About the "Ukrainian Serial Killers" post
On Friday, a friend shared an item with me about a gang of teenage serial killers in the Ukraine who killed their victims basically by torturing them to death -- they documented the crimes on cellphone video, and showed up to their victims funerals. Social networking websites and "shock" websites each played a role in the story, and why my friend suggested it for the blog. While the death video was part of the story, it wasn't the entire story, and it wasn't necessary to link directly to it -- or watch it myself -- to share what was relevant to Boing Boing about the story. So I did neither, and warned readers of that fact in the blog post. I'll repeat: There was no direct link to the "shock video" from BB at any time.
About 300 comments on that entry later, I thought it might be helpful to post a note from my friend. A number of commenters reacted to the post in a way I did not expect.
Part of why I shared this is because my friend lost a loved one to murder.
That friend's interest in this story now wasn't motivated by prurience -- mine wasn't either. My friend's email continues after the jump, and I post it here not as some kind of vain validation for an editorial decision, but because I thought it was beautiful and moving.
How I encountered the story, or "Why it's not about the shock value"
- AnonymousI am the submitter. Yesterday I was flipping around Encyclopedia Dramatica, gathering what I considered acceptable lulz from among the more horrifying articles there. Some things there are funny, some make me furious and some are just gross.
The front page randomly featured the article on the Ukranian teen serial killers, who I had not heard of, so I clicked on it. My life has been affected by murder of a loved one, and recently a sick internet "fan" detailed a lengthy fantasy of my rape and torture on their webpage, which left me feeling bad all week.
Because of these things, I was drawn to look at a story about killers even though I knew it would make me feel bad.
Filtering out the ED-style mockery of the root information, I was left surprised to read about a current teen serial killing spree of this magnitude that I had not seen mentioned in US news.
Google News had virtually nothing on it. Google Search led to lots of shock and horror sites. I decided against watching the video and actually held my hand up to block some images from view as I read some posts about the story. It was staggeringly horrible, even just to read about.
Nonetheless, it struck me as interesting that a gruesome story like this, which the US media usually covers in gory detail, was getting little media attention here, but was sort of telling itself via cellphone video and social media like forums and blogs.
The combination of "international story going untold in the US" and "criminals use cellphone cams and social networking alongside heinous crimes" made me think of Boing Boing, as a place where news breaks concerning human rights, international stories and technology. I was thinking that with great articles on steampunk teapots and unicorns, Boing Boing had also recently covered the riots in Greece and other human rights issues abroad.I don't think she needs to apologize. Anonymous, thank you for sharing this with me, and with the world.I wish I had written this up when I originally sent the story in, but to be honest, I never expected so many people to immediately boil the whole thing down to a twice-removed link to the murder video. It was about the information and the story, to me. The murder video is two sites away, linked down on the bottom third of another site I linked containing the transcript.
There's no way I can imagine anyone reading the initial story, then the linked transcript, and then clicking on that video link and expecting anything other than horror. I submitted the story, and I didn't even watch it because I knew from the transcript that it would be beyond my limits.
I apologize for not starting the whole thing off with more clarity, but at heart I just wanted to present a striking story about violence, technology and information.
It was important for me to let everyone know that this story was not submitted out of a desire to revel in the video. It deeply affected me, as I'm sure it has you all. If anyone clicked, read, scrolled and clicked again to watch the video mentioned in the story, you're braver or more foolhardy than I.
Previously: Ukrainian Teen Serial Killer Gang Document Their Crimes on Cellphone Video
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Serial killers are not at this time to be emphasized by news outlets in the US for psyops reasons, I think.
The US media sure had a lot of serial killer movies, talk show and other coverage when it was time to march off to war or pass new harsher criminal laws, though.
It took a bit of searching to find the video,
which wasn't pleasant to see but was worth seeing as an example of how little empathy and respect for life people are capable of having.
It was an educational experience, and therefore
worthwhile. I don't fault BoingBoing with presenting me with opportunities for educational experiences. It's why I use the internet in the first place.
Rtnlz t ll y wnt. t ws pst tht cld hv fnd hm n mny shck st nd hd n bsnss bng n bngbng.nt. ws vry dsppntd t fnd t hr.
this is an interesting study in human behaviour.
i think that what the situation presents quite clearly is that the people who saw the initial post read it. after the link was posted, people didn't bother to gain the context for the link by actually reading the article, but rather they simply clicked the link.
sad commentary.
Xeni,
I guess I watched the videos to "test" where my limits are and decide personally whether they were faked/true, and what my response would be.
My response - Horrible (as in derived from my own horror at what I had seen) but truly not your fault. I knowingly clicked each link, and therefore suffer/am responsible for what I have seen.
I would advise you watch the link if you want to; the onus being on YOU.
Xeni, I am sorry for your friend's loss. Thank you for the clarification. Peace be with you.
I'm not sure how to handle this sort of thing in terms of getting news out about it without making it into a spectacle or free for all.
For that matter, I'm not sure how best to offer a respectful "I think this was a bad idea to post this, and here's why" without whining about editorial policy or coming across as a personal attack on Xeni.
Any thoughts?
I envy those who have never witnessed horror, and I APPLAUD THOSE who were sensible enough, whatever their reasons, to stay away. Look at it this way, If you were burnt by following the posting to its horrible end, you are now a wiser person, however severe the lesson.
Once again: there was no direct link to the video from Boing Boing at any time.
Thank you Xeni for the information.
Regardless of whether we read the transcripts or clicked our way to the video, the post itself had value, thank you for posting and allowing us to decide to what level we wanted to be informed.
my condolences on your loss, as someone who has lost two of my best friends this year, one to drugs( heroin, valium, alcohol and cocaine), and another to a serial killer( gary micheal hilton), i can relate somewhat to your pain. it's as tho a switch gets flicked in the minds of some and it effectively turns off their humanity and empathy. all that is left is a cruel and heartless revenge machine. of course the revenge is never directed at the cause of the original hurt, just those who remind the killer of the injurer. what can be the evolutionary advantage of that degree of sociopathy? does it happen more frequently now, or are we just hearing about it more as communications become more global?
I fail to understand why people need to see the crime scene fotos/films for themselves.
Cruelty is older than civilization, we have been there and done that, this stuff interests only the young.
Its a rotten way to entertain oneself, wallowing in the criminal filth produced by others.
@Canuck, so the point is -- I didn't post the photos or videos. I believe there is merit to discussing this particular case, and didn't need to view the shock material to do so. There are some relatively unprecedented aspects to this case (the fact that the teens documented everything on their cellphones, the scope of the crimes involved), and I absolutely defend that decision. Why is this discussion about the photos and videos having been posted here? They weren't.
Mintyh, i think we just hear about it more often, but there has been great social disruptions over the past 100 years or so, there may be secular increase too.
But people are still kind gentle and social by nature, it takes work/circumstances to make them otherwise.
I think had this happened in the US, the media coverage would have been unbearably relentless. The media would have been blaming violent video games, blaming torture porn flicks like the Saw and Hostel series. You'd have a hard time getting away from it.
Perhaps one of the reasons it hasn't been covered here is that it happened in a country that's not really on the normal news coverage circuit of American news. And it happened over a year ago. How was it reported in the European news markets? Google New usually culls articles from many international websites and the fact that it doesn't pull much up leads me to believe it wasn't covered heavily there either.
I didn't follow the talkback on the original post as the whole thing just sickened me. I read through the cell phone transcript translation and that was too much for me. There's no way I'd want to watch something like that. Several years ago I stumbled across a link to a website called somethingawful.com. Most of it was just accident gore, which was pretty awful, but didn't bother me all that much. But one poorly labeled link was to a video that showed what I can only assume was the execution of a prisoner or a hostage. The uniform dress looked European and there was snow on the ground so I can only assume it was a relic of the Sarejevo war or something similar. Within the first 3 seconds of the video you saw the panicked face and and knife plunge into the victims neck. All of that in the first 3 seconds of the video and I clicked away sick to my stomach. I'm still haunted by that it's taught me that somethings can never, ever be unwatched. I wish I could erase that memory. But it was my fault, not the creator of the website or the poster of the video. I knew what the website was and what it catered to and I'll never visit a site like that again.
I see no problems with Xeni's story and the links she provided. Fair warning was given about the content of those sites and video. Anyone who followed got exactly what they'd been told.
@xeni, i don't think canuck is questioning your posting it (or a link to a link of it) as much as why people would want to watch that.
as you mentioned boingboing never posted the videos or direct links to it, but even then i don't think you should be held accountable for people who were stupid enough to click the link.
i noticed the video last week on a shock blog i frequent and immediately knew i did not want to see it. i did want to know more about the case though, for the same reasons that you mentioned, and hadn't been able to find anything else until you posted it here.
I dont' think you can ever rationalize what these young kids did. BUT, if I had to put any explanation behind it I think the situation points to a "Lord of the Flies" type of scenario. Young minds which once it is realized that depraved and sick behavior is encouraged by peers it becomes one of those "who can be the sickest and most disconnected from morality" thought processes. I imagine this video was the pinacle of a few years of sick behavior by these boys which was sadly never checked.
@JJASPER: For that matter, I'm not sure how best to offer a respectful "I think this was a bad idea to post this, and here's why" without whining about editorial policy or coming across as a personal attack on Xeni.
After this post, you don't. If you do, it's pedantry, disrespectful in a way, and missing the point of this post.
I found the site on ED too before I saw it here. I had zero warning. I didn't view the movie (I squick impossibly easily) but I saw one of the animated gifs and was creeped out for the rest of the week.
I suppose in the days before cellphones, serial killers would make audio tapes and take photographs. Before then... I don't think there were many serial killers, but I imagine they must have drawn pictures or told stories.
I suppose the real horror is how easily the horror can be shared, now.
I'm interested in knowing how the mainstream media in Europe and Russia has handled all of this. Is there anywhere near the same degree of spectacle to the reporting that one would see if this had been a US 'event'. Or has it been ignored there as well?
