very intelligent people with often very poor social skills will give a greater chance of things like this happening...

That said, they could be a little more honest about recognising why people don't like this deal...

I see none of the privacy groups that complained to the FTC about Facebook-WhatsApp complaining about this one.

If it wasn't for the money, I'd think these guys were just clueless. Billions excuse much.

It's really hard to get people to understand something their paycheck requires them not to.

What, precisely, is it that you think they don't understand (and a bunch of random gamers do)?

I think they're turning a blind eye to the way many people view Facebook, Facebook's habit of making decisions that compromise user privacy (since that's how they make money), and so on because it's in their financial advantage to be bought out like that.

Zuckerberg's comments about potential paths that VR will take (with Facebook's backing) already admit that he's planning many of the things that people are saying they're worried about, and the Oculus people are just going "Huh? What? I don't know what you mean...."

And those potential paths are things that people have been talking about since,... well, since VR was a runt puppy that only some kid named Jaron loved. The gaming community has a very parochial, blinkered view of what the technology promises. Frankly, the last game I was even mildly interested in was Q*bert, but the promise of immersive VR worlds of every kind - especially social - excites the hell out of me.

What here indicates cluelessness to you?

That they say they're surprised about the backlash. That means they're either clueless or lying. I'd vote lying myself though.

Another widespread phenomenon the internet and after it social media facilitated, the ability to send death threats to people "hiding" being a computer (or a fake identity). Much easier than doing it in person. It is unfortunate that for every good discovery or invention, there is always a way to exploit it for less compassionate means, like greed, bullying (death threats included), criminal activities.. True that if we stopped in our innovation tracks just because of possible negative effects, we'd still be using sticks and stones, but it seems that as much as technology as a whole has greatly evolved, common sense and compassion is still not something that comes instinctively to a lot of people in this world.

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