Social Media Becomes Battleground Over Days of Street Protests (wsj.com) 215
Social media has become a central battleground for the protests across the U.S., with tech platforms amplifying tensions while also providing a real-time chronicle of the riots and police responses that might not have otherwise gained widespread attention. From a report: A lone video of the violent arrest that led to the death of George Floyd posted last Monday on Facebook by a bystander, Darnella Frazier, has been shared by 52,000 people there and found its way to Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms, widening awareness of the episode. Since then, those outlets have been a tool to spread dissent and anger by those upset at Mr. Floyd's death and those disturbed by the sometimes violent actions of both protesters and police in cities across the country. Social media played a critical role in galvanizing the protesters through the quickly shared video around Mr. Floyd's arrest, said Alex Stamos, director of Stanford University's Internet Observatory. "It nationalizes local issues like this," he said, adding that "maybe 20 years ago this might have only been covered at the local press."
The unrest also has fueled an online battle over how they are viewed, said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the California university's Cyber Policy Center, said the riots also have turned into an online battle of opposing viewpoints. "There is a fight on social media as to how to portray the events on the ground," he said. In some cases, distortions are fanning the anger. One photo pairing widely shared last week purported to show Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd's neck during the fatal arrest, having previously worn a red cap resembling those favored at President Trump's rallies but with the slogan "Make Whites Great Again." Twitter slapped a label saying "Manipulated media" on tweets containing the photos -- including one from the rapper Ice Cube that has been liked more than 148,000 times -- taking users to a post where it said several photos purporting to show Mr. Chauvin were of other people.
The unrest also has fueled an online battle over how they are viewed, said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the California university's Cyber Policy Center, said the riots also have turned into an online battle of opposing viewpoints. "There is a fight on social media as to how to portray the events on the ground," he said. In some cases, distortions are fanning the anger. One photo pairing widely shared last week purported to show Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd's neck during the fatal arrest, having previously worn a red cap resembling those favored at President Trump's rallies but with the slogan "Make Whites Great Again." Twitter slapped a label saying "Manipulated media" on tweets containing the photos -- including one from the rapper Ice Cube that has been liked more than 148,000 times -- taking users to a post where it said several photos purporting to show Mr. Chauvin were of other people.
Social media is biased and push agendas (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Social Media is never not biased because it is filled with biased people that push agendas. But Social Media reveals reality.
The fact that mob mentality never goes away and fighting against it requires massive effort. The usual name is Tribalism, but until leadership arises from these riots and control is established then these riots will serve no purpose other than to give government types even more excuses to crush more people. The sad state of affairs here is that the only way to get government types
Re: (Score:3)
So you say I am wrong and then say something that supports my argument.
"People are gullible and stupid and believe anything they see on the internet that feeds into their agenda, bias, or fears"
That is the "revelation" of reality I am talking about here. Just because it is hard to put eat little detail into specifics, I am right. Social Media is revealing reality here. The reality that perception is reality and because of that mindset it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
The police want a rebellious pop
Re: Social media is biased and push agendas (Score:2)
The police want a rebellious population because they have toys they can use on them
The only people who believe this are idiots who have never spoke to a cop other than to receive a speeding ticket. You're no different than the morons who claim "the blacks" all want to loot and steal and murder to get back at whitey. Same ignorance, same types of absurd conclusions.
Re: (Score:2)
The truth is never simple. To say otherwise is itself untruthful.
Truth is only 10% objective, while people are 100% subjective. "The" truth is the intersection of your truth and my truth and everyone else's truths.
Since you opted not to cite any sources, I can only go by what you say - that the man was 'not blind'. Was he not 100% blind, but legally blind? Was he fully sighted? Was he partially sighted?
Regardless, by your own words, he was unarmed. And he was shot 'when police tried to take it away fr
Re:Social media is biased and push agendas (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm being a little tongue-in-check, but it's also true to a degree. I also suspect that because this increases the amount of bias, agendas, propaganda, etc. that people are exposed to that they'll get just a little bit more resilient to those and all of the other effects of social media in the long run.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure it's biased and used to push agendas, but it's democratized all of it.