Hey X , not knocking BB, just the tendency of gawkery, IMO blood and savagery is not entertaining interesting or amusing. Dangerous savagery is and all that grows from it too.
Exposure to repeated depictions of (or - Heaven forfend - actual) savagery, repeated often enough, crushes empathy/compassion and normalizes violence/cruelty, and should the person exposed thereto be young, it is a form of child abuse/torture that usually bears rotten rotten fruit.
But I am an advocate of unfettered freedom of expression on the Nets, so I think you cannot warn people enough not to bother with these things. Or express aversion/disgust thereto strongly enough. Seeing as this stuff will always find an audience.
Psychos do not need their danger to society to be amplified by the repeated depiction of their depredations. Burn the tapes after their use as evidence, the same ought to be done here. That it is technically impossible to do so is unfortunate.
The video or part of it was obviously seen by a sizable portion of those who read the original Boing Boing post. I'd suggest you and Anonymous take a look at it as well, so you might better realize why it caused such an uproar.
I find it a bit dodgy that you'd link (to links) to something you have not watched yourself to judge if it might be appropriate for Boing Boing.
I realize that there was no direct linkage to the video but I still consider it a massive error in judgment to post even links to the links of this thing in Boing Boing. You are not Ogrish, but if you consider moving to that direction prudent, count yourselves one mostly very satisfied longtime reader less.
- JhmL, Finland
the western press jumped all over the Serb/Croat atrocities and glossed over the Gulf War inital butchery. White victims versus brown? Rwanda coverage was less than a "white" country would have got. "East Bloc" gory crime doesn't play? As opposed to home-grown serial killers? There have been a few serial killers cases in the old Soviet Union that I noticed didn't get press in the West.
There is a dynamic here, it has to do with deliberate media choices about what sells to their markets.
"Several years ago I stumbled across a link to a website called somethingawful.com. Most of it was just accident gore, which was pretty awful, but didn't bother me all that much"
Uh.. what? SomethingAwful is a fairly harmless forums site. I think you're confused.
#18: uh, dodgy? I went back and examined what was posted. You'd have to actively seek out the violent footage to view it. As someone said, you'd have to know exactly what you were doing.
Expecting people to take responsibility for their own actions in that regards is not "dodgy."
JhmL, the video wasn't even on the site they linked to that I could tell. I didn't go looking for it, but I also didn't see it sitting there waiting to be clicked on. Liking this scenario to BB being ogrish is pretty stupid.
I'm fine with the story, and fine with the way it was presented on BB. Granted, it wasn't exactly "wonderful", but it was newsworthy and relevant to this blog. There was no direct link to the video, and the proper warnings were in place. Personally, I would have been fine with a direct link, but I understand why it's inappropriate.
IMO, the media blackout is the real story. I wonder how many reporters saw this story land on their desks, and decided that they needed to "protect" the public from seeing such a story, or that it was "wrong" to give it attention. It's comforting to see that, upon stumbling onto such a horrid tale, BB decided that the newsworthiness was of a higher priority than BB's desire to tailor news to their "market", or their duty to shield me from the bad, bad world.
I would like to see the media coverage angle of this story explored more. What other horrible stories have been buried?
I think part of the problem was that the way the video was originally presented left open the possibility that it may have been faked, or some kind of viral marketing, which likely cast just enough doubt in the minds of many people who would not have otherwise watched it had they known they were going to witness an actual murder.
A few of thoughts as to why this hasn't been a big story in the western press. US news organizations are reeling, failing, and downsizing. One of the big losses is a robust foreign desk. If you don't even have reporters who can read Cyrillic, how could you even pick this story up? But I'm also amazed at fairly juicy foreign stories that aren't widely reported in the US, regardless of the alphabet involved. If the story does not involve Americans or our interests, it doesn't play here. If there had been an American in anyway involved in this it would be huge. We are a myopic society.
That said, with the old media models crumbling, blogs and other internet distribution venues are filling the void. Thanks for posting about this.
I find it interesting how far anonymous reach these days. Yeah, I found out about it in /r9k/ and was shocked about it along with all of anonymous. It's a truly disturbing thing, but necessary to be reported. We must look at the evil of humanity and let know that this is not admitted under no circumstance.
Goes along with the theory of the Lucifer Effect, where we must have in high regard the lone people that do something good, and punish swiftly those who do wrong.
After the Rodney King beat-down it became clear that the street was growing eyes. Criminals now faced a greater and increasing risk of exposure. Numerous examples of the new technology revealing wrongdoing appear regularly in the media. Imagine Dallas's Dealey Plaza full of cellphones on Nov. 22, 1963. We'd have a clear record of what went down that day. Or what if every Shutztaffel member had one? there would be overwhelming evidence to convince the most rabid Holocaust denier of its beastliness. This new confluence of means, access, and distribution is the real story, however.
These monsters were caught by the very technology that the young so eagerly adopt and adapt. It is changing everything. Xeni's post was to that point and purpose.
I find it strange that BB has such a hard time just saying, "well, we screwed up." specifically, you screwed up in implying that the video might - MIGHT - be a hoax, so check it out. That's why a lot of people looked at it. Everyone screws up, it's not such a big deal, but that Xeni and the moderators would go to such strenuous lengths to deny screwing up sort of bothers me.
Aside from that, the web-savvy people at BB should know better than anyone else that saying "don't look at this" is practically an invitation to look at it. (hello, 2 girls, 1 cup.) Yeah, you can blame free will and rationality, but then you might as well also become libertarians and argue consumers are 100% responsible when they make irrational decisions (those people who got screwed with the subprime mortgages deserve it).
In sum, I like BoingBoing, but I would like it a lot more if you guys weren't always in thunderous-denial mode and could admit a mistake when you made one.
How do you find that balance between over-exposure and under-exposure?
Sure, to present graphic depictions of violence on a day to day basis surely has a damaging effect on what we perceive to be the "norm", but isn't keeping silent just as worse?
I am a firm believer that there is no way to for sure find this balance. You're pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think that all we can do is attempt to share news in a respectful and thoughtful way with viewers in mind with a desire to educate, not entertain. Which is what I think BB did here.
just as bad, if not worse^
Sorry. ):
I've made the mistake of pressing links before after being warned. I don't do that anymore. Unfortunately, many others learned that lesson here yesterday.
"I would like to see the media coverage angle of this story explored more. What other horrible stories have been buried?"
ummm, all them damned brown people sitting on Anglo/American gas and oil? Don't worry though, there's a lot less of them now.
oh wait, here's one
http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/12/12/bbtv-witness-a-massa.html
oh shit here's another one!
http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/12/11/bbtv-witness-a-duty.html
better be careful though, this ones got little kids getting kidnapped, raped, drugged and forced to kill their parents with machine guns. Don't look at it or someone might sue us for telling you. A "lawyer" even,.
@22 who said "Uh.. what? SomethingAwful is a fairly harmless forums site. I think you're confused."
It's quite possible I got the name of the site wrong. I've never been to SomethingAwful, just heard the name of the website. Could have been the Ogrish website. I think I went there trying to track back the source of a massive picture post bombing a forum I moderated suffered where some trolls plowed through our site and posted pictures of tubgirl in every thread. That's something else I'd love to have erased from my memory.
*shudders*
This was a good post. Grow some balls people. Thanks Xeni, I wouldn't have heard about this story otherwise, I'm off shock sites. Can't stay wholesome and pure with that nest of snakes knotted behind my eyes. Mobile technology and murder, uncomfortable indeed. My heart goes out to those victims families.
I don't think that this actually is a human rights issue. It's an isolated case of evil. Little can be done to make this right (apart from the individual efforts we can all make to be a little more loving) - it needs to be accepted, and society needs to move on.
@ PJK, #29
I agree with you. (Or I _agreed_ with you... you post seems to have miraculously disappeared)
I just refreshed the page to find that the post I was supporting has been deleted. I really like boing-boing - but deleting a critical comment is unreasonable behavior as far as I'm concerned. The guy/women was not rude and made a fair point.
This is worrying to me.
#33
I think you missed the point.
They were indeed warned. They're just complaining anyway cause they didn't listen, apparently.
Re: my shock at PJK's comment being deleted
Apologies - the post had been moved to #31... I've no need to be worried anymore.
War photo-journalism I understand, reproducing police photo-evidence/accident scene/morgue photos I understand.
The uselessness of criminalizing the simple possession of any type of information, I understand.
Hosting/posting or linking to unquestionably criminally-produced material (child porn/torture-snuff video) I do not understand, save only for the purposes of documentation/exposure, ie. where the criminality is on the part of government actors ie Abu Graib, or to expose the otherwise hidden savagery of war (thus the "war photojournalism" exception).
Without the documentation/exposure angle (and thus the moral justification for the material's distribution), the reproduction of this stuff is only de-humanizing for others, in that it re-objectifies (and hence re-victimizes) the victim, this time for 'absent' observers. Harmful to society, and thus criminal, IMO.I wish to be clear - the distribution of it - not its possession.
Technically possible to distribute and view, morally indefensible to do so.
Use as evidence only, and then burn. Like the Bernardo or Ng videotapes.
I read the transcript. It scarred me.
The next day, I caught my (perfectly normal) 2yo son poking his favorite stuffed puppy in the face with a screwdriver that I had left on a counter. I almost threw up.
We had a talk about how that would hurt puppy, and it makes me sad. He was sorry.
I never saw the video, didn't read the post about the video. I skimmed the original post and saw it wasn't anything I was interested in and moved on. I can see why it would interest Xeni and having the link to the video at least two clicks aways seems sufficient to me.
It does interest me why one of the more violent societies on the planet ignored the story. My guess is that we like our violence at arms length and in the fantasy land of movies. Our news we like sanitized because like all violent narcissists we want to believe that our motives are good and pure. This is "American Exceptionalism" write large.
God's chosen don't need no stinkin' mirrors.
Nonetheless, it struck me as interesting that a gruesome story like this, which the US media usually covers in gory detail, was getting little media attention here, but was sort of telling itself via cellphone video and social media like forums and blogs.
If members of the US media were trying to cover up a story by not covering it, then giving the story some coverage on BB would be a way to counter the coverup. There is no coverup though. The fact that this story isn't getting a lot of media coverage is essentially irrelevant.
The video of the cop knocking the bicyclist over has a story to it that made sense to me to see it on BoingBoing. There was no coverage in the media really about that incident. the cop was claiming the guy on the bike was attacking him. And the video proved it was all bullshit.
The combination of "international story going untold in the US" and "criminals use cellphone cams and social networking alongside heinous crimes" made me think of Boing Boing,
But "untold in the US" doesn't make it "important".
I saw the first thread, read the post, read the description, and my first reaction was "Why is this here?" I don't need to be told that some individuals can do absolutely heinous things to other human beings. I know that already. I didn't bookmark BB because I need to be reminded of how cruel some individuals can be.
Because I didn't need to be informed of how horrendously evil some individuals can be, I never clicked on any of the links in that thread. I didn't watch the video. I didn't read the transcript. I have enough nightmares as it is already. I don't need to add more.
I apologize for not starting the whole thing off with more clarity, but at heart I just wanted to present a striking story about violence, technology and information.
The problem I see is that the only thing truly striking about this story is how violently evil the perpetrators are. Remove that, and there isn't very much striking about the story at all. People record video with their cell phones all the time. People use youtube and social sites all the time. The only thing I see that is striking is the violence.
The only reason one would even have an expectation that the US media should cover this is because of the level of violence involved, not because of the technology like video or social sites or anything else.
Part of why I shared this is because my friend lost a loved one to murder. ... I don't think she needs to apologize.
I don't think she needs to apologize either. But I don't know what this story has to do with her loved one being murdered. And I don't know how this story can help her deal with her her loss. Maybe there's some connection I'm not seeing, but I don't see it.
And I don't think BoingBoing needs to justify whatever it decides to post about either. I actually wasn't going to get involved in the previous thread because there wasn't anything for me to say, really. But then this post was made to specifically address the meta-discussion of "why" the other thread was posted, and so it seems that "why" is a valid point of conversation.
I still don't know "why" that thread was posted. Some people are ultra evil. That is neither new information, nor would I label it a "wonderful thing". The fact that some ultra evil people used technology and websites doesn't really interest me. The only reason I'd be interested in the technology angle of the story is if they had used the technology in a new and interesting way, and the only way I see them using the technology is in evil ways, which, again, isn't actually new information for me.
I don't understand the connection between this story and your friend who had a loved one murdered. The main content of this post seems to be to show the letter from your friend, like it explains why you posted the link. But I don't understand the connection.
Which isn't to say I'm not terribly sorry for what happened to your friend. I am. I have a friend who had a very close and dear friend murdered when they were both young, and that left a huge emotional scar on my friend. So, I can at least understand that part of the situation. It sucks. Murder by itself is evil enough, but the damage it can do to the survivors, damage they can suffer for the rest of their lives, only adds to the evilness of the act. But I don't see the connection between your friend's experience and this video.
The story might be worthy of being covered in the US media, but only for the sheer level of violence the perpetrators committed. That they used cell phone cameras to video their violence isn't interesting from a tech perspective. Just like the cop pushing the bicyclist story wasn't interesting because there was video of it, it was interesting because of the push, and it came from a cop, and then he tried to lie about it. The interesting aspect of this story isn't the tech, the video recordings, or the use of social websites, the only thing that would be interesting in this story would be the violence.
And when I saw the original thread, I shrugged and moved on without clicking on any of the links. Some people are violent and evil. I didn't need to be reminded of that. The story may not have made the US media, but I saw no reason anyone would cover this other than the violence involved. And while you say the reason has something to do with your friend's history, I don't understand the connection other than that murder is involved.
And normally, if BoingBoing posts something I'm not interested in, I don't complain about the flavor of the free ice cream. But if the post is about why some other post was posted, then I figure it's OK to post why I had the reaction I had to the post.
For whatever its worth...
(Disclaimer, I didn't really read the original article and tried to scan this one to figure out if the original was real or not, not that I cared.)
"I apologize for not starting the whole thing off with more clarity." This statement comes 440 words into Anonymous' response, the irony of it is not lost on me. Someone could use a little editorial training...(Sorry to bag on someone, but this is a confused mess.)
See the disemvowelled anonymous comment that's now in the #3 position? It referred to Xeni linking to the objectionable material. Xeni never linked to that material. This point has been made over and over again, yet people keep popping up to say she did.
There are other odd patterns in the last thread that seem to be manifesting again in this one. Right now, behind the scenes, we're looking closely at some of the user accounts.
Note: this does not mean that anyone in the last thread or this one will turn out to be a bad guy in disguise, so don't nobody draw no guns. We're just looking, is all.
The thing I know for sure was going on in the last thread was that some people were genuinely upset. Let's keep sorting that out.
The fact that western news organizations haven't reported this has saved many an emotional scar, whatever their motivations. I fail to see what lesson is to be learned by viewing a vid like this one. That people can be unbelievably cruel? I already know that, thanks. That people will record and upload every possible act onto the web? Uh, I already know that also.
noen: This is "American Exceptionalism" writ large. God's chosen don't need no stinkin' mirrors.
I think you might be bending the data just a tad so that it fits the findings that you want to find.
It may be insensitive to say, but welcome to the internet guys. I would have thought that Goatse had already taught us not to blindly follow links.
The story and its unsettling implications regarding technology and society are interesting and relevant IMO. The video is posted many places online, but boingboing was/is not one of them (a link to a link to a link doesn't count). Nevertheless, there are a lot of commenters here that want to jump on the shame-on-you soapbox and condemn Xeni and the bb Gang for covering it. I, for one, appreciate the coverage because I hadn't come across the story yet anywhere else. I see no reason for apologies or rationalizations.
I read the post, read the warning, then clicked on a couple of links and found the video. I didn't watch it, because I had--thankfully--been warned that it was gruesome by Xeni and by plenty of evidence on the two pages I navigated through, and I knew I didn't need to see it. I was curious about whether it was really posted on the internet for all to see, but didn't need to watch it to be sure. I know how I feel after seeing disturbing things like this.
I found the article relevant for all the reasons "anonymous" and Xeni have mentioned, and I appreciate the warnings in the post, and I appreciate that the video was not linked in the post. This was very thought-provoking, and I'm glad it was posted.
@PJK (#31): I think it's absurd to say that the person who posts about something shocking is responsible when people watch it because, "saying 'don't look at this' is practically an invitation to look at it." I certainly didn't see it that way.
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life -- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:15-17)
I read the post, tutted over the 'orribleness people can get up to, did not click links, did not seek out videos of horribleness.
I am not bummed, am aware that the world is full of nasty people, like to know when people do new nasty things, don't need to see the pain to know it is there.
Every day on the way to work I read about people being murdered in very usual ways and do not have my day ruined. This is an unusual murder and is, like mysterious feet on the beach, very intersting.
I had a very happy day.
Xeni gets the most crap here, but seems to not be in any sort of rut.
Teresa, #47
See the disemvowelled anonymous comment that's now in the #3 position? It referred to Xeni linking to the objectionable material. Xeni never linked to that material. This point has been made over and over again, yet people keep popping up to say she did.
I think part of the problem was that the link to the video was placed directly after the linked transcript. The preamble on the same site (pysih.com) included a woefully inadequate warning (suggesting not to view it you're 'the sensitive type' or 'a child').
While Xeni didn't directly link the video - the actual video link was very accessible.
See the disemvowelled anonymous comment that's now in the #3 position? It referred to Xeni linking to the objectionable material. Xeni never linked to that material. This point has been made over and over again, yet people keep popping up to say she did.
There are other odd patterns in the last thread that seem to be manifesting again in this one. Right now, behind the scenes, we're looking closely at some of the user accounts.
Note: this does not mean that anyone in the last thread or this one will turn out to be a bad guy in disguise, so don't nobody draw no guns. We're just looking, is all.
The thing I know for sure was going on in the last thread was that some people were genuinely upset. Let's keep sorting that out.
On the whole I agree with greg above, save for the word 'evil', which for me means 'very bad'.[I don't like the religious baggage that the term 'evil' carries.]
Otherwise, yeah, I would expect the victims' friends and especially family may have something to say about having their loved ones' final sufferings posted on the web, and we ought to listen to what they have to say.
Takuan: and then he goes and contradicts it a chapter later, at 3:16.
@30
I agree. In fact, my comment originally in the #25 position, now deleted, was very similar to yours @30.
Even polite criticism of how moderators have handled this discussion is being deleted.
Wildmoth, if you'd been polite, your comment would still be there.
Teresa - in my previous post I think I could have been clearer - could please amend my post?
I think part of the problem was that the link to the video was placed directly after the linked transcript.
to
I think part of the problem was that the link to the video was placed directly after the transcription on the pysih.com site.
Thanks
#57: Consistency is a hob-goblin.
aye Kelda, but the main point is the Lust of the Eye.
PJK @30, I can't understand why you're having so much trouble with this point. If Xeni thought you were right, she'd agree with you. She doesn't. We're not in collectively denial; it's just that those of us who are aware of you think you're wrong.
"Anyone who has watched people crowding around the scene of an accident on the highway realizes that the lust of the eye is real. Anyone who has watched the faces of people at a fire knows it is real. Seeing sometimes absorbs us utterly; it is as though the human being becomes one great eye. The eye is lustful because it requires the novel, the unusual, the spectacular. It cannot satiate itself on the familiar, the routine, the everyday."
-- J. Glenn Gray, "The Warriors"
#60 Lukus:
It was after the transcription on Pysih.com. Which you found out about because of the article here, on BoingBoing, where it's described as horrible. And then there's the transcription, which is hardly full of unicorns farting rainbows.
The boingboing article is pretty clear about what the video contains.
Then you have to scroll through the transcription.
This is NOT easy to get to without warnings.
I really do wonder how many of the people who clicked through and are now looking for someone to blame are the same people who click blindly on every OK button that pops up in front of their faces.