In my opinion that is a very bad choice of words. Tribalism and democracy are antithetic, so social media are tribalism, the antithesis of democracy. The basis for democracy is the exchange and comparison of ideas and the affiliation on the basis of said ideas, so that the better ideas can win by acceptance and further the development of societies. Rhetoric, philosophy, logic, grammar studies were born in Ancient Greece and not Egypt or Mesopotamia or Persia or whatever exactly for this reason. What is goin
Re: (Score:3)
> Tribalism and democracy are antithetic, so social media are tribalism, the antithesis of democracy.
That is flat wrong. The ideas of tribalism and democracy are tightly bound. Shared interests are the motivators of democratic motivation.
Re: (Score:2)
...motivators of Democratic motion.
* Mobile phones are the worse.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not convinced that the ones that are foreign agitators are participating in anything democratic.
Re: (Score:2)
How to portray the "events" on the ground? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need to ask how to portray riots, then you are the problem.
Re: (Score:3)
When the protests in Ferguson happened, a lot of the supposedly 'smart' people right here on Slashdot had a very difficult time discerning the difference between protestors and looters. Basically it boiled down to the imagery of these protests and which iconic images dominated the coverage. Why is that even a thing? Can't they just show the facts? Sure. You ready to watch hours upon hours of footage from various sources? Don't answer th
Re:Social media is biased and push agendas (Score:4, Insightful)
Why: Police have shone a trend to treat citizens of different races differently, to a point where they will kill people, because their race makes them feel like they are threatened.
They do? Are you sure of that? [youtube.com] Of course, with the same kind of murder of Tony Timpa, I don't remember massive riots and looting...
Oh, but that's Dallas, that's different. OK, how about the lack of riots and carnage following the murder of Justine Damond [wikipedia.org] by officer Mohamed Noor, right in Minneapolis, just 3 years ago?
America in the past 3+ years has degraded any progress made, and made the racist (who say they are not racist) feel more empowered to disempower others.
I believe what we're seeing is the weaponization of riots via hyping racism for political gains. Has any Democrat politican of note come out and denounced the riots, the looting?
Re: (Score:2)
"But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not."
Social media is shit (Score:5, Insightful)
The echo and amplification chambers that Jack Dorsey and Zuckerberg created share a lot of responsibility for how things are going to shit right now.
Re:Social media is shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Social media has its legitimate uses, but it's also an operant conditioning machine that rewards people for shoot-from-the-hip, inflammatory, and self-righteous responses. These are the immediately rewarding emotional experiences that drive user engagement numbers up. Making users more obstreperously narrow-minded is just a side-effect of making money on them the easiest possible way.
What people actually need is something that makes them stop and question what they feel to be true in light of competing lines of evidence, but nobody is going to make billions doing that.
Re: (Score:2)
What people actually need is something that makes them stop and question what they feel to be true in light of competing lines of evidence, but nobody is going to make billions doing that
Or as grandma used to say, "sweep your own porch first."
No easy way out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Protests justified, because in the US the police protect their bad apples. To many officers are under-trained and over-militarized. Everyone has a camera - they can't afford to keep screwing up, but their attitude and poor training means that they will.
But smashing windows and stealing TVs has nothing to do with the protests and everything to do with the FSA [urbandictionary.com]. On top of that, the riots are being stoked by external groups. Just as an example: in some of the areas where protests turned violent, palettes of bricks were left handily in the streets (search YouTube for various videos documenting this).
There's not going to be any easy way out. If this doesn't flare up into a literal insurrection this time, then it will the next time, or the time after that.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That's why they love Antifa. It's so poorly defined and has no structure or leadership that anyone can be accused of being a member, of being a terrorist.
If a cop decides to pick on you for some reason all they need to say is they saw you with some Antifa guys or heard you shout an Antifa slogan and they can treat you like a terrorist.
This is how it starts.
Re: (Score:2)
> Antifa just barely exists in reality.
True, they're quite disconnected from reality, but they're still quite dangerous and are out there hurting people.
Re: (Score:3)
Who's hurting more people, cops or Antifa?
Does Antifa even hurt as many people worldwide in a year as cops KILL wrongfully in the USA alone over the same time period?
And followup, how many of the people Antifa hurts are actually people hurting other people, who they're trying to stop?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
An insurrection is not going to flare up from this. We are no where near it. Many Republicans still approve of Trump and Democrat politicians are not going to be okay with losing their power over minorities getting murdered. Let me assure you that we are no where close to insurrection at this time.