Xeni's post and the subsequent fallout is very interesting, and I think appropriate to BB's general attention to the effects of technology. The depths-of-human-depravity posts make me a bit ambivalent about BB, actually, so once I gleaned the basic scenario so clearly described in the post, I was happy to scroll on to something a bit more warm and fuzzy. Where's mah shoe thrower?
And why is everyone looking for "the media"? Ubiquitous cell-phone video + internet is a different kind of thing than previous media technology. Its effects will be as different, and previous notions of newsworthingess, etc., are unlikely to apply anymore. The amount of available content (documented happenings?) is staggering. You could have days of news with nothing but shocking and truly horrible occurences. But first you'd have to debunk all the fakes. I guess this is where BB readers come in.
It leaves me wondering what we might do with our new ever-present eyes on humanity. Are we destined for some horrified or indifferent voyeurism? Perhaps we have some responsibility to figure it out.
@59
I disagree. I offered constructive criticism relevant to this discussion.
#65, Jerril
Yeah - you've got a point. I was just curious to find out where the video link was, and if it was there.. I found it through a page search.
I think part of the difficulty is that it's difficult to fully understand all the issues going on here without viewing the transcript and video - and I'm not willing to do that.
I'm ducking out. I've been thinking about this whole affair as an interesting debate philosophically. But it's getting far too messy. I don't want to be seen as someone who's simply out to antagonise. I apologise if some of the muck is mine.
Timjay: What to do with our new ever-present eyes?
Close them once in a while.
Like Neil Young sang:
"I got an eye in the sky
Taking pictures that I don't want to see.
I got the bad news beat..."
@67:
Try: "I am sorry. It appears my meaning was not understood" Perhaps I can rephrase, or perhaps you might show me something to increase my understanding. I apologize again for any inadvertant offense I may have accidentally caused"
go on, try it. See what happens.
If not edited Emerson or out-of-context Neil young, maybe some mis-quoted & poorly-translated Nietzsche would be apt: "Beware gazing into the abyss, sometimes it gazes back"...or was it:
"Those who battle monsters, must be careful not to become monsters themselves"...or was it his discussion "On the value of looking away..."or was it "Sometimes it is best to send a pot of jam, to get rid of a sour affair"...
One last shot: insofar as there are people in these videos who in no way consented to participate, the videos are very very close in spirit (and in their initial creation, in the eyes of the Law) to child pornography.
As to those who view such material , well...
? You never dropped acid and spent the night in an open grave just to see if you could do it? Climbed that rock face alone with no one to come get your broken body as you slowly died of exposure, unknown, if you slipped? Dove that reef even though the sun was coming down and the sea murky?
Of course people will look. Once is your right and even duty. Twice is understandable. Three times and perhaps you should be hunted by the others.
We have to learn right and wrong on our own, it can't be taught by another
As far as content goes, here's the beginning of the original post:
I'm not convinced this isn't a hoax or viral marketing campaign, since "strange news blackout" can also mean "didn't actually happen." Even if it's fictional internet lore, it's notable as such. An anonymous friend of BB says,
There seems to be a strange news blackout around the horrifying story of the "Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs",
As a suggestion going forward, I think it might be a good rule of thumb for BoingBoing to not use phrases like "news blackout", because "news blackout" implies that members of the media are purposely not covering a story so as to bury some truth. Unless of course, there really was a news blackout going on, but this doesn't seem to be the case here.
As it relates to this particular story, I don't think there is any "blackout" on the story. But saying it is a "news blackout" brings along with it all the juicy stuff that goes with conspiracy theories, that there is a story here about some event, and that there is an even bigger story about the fact that the story is being purposely buried by the media.
It isn't being buried.
That BoingBoing reported it as a buried story, something that was being purposely blacked out by the media, carried with it something more than just a killing spree.
And because it was listed as part of a "news blackout", people might have clicked on links looking for the bigger story, looking for the why it was blacked out, who was covering up for whom, and why, and so on. But all they would have gotten if they clicked on the links was a gory, grisly, story about how cruel some individuals can be. And for whatever reason, it wasn't making massive headline news in teh US.
If there had been an actual strange news blackout, that may have been sufficiently interesting for even me to click on some links and dig around for more information. But, seriously, there wasn't any "blackout" of any kind. The media wasn't part of some big coverup in this one. It just didn't make the US news.
But alleging a news blackout took a plain story of violence and gave it an undeserved extra spin.
If BoingBoing wants to post about some news blackout, then at least part of that post ought to provide somethign to support the notion that a blackout is intentionally being committed. A motive of some kind. Something. Otherwise, it's just a buzzword.
hm, shorter me:
just because it didn't make the mainstream news doesn't mean it's all the more interesting.
Tak, as I said, only the young are interested in viewing this stuff. For us older people, life's too short, and beauty too fleeting, to spend time going out of your way to find ugly things to look at, to discover "for ourselves" how horrible things can be.
Wisdom sets bounds, even to knowledge.
Ever wonder why it's mostly young folk who flock to the most violent "action-packed" movies?
yep, but we can't be having the young thinking they are criminals and monsters for learning. Otherwise they turn into things that stab screwdrivers into other people's eyes.
I never watched this example so I have no instinctive sense for these particular killers. I can sometimes tell if they are salvagable if we meet face to face. Or tell if once upon a time they might have been salvagable.
#72: "he videos are very very close in spirit (and in their initial creation, in the eyes of the Law) to child pornography.
As to those who view such material , well..."
Please don't even begin to compare morbid curiousity to pedophelia. That ain't right at ALL.
I don't have a problem with Xeni's posts at all. The whole point of BB, as far as I can see, is to show us the strange and unusual ways the internet and technology is being used. Sometimes that includes things which need a unicorn chaser. But the bottom line is information. This post, and the one previously, have made us think, consolidate our ideas on certain subject, and eventually encouraged us to post our opinions.
If you really want to be outraged, go see the links to stories at Richard Dawkins dot net, read how a 12 year old girl was stoned to death for being an adulteress (she was raped by 3 guys), or an 8 year old girl had been denied a divorce from her 58 year old husband. Stop splitting hairs and grow a pair.
Keep up the good work Xeni!!!
+A+
If BoingBoing wants to post about some news blackout, then at least part of that post ought to provide somethign to support the notion that a blackout is intentionally being committed. A motive of some kind. Something. Otherwise, it's just a buzzword.
I searched on Google about it before even attempting to click the link and found a shocking lack of results from news sources. I'd totally call that a news blackout, at least for English-speaking media.
The cheesy-sounding amateur sites that came up in the search results also (like Xeni) led me to believe it might be a hoax since it was surprising that a mass-murdering spree of Ted Bundy or John Gacy scale would completely go under the US media radar (or Canada, or the UK).
I, along with others, am seriously wondering why the silence. You obviously are neither shocked or inquisitive by it since the choice of BB's wording is of larger importance to you.
what kind of people read boing boing? ugh.
tak, distribution of the criminally created images ought to be a crime. Viewing of same or possession is not nor should it be. Doing that though is morally unjustifiable, even though not criminal.
The victims have a right to their dignity as human beings.
There is nothing at all these videos can teach anybody except to callous them up for more suffering.
De-sensitizing and de-humanizing. No redeeming qualities in this stuff.
And I'm sorry, cold-blooded torture and murder videos are indeed not child porn. But although the simple viewing of either should not be a crime (however morally ugly such activity is), distribution of these images while knowing of their provenance ought certainly to be a crime, and to view them as being in any way "educational" is simply to de-humanize and re-victimize the victims, and to wilfully ignore how the material came to be.
Is there some suggestion on this Board that this material be shown to people to "educate" them? Seriously?
"distribution of the criminally created images ought to be a crime."
the evening news?
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=OPqcKeKBh4E&feature=related
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=4e7yuSR89QA
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=BqO3qCgyFJ0
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=CeYjCSQSbGI
Tak, a crime was committed in order to create the material in question, and not just any crime, but the worst crimes possible - torture, murder, in the prototypical child porn case, the rape of a child - and there is no question of any countervailing value of the "exposure of the unjustness/ugliness of the powerful " of the type [found in eg your Congo kid-soldiers stuff, or the Islamic courts stuff] that justifies War photojournalism or expose-style reportage.
These latter seeks to sensitize people to and thus seek (it is hoped) to help to extirpate the things depicted.
These snuff vids and child porn simply have no such redeeming value. To view it is, in a real sense, to re-violate the victims. That is why people get upset.
What people gain from the distribution of such images, well, I'll leave to others to judge. But it is worth keeping in mind that the Criminal law seeks to punish the wicked intent of the Criminal to cause harm to others. That it is difficult for it to do so is no slur on the goal.
So why should the distribution of the images of these particular victims suffering and violation not be criminalized? Have the victims of the torture, the murder, the rape no value or worth?
bear witness
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/vox/media/anne-frank.jpg
bear witness
http://alertedeye.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/girl.jpg
bear witness
http://ciderpresshill.com/images/uploads/bloodied_iraq_child.jpe
Since the link seems to be not disappearing any time soon here at boingboing, it will remain an open wound for future curiosity seekers to poke sticks at, and be bloodied by.
Talia, 'morbid curiosity' could indeed accurately
describe what may lead some to view child porn...and just as not every viewer of child porn is a child molester, not every viewer of snuff films is a killer. In contrast to kiddie porn though, there are snuff films the creation of which is no crime, ie lawful executions, war/accident/crime documentation.
But that ain't the case here, here the criminal created the material, just as is always the case with child porn. And here again the people you see being violated and destroyed actually were violated and destroyed, just as in child porn.
The distribution of either ought to be criminal. And AFAIK it is indeed criminal. Certainly so wrt the child porn, wrt to the snuff films I suspect that it is also so, at least in the jurisdiction where the victim(s) resided.
That the Web apparently allows these victims to be re-violated with legal impunity is not a plus for the Net IMO.
One must take the bad with the good I suppose but this material's availability is indefensible.
As to US "blackout", the population being preyed upon is the one which will have the greatest press play about any given serial killer, no? I don't recall Ted Bundy Paul bernardo et al being the buzz of Europe..just as the Monster of Murmansk gets little attention here.
Summary: criminalize distribution of vile criminally-created documents not possession of same.
I think this whole incident demonstrates the virtues and limitations of quick-hit drive-by blog posts: Xeni got an email telling her that there was possibly an interesting phenomenon and threw up a fast post without adding much commentary or doing much in the way of due diligence, letting the BB community follow the links and sort out basic questions such as whether it was a hoax or not. (I imagine that high-volume blogging such as BB breeds these habits: the beast needs to be fed.)
On the one hand, this brought an interesting story to light that otherwise wouldn't have been seen by many people. On the other hand, it upset a lot of people without much warning, and doesn't seem like it was very well thought-out beyond "Hey, look at this!" The post would have been much stronger if it had contained even a fraction of the analysis of the followup post (especially the long email Xeni's friend wrote).
Quick-hit drive-by blogging can be fun (and valuable), but readers need context too--especially on charged subjects such as this one.
Hey Takuan, can we at please least get a one line description of the links you're posting. If this whole incident has taught anyone anything, it's don't click on a link unless you know what's going to come up. Much appreciated.
don't you trust me?
With respect to anyone who felt degraded (or whatever) by watching footage they weren't prepared for, I fail to see how Xeni could be blamed for that. I read the transcript and was sufficiently appalled to know there was no way I was clicking on any video; I'd be having nightmares for weeks. I have a vivid imagination and found the transcript alone to be way more than I needed. Personal responsibility, end of story.
The spin Xeni did or did not put on it seems quite irrelevant to me - it was crystal clear that, faked or not, it was disturbing material. I had no idea whether Xeni was right or not - it was just irrelevant to my decision not to watch the video after reading the transcript.
I have to say I see blame leveleld against BB or Xeni as a symptom of the "it's never me to blame" mentality. Always someone else's fault, no matter what.
I'd just like to reiterate my original post comment. "However, I take full responsibility for clicking the link." I think that's common sense.
And, Takuan, I do believe Igpajo was inferring that, although we trust your taste in links, it'd always be nice to have an inkling.
Fair warning to anyone who decides to check out the entry at Encyclopedia Dramatica: the videos are right there on the page, along with still images.
There is absolutely no way to not see them, and you won't get your hand up fast enough.
I'm with Flashboy; 'nuff said.
A genuine curiosity about this case had me follow the link. Reading the transcript and subsequent discussion was enough to keep me from watching. If I can take responsibility for my own actions, why can't those of you in the handwringing "woe is me" crowd?
Since that post, I've truly thought about how effed up being a random victim can be, to the point that I'm creeped out when I go outside for a smoke at night and hear an unusual noise.
While horror movies don't do much to me anymore (saw 'The Exorcist' at a very young age, scarred me for a long time) this article has weirded me like nothing in a long time.
As with other controversial postings here, thanks for posting them BB crew whether I agree with them or not. I'm grateful to have things that make me think.
I post URLs rather than masked links because:
1. I am lazy.
2. I am obstinate.
3. It gives anyone who wishes to hazard a good guess at the contents sufficient data (many times anyway) by examining the URL.
Since it is paramount to my ego that my links be read rather than passed over I do it this way. To ask a description on top of this causes me to flounce off to my dressing room, despairing of being appreciated in my own time, me, a legend in my own mind. It is stylistically impossible to channel my muse if I have to be constantly making sense and explaining myself as if I were bound by rationality. I'm the victim here! Further, don't be such a chickenshit.
*Leaves some fois gras. Backs off slowly.*
That's cool, dude. I actually like your style, it is true and wise.
*sniff?* Gascony? Bien.
Well, I hope you all calmed down. Seems to me that the upset people were misdirecting their anger at boingboing. Why be angry at somebody who posted a link to a page with a link (or how ever many times removed) to a page with horrible indescribable violence?
The bottom line here isn't whether boingboing should be responsible for people following links and getting disturbed.. it's the fact that somebody's hosting the video at all. instead of yelling at boingboing yell at the people who are actually hosting the video, sheesh! you wouldn't even have a reason to be angry unless the issue had been brought to your attention... now there's something that can be done about it.. or is there?
I think there is also an interesting link (no pun intended) between truth and fiction here. Viral marketing campaign or real life horror? it seems that those who followed the links quickly realized that it wasn't a hoax... but it also seems to me that "real" and "fake" are blurred in our society. with photoshop and special effects, only a trained eye can tell which image is the 'true' image and which is the 'hoax' I'm not suggesting that the video may still be a hoax.. just saying that the initial confusion is telling.
And what of our definition of violence? What is violence for you? Is it only serial killers and war? Can it be famine? Can it be illness? Why is it that we hear that thousands of people die each year from malnutrition and see the images without being disturbed to the point of having nightmares? Which crime against humanity is more gruesome?
As for the "blackout" there are plenty of things that don't make English-speaking news. That's why I started reading blogs in the first place. To those who say, "the only thing newsworthy about this is the violence.. and we already know there is violence out there"... well duh. But this violence has been posted online for everybody to see, nobody seems to be making steps to remove it and on top of that some people are probably watching it thinking that it's not real at all. There you go: politics and technology. Seems boingboing worthy to me.
I think it is tremendously disingenuous to say somebody is not responsible for any consequences for pointing people in the direction of darker corners in the Internet.
I don't care how many links there are between a BB post and a horrific video, if somebody is posting about a distasteful topic here that means that person has decided it is a topic worth knowing about. To keep patronising us, by claiming it is not Xeni's fault at all if some people followed this to the ultimate consequence (watching the video) is frankly lame.
I went back to the first post, and the comments of Teresa, the moderator, are equally poor not only in form , but also in taste. I quote: "I don't want to see any more comments from people who read Xeni's description, watched the video anyway, and are complaining about how horrifying it is".
There are things for which you may not possibly be prepared, no matter how many warnings you are given, so getting fed up with people complaining about it has an unsavoury whiff of authoritarianism (not of authority, different things. A moderator should use his authority without being authoritarian) where people are expressing a real concern. Such concern should be respected, not ridiculed by pointing in the direction of Unicorn posts.
As for the clarifying post from Anonymous, well, no wonder people like Donald Rumsfeld and similar others can get away with what they do: we don't understand what human rights are.
I am trying to get my head around Anonymous' post and I am still trying to understand in which parallel universe the history of the serial killers would be related to human rights in any way.
BoingBoing has descended to gore in the past, the post (ore were posts?) about decapitation attest to that.
So the question to BoingBoing is: what do you want to be? I read the articles about places like Guatemala and Serbia with great interest, your guest bloggers are always insightful, but I fail to reconcile these strands with the love for snuff that Boing Boing has.
That is OK, each blogger has the right to do whatever he wants, I will just say that I personally didn't come to this website to know about decapitated people and serial killers.
As of this hour the page holding the video linked to the page that's linked to the page that's linked to from here has been 404.
Next: I've learned long since that it's never worthwhile to follow a link to YouTube from a messageboard. Even if there is a one-line description (like "The video Barack Hussein doesn't want you to see!!!!!!!!").
YOG, I dunno about that. I've followed links to YouTube videos from message boards and found otters that hold hands, and very lucky penguins escaping from killer whales, and Rick Astley singing nice songs, and other such delightful material.
I read the first post, and decided not to read any further. Not the transcript, not the video, no thank you. I can barely watch television for being too fragile to cope with even the prime-time representation of violence. I know better than to let this into my brain.
But I am glad to know that it happened, that it was there, that these people killed, that people were killed by these people, that life sometimes ends brutally and pointlessly at the hands of others, that there is banality and carnage in some human beings and that they will record the results on their cell-phones. It's good, or not good but useful, to know these things about the world & humanity, without the visceral flesh-truths of them being inscribed into my brain.
Teresa the moderator talked about a mental map of the world, and mapping out new points on it, and I agree. I don't need or want to watch the material but I do feel like I need to know that it happened. I'm glad I know about the Austrian man who imprisoned and raped his daughter for decades. I'm glad I know about the pig farmer who killed sex workers, whose deaths went unremarked for years until their families and loved ones stood up and demanded that the story be known and the case be properly investigated. I'm glad I know about the use of rape in the Congo as a war tactic, even if I choose not to read the stories because I have an acutely effective sensory imagination. These are useful data points to have about the world, and I choose to know about the world. I am glad that Boing Boing posted information about this story, and I am glad that I didn't follow any of the links.
YOG, I am glad to see that someone somewhere has enough respect for the victims that steps are apparently being taken to pull this stuff off the webs. This video's distribution and viewing in itself furthers the specific criminal intent of the perpetrators to harm these victims,by making their sufferings objects of amusement, by filming them. just like child porn. Unlike in eg Abu Graib material, or photos of the buggering Bishop, there is no question of exposing official malfeasance here, these are just nobody thugs.
It is criminal (properly-so called) to distribute this particular snuff video.
There is no moral justification, outside of its use as evidence in bringing the perps to Justice in a Court of Law (not the court of public opinion), for anybody anywhere to ever view this material.
I'll be clear, BB has done no wrong here, but the sites that host or directly link are criminal in this case. There is no moral nor logical difference between this particular snuff film and the worst child pornography, that would justify treating its production and distribution any differently.
That some people are "curious" to see someone actually tortured to death on camera by these murderers is not sufficient justification.
The very production of the vid is/was a viscious criminal act. End of story.
If the vid had been made by soldiers torturing to death civilians in say Iraq, the moral calculus would change, though.
But that is not this case.
Well, it took this whole thing to make me finally create an account, after years of visiting BB and loving every minute of it. So here goes...
When it comes to entertainment, I am a longtime, hard-core gorehound. I marvel at every cinematic atrocity gleefully, unswayed by any and all mocked-up damage. I beg for more. Saw, Hostel, all of the so-called "torture porn" flicks...not Gone With the Wind by any means, but they all tickle me in a delightful way. Even the worst movies can be improved vastly by the judicious application of Karo & red food coloring.