Police brutality and murders occur in Democrat territories just like Republican ones. The big lie here is that Democrat politicians care "more" about police brutality and that Republican politicians care "less
Re: (Score:2)
"An insurrection is not going to flare up from this"
I'm not so sure, Trump wants to send the army to suppress by using a law passed in 1807 to allow the president to call out a militia to protect against "hostile incursions of the Indians" who coincidentally weren't white either.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Police brutality and murders occur in Democrat territories just like Republican ones. The big lie here is that Democrat politicians care "more" about police brutality and that Republican politicians care "less" about them. I find they care about the same level, just in difference directions.
In fact, Minneapolis has a Democrat Mayor and a Democrat Governor. This entire spark-point (Floyd's murder) occurred in a police department under complete Democrat control.
Re: (Score:2)
I was on a jury and we had one guy who strongly felt that the defendant must be guilty because otherwise why would he have been arrested. There was one other that sort of leaned in that direction but decided on not guilty with after presenting logic and the lack of evidence, but the original guy would not be budged and eventually he was dismissed after he had a conversation with the judge. So the point is, there are indeed a lot of people out there that when they see a confrontation between a police offic
Re: (Score:2)
An insurrection is not going to flare up from this. We are no where near it. Many Republicans still approve of Trump and Democrat politicians are not going to be okay with losing their power over minorities getting murdered.
Nobody is going to feel assured by this statement.
If you can't see how frightening it is that you would even have to say it, then you don't really realize what you said, or you're just full of shit that you don't think they're trying to do it in some city's right now.
Police brutality and murders occur in Democrat territories just like Republican ones. The big lie here is that Democrat politicians care "more" about police brutality and that Republican politicians care "less" about them. I find they care about the same level, just in difference directions.
The cops are Republicans even in places where the Democratic Party has a majority, and they refuse to hire more broadly from the community.
You're not supposed to look at their behavior and ask how much they care, you're supposed to put yourself
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, one of the reasons for governments to keep unemployment low is just exactly for this reason.
The more people that do not have jobs and more there are likely to respond to injustices creating issues for the ruling class.
I don't see a Junta happening here either right now under these circumstances.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Protests justified, because...
Before we go any further with this discussion, can you please clarify what you consider protests? Do you consider looting, shooting at cops, and violence as protesting?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is a fair question even if they are "sealioning" here.
Protesting in and of itself is justified, even if the elements inside of the protest are being abused by outside actors. Otherwise... you can always cancel out a protests justification by going in and sabotaging it.
The form the protest takes is important, however, you cannot say that hurting the police in response to them hurting citizens is not justified. If you want people to see the light, unfortunately you have to do unto them, what they have do
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure how an argument over semantics is going help. I'd like someone to provide proof that this is a valid line of inquiry before continuing further.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not a fair question because if someone turns up to your protest and starts looting or getting violent that doesn't diminish your complaint at all. In fact it re-enforces it, because looting and violence is what you get when there are serious problems being ignored and people have been angry for a long time.
Sometimes rights need violence to move forward. The civil war, the Civil Rights Act, universal suffrage, the armed wing of the ANC and many other times in history, including The War on Independence.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a fair question because if someone turns up to your protest and starts looting or getting violent that doesn't diminish your complaint at all.
I agree with that.
In fact it re-enforces it, because looting and violence is what you get when there are serious problems being ignored and people have been angry for a long time.
I disagree, as your rights to protest end at my rights to not get looted and violence enacted at me. No matter how justified your cause is.
Sometimes rights need violence to move forward. The civil war, the Civil Rights Act, universal suffrage, the armed wing of the ANC and many other times in history, including The War on Independence. It happens when democracy fails to address serious problems.
Yes, I will grant you point that violence is sometimes a necessary evil. However, by resorting to violence you also open yourself to violence. If you want less police violence, looting is not a good way to do it. Also, you can't be serious in comparing THIS to riots over segregation. Do you think this is even in the same category?
Re: (Score:2)
To be clear I'm not defending looting it violence, I'm saying that you need to be blaming the people who got us to this point and asking why they didn't address these problems.
I am blaming looting and violence on people that doing looting and violence. Especially indefensible to me are actions by white ANTIFA protesters where they enable and carry destruction in black communities.
The way to stop this is not to deploy more force, it's too so something meaningful to fix the systemic problems.