That being said, any footage of REAL violence leaves me scarred for days, sometimes weeks. I stopped going to my favorite bar in Vegas because once they showed a video (part of a compilation of "weird" stuff) of a girl getting hit by a train. I glimpsed enough in ten seconds to keep me awake that night. I slept uneasily the next few nights, to boot. I never set foot back in that joint, because I felt it was irresponsible to put something like that on the screen without warning everyone. Hell, the bartender was yelling for people to look at the screens. I didn't need to see it, I didn't want to see it. It wasn't like the usual fare -- funny sploshing porn, blaxploitation flicks. This was someone's life ending, graphically. This had my brain involuntarily repeating "Her head came apart. Her head..." for the better part of a week. That is, to say the least, not cool.
So, when I saw this post, I went back and read the original. In its initial state, with the opening "This may or may not be real" paragraph, I STILL DIDN'T CLICK THROUGH. I know myself. I know my limits. I know that I don't want to see it, and I don't need to see it. I didn't read the transcript, though I may at some point. I spent a couple of hours reading the comments top to bottom, and was shocked at how many people a) intimated that Xeni had provided a link directly to the video and b) seemed to have no knowledge of their own limits.
GNOTHI SEAUTON, DAMMIT! Don't blame others for your poor choices. Don't vaguely threaten the prospect of suing (HA!) others for emotional trauma that is no fault of theirs, but rather a result of your not being able to resist clicking a link, then another, then another, knowing full-well what's at the end of that particularly morbid rainbow. Use some goddamn self-awareness. I know curiosity can be overwhelming at times, but ask yourselves what it will feel like to watch. I know I can recall with perfect clarity the feeling I had on that night, and after every other time I've had the misfortune to run across something I didn't want to see. I learned the meaning of "You can't un-see it" long ago, and I still live by it. I know my boundaries, and they begin where SFX stop. Thank you, Xeni, for pointing out a story that would have gone completely under my radar otherwise.
One final question: has anyone found any good journalistic coverage of this case in English? I'm fascinated by the psychological and legal aspects, but seeing as how the whole gist of the original post was that there is a dearth of information available, I don't really know what's out there.
sekino@80: I searched on Google about it before even attempting to click the link and found a shocking lack of results from news sources. I'd totally call that a news blackout, at least for English-speaking media.
Sorry, but a "shocking" lack of coverage doesn't mean you get to call it a "blackout". It has a specific meaning, and that isn't it.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blackout
3: a wiping out : obliteration b: a blotting out by censorship : suppression
5: the prohibition or restriction of the telecasting of a sports event
A blackout means something exists on its own but then someone actively does something to remove it. Lights are on and you go around and shut them off. Information is available, and you go around and remove it. Information is available, but distributing it is prohibited.
And people who actually read "strange news blackout" to mean what it actually means, would be expecting that the media is actively trying to cover something up. And while conspiracy theorists will find conspiracies everywhere, simply saying "blackout!" doesn't make it a blackout to those of us disinclined to conspiracy theories.
And if the topic of this thread is in part to understand why some people were upset at the original thread, calling something a "blackout" that isn't a blackout might at least explain to some extent why people who wouldn't have otherwise clicked on the links went and clicked on the links anyway.
They weren't interested in the violence, but they were looking for the reason behind the "blackout". Why is this story being covered up? Why is the news media censoring this story? Short answer: it isn't, cause it isn't a blackout. But before you get to that answer, you've already watched the video and seen the horror, and then its too late.
The short answer would be to call things what they are. If it is a media coverup, call it a media coverup. If it is a "news blackout", call it a news blackout. But if all it is, is a lack of coverage about something you think is important, that doesn't mean it must be an active suppression effort on the part of the news media.
I will note that in the original post, the phrase "strange news blackout" was originally made by the anonymous person who submitted the story in teh first place. This turned out to be Xeni's friend who we have since been told had a loved one murdered sometime in their past. That tragic event doesn't have anything to do with this horrible event, but it might show where someone saw a story as important, saw a lack of coverage, and inferred that the only explanation for a lack of coverage about something they felt is so important is that it could only be the result of an active suppression on the part of the news media.
Xeni then repeated the phrase "strange news blackout" in her original post. She said it might not be a "blackout" because the whole thing might just be some kind of hoax. But if it isn't a hoax, we're left with a real blackout. And it wasn't a blackout.
If you report that a "news blackout" is going on over some story, it would be reasonable to expect that some poeple would read that to mean exactly what the dictionary says it means, that someone or some group is actively covering up the story for reasons beyond the original story. And if that isn't actually happening, there may be some backlash from readers.
This isn't to say that everyone is angry because of this, but I think it might explain why some people who didn't have any interest in the violence went and clicked anyway. They were looking for the reason behind the blackout.
1st time/Long time
One of the topics BoingBoing tends to monitor is human psychology, and in general I think it's a good and natural inclusion in the many fascinating subjects here. The fact is, I rely on sites like this to provide newsworthy information not generally available from traditional media sources.
I feel BoingBoing plays a significant role in helping me see another world view - one slightly lower and to the left of what I can generally access. Thank you for that, Boing Boing.
Sadly, that often means being confronted with a reality that is frankly.... horrible.
However, I personally feel this is a necessary exposure, and BoingBoing has ALWAYS been responsible in the manner in which they choose to present the material. An example of them being responsible is the omission of links to the disturbing video.
The downside to presenting this information, at times, is the human mind (in all it's magnificent glory) trying to make connections - it's just a connection machine. So by presenting the content, even in a responsible manner, a subconscious link is created. This is where intelligent people can objectively differentiate that connection, although for some it can be difficult.
I hated to read the article. I hate to read the comments bashing the presentation (especially arguing erroneous facts, or not researching claims of linkage before commenting). But it educated me. There really are "boogie men", and the deeper pondering I am left with question societies production of people capable of disassociating the connection from "human to human" and derive pleasure from the infliction of deep agony. Even the military has to go to lengths to TRAIN people to do so.
@ Xeni - you are a great journalist and I appreciate every item you bring here. You have a true talent for seeking out stories that beg deeper questioning, and cause us to ponder things so much bigger than ourselves. All this, and you do it very responsibly.
Thanks.
At Takuan in #101, No, not chicken shit. Just have kids in the room sometimes and would prefer not to be surprised by something. Thanks for at least showing the full URL though.
I suspect that the "news blackout" has the following elements:
1) The prosecutors have stated that they won't comment on the case until after the young men are sentenced, and,
2) The young men have not yet been sentenced.
3) The lack of English-language news hits on 'Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs' (outside of "shock sites") is probably because Dnepropetrovsk is very hard to pronounce for native English speakers, and,
4) We're more concerned by local stories; when you search on "Igor Suprunyuck" you get about as many hits on American sites as you get for "Caylee Anthony" on Russian sites.
I just don't see what the uproar is about. From the description, I knew I did not want to see it. Morbidly clicked anyway. Very quickly decided this was one shock video I was not going to watch.
But I did spend some time looking for news of this. Was very surprised to see
How is it that cable news can spend thousands of hours on one murdered child, and yet there's apparently no stories at all in the Western media about not one, but THREE serial killers, who are suspected of killing nearly TWO DOZEN people?
Forget the video - this I find shocking.
context is everything. Which implies a meaning in intent. Good intent? I don't know, how are good are YOU?
Let us assume our words here are intended for minds developed enough to understand them, their context and their intended meaning. Eventually at least. May we all agree to that? If there is anyone here with bad intent, it is up to the community here to correct or stop them, to prevent and minimize harm to others. A little hard to tell sometimes, since sometimes one must cause discomfort in another's mind in the short term to accomplish a large goal.
My position is the author of this post has good intent. I enjoin any who suggest otherwise to first examine their own intent and secondly to make a damn good case.
One last point: "disingenuous"
disâ‹…inâ‹…genâ‹…uâ‹…ous
   /ˌdɪsɪnˈdʒɛnyuəs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [dis-in-jen-yoo-uhs] Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere: Her excuse was rather disingenuous.
Origin:
1645–55; dis- 1 + ingenuous
The word gets used carelessly a lot. It clearly means BAD intent. Don't use that word unless you mean a fight.
Teresa, I think you have moderated this thread, and the original, with a heavy hand, cutting out some legitimate comments that happened to be critical of the original post.
It is appropriate to register dissatisfaction that Xeni referred to some comments as hysterical and histrionic, when these are people who had just viewed footage of a torture killing.
The original post suggested the story could be a hoax. No surprise that some BB users clicked through out of curiosity, and they were all treated to a visual burden, as they have let you know.
I think you are being disingenuous here, Wildmoth.
Takuan, I've read your arguments with others here and don't want to get into one with you. Thanks.
Takuan @ 101
Classic. I'm LOLing loudly :)
we could argue on our own time?
WildMoth, how about me?
How come so many didn't click the link? How come so many got to the transcription, read a couple of lines and decided it was to much to go on?
Do you think it's possible that some people just clicked through willy-nilly, even though the subject was "Ukranian Teen Serial Killers" and included "staggeringly violent serial killings and recorded them on cellphone video".
I think you are defending people who read Xeni's bit about a possible hoax, who then stopped reading and went full steam ahead click, click, click *horror!*
Frankly if you can read the headline "Ukrainian Teen Serial Killer Gang Document Their Crimes on Cellphone Video" and not have a good think about whether you want to witness a video of it or not, you have a lot of learning to do.
Even though the possibility of a hoax existed, the ever-present flip-side was that it could've be very real.
ANYONE who clicked through (twice) without reading the transcript, or who read the transcript and watched anyway - has ZERO to complain to Xeni about.
Count me at a loss to understand these complaints. I never left boing boing, never read the transcript. This is a good time to remember Apocalypse Now.
I refuse to watch the video and I stopped reading those articles halfway through.
It is too disturbing, too distressing. I would rather just bask in blissful ignorance and focus on how beautiful and wonderful the world is.
I've no intention of reading about this crime any further or watching any video, but I do wonder Xeni, would you post such a story again? If so, would your warning be stronger?
wildmoth: I think you have moderated this thread, and the original, with a heavy hand, cutting out some legitimate comments that happened to be critical of the original post.
well, it's already been pointed out just how many people say the video is linked in the BB post. That's just not accurate. If the complaint is based off of something inaccurate, then I dont' think it is legitimate.
arkizzle: I think you are defending people who read Xeni's bit about a possible hoax, who then stopped reading and went full steam ahead click, click, click *horror!*
So, here's the thing. a disclaimer of warranty doesn't actually qualify in all circumstances. I get that Xeni put the warning on the original post, but the fact is, it was a post on Boing Boing, a directory of wonderful things, and why would it be posted on BoingBoing unless there was something wonderful or important or some such thing about it?
It was stated it may be part of a "News Blackout", which means a cover up of some kind.
But really, there was no cover up. And there is nothing at all striking about the video other than the sheer violence of it.
If BoingBoing had a post that said "Possible Giant Government Coverup! or maybe some wild hoax" and then linked to a real snuff video that had nothing to do with any government cover up and wasn't a hoax, would a disclaimer be enough?
Well, can people expect anything from BoingBoing? Or not?
Can people surf to BoingBoign and expect that when they report a "News Blackout" that some form of censorship is actually taking place? And if it isn't, can readers be upset on any level at all?
taurian: I personally feel this is a necessary exposure, and BoingBoing has ALWAYS been responsible in the manner in which they choose to present the material.
The first question isn't whether it is neccesary, but whether it was misrepresented. Was it reported as something that it wasn't? Was it made out to be more than it was?
On that level, I think it was. There was no "news blackout".
And if it had been posted on BoingBoing as nothing more than "Here is a news story of real people torturing real people to death" rather than "There's a STrange News Blackout about these serial killers", do you think readers may have reacted differently?
If it had been presented as nothing more than it was, a news story about serial killers who videoed the torture and death of their victims, do you think it would have changed who clicked on the links and eventually clicked to view the videos?
I think it would have.
The second question is one of how you define responsibility. There are a lot of different definitions of the word, some based in morality, others not. The one that I find most useful is this: responsibility is when you take on being the cause of whatever is going on around you.
It's not that you're right or wrong. It's that you're willing to look at something and say "yeah, I contributed to that result" whether the result was good or bad.
And there are those who don't buy that definition. There are those who are absolute worshippers of the notion of personal and individual choice. That you can present people with a choice and whatever they choose is their fault and you dont' have to take any responsibility for offering the choice in teh first place.
That's a different take on responsibility. I don't believe it myself, but others might, and if they do, they may look at this and say, "You read the warning, you clicked anyway, everything you experienced after that is your fault".
And I'd say, except that you misrepresented the whole story in the first place by making out to be some kind of censored story, some kind of news media coverup, but it wasn't.
If the original post had been straight about the fact that this was nothing more than an ultraviolent murder spree in the Ukraine that didn't get a lot of coverage in the US news, then I think that there would be some people who had clicked on the links in the original post would not have clicked on the links in the straightforward rewritten post.
As far as "I personally feel this is a necessary exposure" goes, well, BoingBoing is different things to different people. I'm personally of the opinion that readers don't need to be told how horrible some individuals can be unless those readers somehow managed to miss the entire human history, all its wars, all its horrors, and so on. And if they did, I'm not entirely sure that a news story about ukrainian serial killers is the place to start their education.
People can to horrible things on an individual level and on a state level. Go read some history and it will be pretty easy to find that out.
@ #33's "I find it strange that BB has such a hard time just saying, "well, we screwed up." specifically, you screwed up in implying that the video might - MIGHT - be a hoax, so check it out. That's why a lot of people looked at it."
Not a screwup. They said 'might' because they weren't sure, and there's nothing wrong with saying you're not sure. As for the people who looked at it thinking it might be a hoax, they weren't thinking clearly and have only themselves to blame. When you look at something, thinking it MIGHT be a hoax, you should also consider the implications of the possibility that it might be real. Similiarly, don't jump off a cliff just on the possibility you might not die.
"Aside from that, the web-savvy people at BB should know better than anyone else that saying "don't look at this" is practically an invitation to look at it. (hello, 2 girls, 1 cup.)"
Hello, I've never seen 2girls1cup. How come? Because I know better than to look at repulsive things the content of which I've been informed of in advance. I didn't see the murder video in question, either.
"Yeah, you can blame free will and rationality, but then you might as well also become libertarians and argue consumers are 100% responsible when they make irrational decisions (those people who got screwed with the subprime mortgages deserve it)."
The mortgage comparison is silly. When corporations lie to people to get their money, that's one thing. But nobody here was lied to. Nobody was misinformed. This situation would be more like somebody being offered a sub-prime mortgage and being told up front it'll probably drive them to bankruptcy and foreclosure. Anybody who still takes up the mortgage offer after being informed of this IS 100% responsible for the results.
I read BoingBoing because it shows me things that I haven't encountered before, and never would encounter in my own sharply prescribed, 9 to 5, civil service desk-bound, 2.4 kids, a dog, a fish and a turtle, surburbian life. (Trying to reconnect to the wannabe writer/artist I always thought I'd be, until life happened while I was looking the other way.)
Usually what BoingBoing points me at is pretty cool stuff. Sometimes it's "meh" material - there are some things that, for me, sheer intellectual curiosity fails to engage. Quilts, for example. I just can't get excited in any way at all about quilts.
Irrespective of my individual reaction, I'm glad of the windows into other lives, modes of living, ideas, and perspectives, that posts here provide. I don't take the "directory of wonderful things" banner on board; a blog is a blog is a blog, and blogs can veer anywhere depending on the author's whim. That's pretty much the point of the medium as far as I can tell; short essays and reactions from people whose minds you appreciate, and as most people have the attention span of a brain-damaged butterfly and a wide variety of interests, you get deep reflections on philosophy on day, and tirades about peanut butter the next. What's the latin for "reader beware"?
It's in no way disingenous to say that Xeni is not responsible for people viewing that material. She did not author the offending material, she had nothing to do with the events in question, she wasn't not hosting it, and finally, she most emphatically was NOT pointing a gun to anyone's head until they clicked the mouse (twice). She had a belief that the serial killings, with a twist imparted by technology - fitted in some way into BB's oeuvre. I don't think she was mistaken.
Does Xeni, or any other contributor, make a habit of linking to doubtful material, be it violent, pornographic, or something else that typically offends segments of the readership? Nope. Does Xeni have any repsonsibility for the content of the page to which she linked? No. Does she control the content there? No. Does she host it? No. So how, then, is she responsible? She gave the bare outlines of the story here, linked to it in standard fashion for those who felt they wanted to know more, but - and this is an important but - clearly described the content: "staggeringly violent killing", "warning: links include graphic violence".
Should she have not posted it? A matter of opinion. I concur with previous comments about a "mental map of the world"; I think it's important to know that these things can happen. It informs my world-view and knowledge of the human condition.
Despite all the above, common sense says that yes, Xeni has some responsibility, in that her post made BB readers aware of this content, which otherwise would not have happened. However, by far the greater responsibility rests with the reader. Y'know, it's really, really simple: don't click on stuff blindly. Be discriminating about what links you follow, if for no other reason than life's too short! And READ THE WARNINGS SIGNS. I learnt some valuable lessons about that from Warren Ellis's blog, notably his "Conan! What is best in life?" posts, and the "I didn't need to see that" thread. (Warren? You're absolutely right. I did NOT need to see that. Hoo boy, did I ever not.) I'm not linking directly to them - you want to know what I'm talking about, head over to http://www.warrenellis.com/, and explore. But DO NOT say I didn't warn you, and don't blame me for what you see there.
The reasons for wanting to blame Xeni/BB for the reader's experience on the serial killer material resembles the occasional "reasons" that are put forward for harder censorship, or outright banning, of offensive material. "I didn't like it! It offended me! It was repulsive! Kids don't need to see that stuff!" Well, you know something? DON'T WATCH IT. Or read it. (Whatever.)
Turn it off, throw it away if you're so inclined, or maybe, just MAYBE, don't follow that link! But don't blame anyone else for your decision to expose yourself to it. YOU are responsible for that. Not me. Not Xeni, not BoingBoing, not your neighbour, your cat, your dead mother, Hitler, God, your past lives, your spirit guide, Cory, Abraham Lincoln, Buddha, or points in between. It's your decision and yours alone. Live with it.
The School of the Bleeding Obvious is now closed.
Greg, no malice, but it feels like you are clinging onto the "news blackout" line a little too persistantly (repetitively?). I just don't buy your theory that the "blackout" line (and the curiousness that it brings) trumps the clear description of awful things, or the transcription itself.
Nor do I care for the technical analysis of the phrase "news blackout", it just doesn't matter. Xeni wrote what she thought (wasn't sure if it was real, couldn't find any hard-news sources) but also that the video contained POSSIBLY REAL horrific violence.
Choices were made (or information was ignored/skipped over), clicks happened and people got hurt. Many people didn't click, because they weighed-up the information presented and didn't go there.
As one anonymous poster said: "I would have thought that Goatse had already taught us not to blindly follow links."
Hopefully, out of all this, lessons were learnt.
__
Besides all that, the "wonderful things" line, which you diligently trotted out, has been getting a beating on every political/human-rights/terror/poverty post for ages, proof surely that BoingBoing has been telling dark-side tales for some time now.
If you have missed all the other not-necessarily-wonderful things posted, maybe your expectations, about this blog, are off.
Recalibrate.
FlashBoy:
Caveat Lector
or caveat lecter
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/_arquivo_hannibal_lecter-copy.jpg
It pained me to hear about this and watch it. To be honest, the news doesn't hit you in the same way when you merely read about it. I mean, you read about this kind of thing all the time and become so desensitized to it. Serial murder has been glorified in popular culture so much, it takes watching the real thing to realize how sick and twisted it all is.
I just don't buy your theory that the "blackout" line (and the curiousness that it brings) trumps the clear description of awful things, or the transcription itself.
Nor do I care for the technical analysis of the phrase "news blackout", it just doesn't matter. ... Choices were made (or information was ignored/skipped over), clicks happened and people got hurt.
You downplay the fact that the original post misrepresented the story because people chose to follow the link. Caveat lector. Because they chose to follow the link, you say the reason they chose to follow the link is irrelevant. They chose, so they alone are to blame for any consequences.
This is worshipping the false idol called "choice", and I don't buy it for a second. It's the sort of thing that leads to stick figure libertarianism, the idea that "choice" is the ultimate decider of what is a moral action, and therefore the state can't morally force me to do anything I do not choose to do. This is the sort of thing that gives us Laissez-faire capitalism. caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware. As long as the seller doesn't force you to buy his goods, as long as he doesn't make you give him his money, you chose to buy it, and if it turns out its a total piece of junk, caveat emptor, too bad for the buyer.
The original post misrepresented the story as a news blackout. There was no news blackout. And it doesn't appear that anyone did anything to actually figure out if there was some sort of news blackout or not. The original submitter, the anonymous friend, simply declared it a "strange news blackout", and that got repeated as is. apparently without any investigation into whether or not the label was accurate or not.
Because the story was presented to readers as something it wasn't, that affected whether readers clicked through or not. Calling it a "news blackout" when it wasn't is still BoingBoings responsibility, whether readers ended up clicking through or not. The readers clicking through does not wipe away BB's responsibility for what BB posted about this story.
The reader's "choice" to read doesn't make the writer's responsibility for what they wrote vanish.
Just like a used car salesman can't overstate what some particular car can do, and then be absolved of those statements simply because you then "chose" to buy the car. He didn't force you, you know. You chose to buy it. And it turned out to be a dog. Caveat Emptor. Maybe you'll learn some important lessons for when you buy your next car. yada. yada. etc.
No, you said it was something that it wasn't. My choice doesn't change the accuracy of your statements or render them irrelevant or absolve you of the responsibility for your words.
Laissez-faire journalism doesn't fly anymore than Laissez-faire capitalism.
And if BoingBoing goes forward thinking it operates in a world of laissez-faire journalism, it's heading for a world of hurt the moment it misrepresents a story about someone willing to bring a libel lawsuit against them. You can't simply report something untrue and then leave it to the reader to investigate for themselves and think that absolves you of any responsibility for what you reported.
Greg,
You are happily, or disingenuously, side-stepping everything but the phrase "news blackout" in your responses. You basically ignored my whole post and trotted out another tldr (I did read it, but c'mon, you're choosing lofty over plain. I don't know why).
You seem to think people literally saw that one phrase and nothing else mattered. And that the choices they were presented were blind.. They weren't, there is no comparison to Caveat Emptor.. we were told that there would be bad things (the maybe-its-a-hoax didn't change that) and offered a link to a transcription of the video.
Please answer me this, genuinely: What about all the other words, besides "news blackout" that appeared in the piece?
""Ukranian Teen Serial Killers"
"staggeringly violent serial killings and recorded them on cellphone video".
"perspective of the deranged killer"
PLUS the whole transcription, that describes clearly what happens in the video. Do those words not count?
ALSO, you didn't click on the links because: "..I didn't need to be informed of how horrendously evil some individuals can be, I never clicked on any of the links in that thread. I didn't watch the video. I didn't read the transcript. I have enough nightmares as it is already. I don't need to add more."
How did you get by without clicking? Are you steelier of mind than most? Do you fall for other's tricky words less than the ordinary folk you are so valiantly protecting? Did you make a CHOICE?
You are happily, or disingenuously, side-stepping everything but the phrase "news blackout" in your responses. ... You seem to think people literally saw that one phrase and nothing else mattered.
arkizzle, you're coming from the angle of either BoingBoing is totally responsible or the readers are totally responsible.
I don't care how many times BB labeled the thing with "danger" labels. They also mislabled the thing as something it wasn't, "news blackout".
For me, it isn't a question of "whoever is most responsible is totally responsible".
For me, BoingBoing is responsible for whatever it said and the readers are responsible for whatever they failed to do. And one doesn't cancel the other.
And if BoingBoing came out and said something like "we screwed up. we reported this as something it wasn't. and we're sorry for that", that doesn't absolve readers of their responsibility. BB is responsible for what it did. Readers are responsible for what they did.
You are arguing from an all or nothing position. You're showing me all the warning labels that BB put on the post, and telling me that there are so many, that we should essentially be able to ignore the fact that it was reported as something it wasn't.
It's not that I'm ignoring everything you said. It's that of everything you said, nothing addressed what BB actually said and whether it was accurate.
It's not that readers saw that one phrase and nothing else mattered, and then BB was totally responsible for everything that happened after that.
It's that BB is totally responsible for what it wrote. ANd readers are totally responsible for whatever they screwed up.
And BB can be responsible for it's part whether or not readers are responsible for their screwups. BB can say "We screwed this bit up" even if readers don't show up on this thread and say "you know what, I ignored the warning and clicked anyway, my bad."
Whoever is first to apologize always has to do it alone.
If you turn this into a "whoever screwed up the most gets to be responsible for everything" contest, then we're looking at this from fundamentally different viewpoints, and I don't know what to tell you.
How did you get by without clicking? Are you steelier of mind than most? Do you fall for other's tricky words less than the ordinary folk you are so valiantly protecting? Did you make a CHOICE?
That would be the perfect defense for a used car salesman who is running some scam. Some people didn't fall for the scam, he argues, so it isn't really a scam. They chose to walk away. The people who bought his car could have chosen to walk away too.
Or Madoff's defense for his ponzi scheme. Not everyone got into it. The others who did, they chose to get into it.
I could argue that you are ignoring everything I've said, because I've said that choice doesn't determine morality. And you keep bringing it back to choice as if it absolves BB of responsibility.
Even if you do something and a billion people choose to accept it, that doesn't make it moral. It just makes it popular.
Responsibility is actually fairly straightforward. we are each responsible for everything we do and say. ANd that is independent of what everyone around us are doing and saying.
BB reported the story as something it wasn't.
ANd that is independent of how many warning signs some readers ignored.
I disagree that BB reported it as a blackout. Xeni quoted her source (and used scare quotes, specifically around "strange news blackout"), who said " There seems to be a ..."
Turns out there wasn't.
I suppose we'll just have to be happy in disagreement, because we could go back and forth on this forever. My view is that we all make choices, and that's all we have. If we aren't responsible for our own choices we have nothing.
I made a choice, and am happier for it. You made the same choice, and are happier for it too. Others made a different choice and are upset.
*tag out*
I made a choice, and am happier for it. You made the same choice, and are happier for it too. Others made a different choice and are upset.
Again, this is nothing more than defining "responsibility" so that my responsibility stops at the end of my nose, and hiding that redefining of terms behind the false idol of "choice". Caveat Emptor. Laissez Faire. You chose, so my responsibility ends the moment you made a choice.
If we aren't responsible for our own choices we have nothing.
The non-moral defintion of responsibility means having a willingness to accept that your actions affect others. I'd say the "news blackout" angle of the story affected some readers and caused them to click on something they wouldn't have clicked if it had simply been reported as "serial killers record torture and death on videocamera".
BB either says "yes, that affected some people" and is responsible for it, or they say "No, that did not, in any way, shape, or form, affect any reader at all" and are responsible for their actions being uneffective.
But if it affected people yet you say it doesn't matter because those people chose anyway, then you're not being responsible for the effect of your actions on other people.
End of story.
The reason you aren't being responsible for the effect of your actions is irrelevant to being responsible. Your action had an effect, and you aren't willing to acknowledge it.
Instead, you have some "excuse" that you believe grants you an exemption from responsibility. they chose, you say, so any effect my actions had are irrelevant.
But responsibility is either present or missing. You are either willing to acknowledge the effect your actions have on other people, or not.
And if there is anything that seems to keep coming up with the little tiffs between BB and its readers every once in a while, it seems to be that BB will do something that effects its readers, and then BB refuses to acknowledge their action caused the effect. Instead, they have an excuse like "This is why we did such and such". that isn't the same as saying "we're sorry this caused a huge upset for some people."
Yes, BB can post whatever the hell it wants. BB can do whatever it wants on its blog. BB can decide what to report on. BB can decide what it will post. And some of those posts will have an effect on the readers, and simply denying that BB's actions was any contribution to the effect on its readers is silly.
Saying "we're sorry this post upset a bunch of people, but you should have known better" might as well simply say "We refuse to accept responsibility for any effect our posts have on our readers. You choose what you read. you should have known better"
Like you said: If we aren't responsible for our own choices we have nothing.
And our choices include our actions. and our responsibility for our choices and actions don't end as soon as someone else chooses something. The effect our choices and actions have on others doesn't simply go away merely because they "chose" it.
Responsibility extends beyond someone else's choice.
Greg, Arkizzle, I would so much rather you two weren't having at each other like this.
Wildmoth, you got moderated. Either deal with it constructively, or let it go.
Patrick Dodds, I don't know whether Xeni's been back here lately. My take on it is that I'm not sure your question is answerable. Xeni didn't expect the responses she got here. How can you decide to respond differently to things you don't see coming?
Yog, good comments. Thank you for turning up.
Is this not, quite powerfully, exactly what the internet is about, and a great insight into our future as human beings with exponentially enhanced powers of communication?
This story changed as the information available to the author changed. Your journey as a reader changed as the story changed, precisely because of the intimacy and immediacy of the medium.
That's why we're all here.
For better or for worse, the future contains more information than you could possibly want to know.
Start filtering.
Don't listen to Robulus, keep complaining until Big Mommy and Daddy filter everything for you. This whole internet freedom thing is just a youthful extravagance.
The verdicts in this case were delivered today (11FEB09).
Two of the young men got life in prison; the third got nine years.