The way to stop looting and violence is to deploy more police and national guard forces. The way to prevent this from happening again is to look for ways to improve the system. Systemic problems are immensely complex problem without easy solutions. To reduce police brutality against blacks, you have to
Re: (Score:2)
Who are the ones rioting here?
https://twitter.com/ladyhaja/s... [twitter.com]
Seems like it's not the protesters or Antifa that is the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I saw a cop reach over and start trying to pull a protestor over the barrier.
Re: (Score:2)
yea, hold up there Mr. Strawman argument.
Race is not a valid part of this discussion... Police Brutality is... it just so happens that Blacks are getting tired of it faster than Whites because of racial politics.
Cops hurt everyone without justification AND out of malice, especially when those being hurt are poor. When this happens... and the authorities do nothing to stop it... then violence against them is justified... because in order to protect yourself and defend yourself from that kind of violence is
Re: (Score:2)
There is no fucking way a politician would have been subjected to the restraints that Floyd was killed by and you know why! There really are all kinds of double standards around this issue.
Cops have been pepperspraying politicians [nbc4i.com]. Maybe it was an accident, it's plausible that some cops didn't know black people could be politicians. Or maybe it's a police riot [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Another Strawman argument?
We are talking about a politician being individually stopped and subjected to what George Floyd was subjected too...
Not during a protest where an officer is going to have the excuse that they had difficulltly keeping track of where the politician is at.
And yes, the police are just as responsible for the riot escalations as the looters and political agitators as well. There is more than enough video evidence of multiple parties making trouble here.
Re: (Score:2)
It wasn't an argument. It is a proposed theory. I'm not here to debate some silly narrowly defined topic.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah... just to troll then because you can't win without the help of logical fallacies?
You can't come in talking about apples when people are talking about oranges... it just makes you someone that is hurting rather than helping.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with your narrow premise. Disagreement is distinct from trolling.
Reality is very serious right now. You've made it hard to take this thread seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Do you have anything other than Strawman arguments?
I do not need to proof that cops in US are better or worse than others. The only proof that is needed is well... the very person these riots are about and if you need me to get you that link then you can pound sand... look it up yourself or hope someone else cares enough to inform your willfully ignorant ass.
It has never been a secret that cops hurt everyone without justification and out of malice. They have been doing it across history and regardless of
Re: (Score:2)
I do not need to proof that cops in US are better or worse than others.
Then your statements are proclamations of faith and not an arguments. I am not interested in debating faith.
Re: (Score:2)
We need to "ask"?
Really? Don't know any blacks, do you? Maybe if you ask one at work if they've ever been stopped by the cops for DWB (driving while black).
Hell, an admin I worked with in Chicago, a dozen years ago, was telling me about that, because he was driving an Escalade.
How many stories do we have to see, or hear, before you admit, "well, maybe there is a problem"?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Spontaneous, unplanned violence by protesters directed at the police in response to unjustifiable police violence during an otherwise peaceful protest may have some kind of moral status as self-defense as well as being unavoidable due to large group social dynamics.
Looting doesn't seem ever justifiable since it's an unjust deprivation of property. Looting is just a fancy word for stealing during a protest, although sometimes I ask myself if eminent domain isn't just very well organized looting.
My takeaways
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Do I consider attacks by the cops protests?
Or maybe you didn't watch TV last night, were, here in the DC area, I watched as military police and mounted park police used tear gas and flashbangs to force protestors from in front of Lafayette Park FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE THE CURFEW so that your snowflake coward could walk across the street for a photo op to hold up a Bible in front of the church... that had been vandalized... and the CHURCH issued a disavowal of that, and of him.
Go away racist pig, back under t
Re:No easy way out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Protests justified, because in the US the police protect their bad apples. To many officers are under-trained and over-militarized. Everyone has a camera - they can't afford to keep screwing up, but their attitude and poor training means that they will.
But smashing windows and stealing TVs has nothing to do with the protests and everything to do with the FSA [urbandictionary.com]. On top of that, the riots are being stoked by external groups. Just as an example: in some of the areas where protests turned violent, palettes of bricks were left handily in the streets (search YouTube for various videos documenting this).
There's not going to be any easy way out. If this doesn't flare up into a literal insurrection this time, then it will the next time, or the time after that.
The riots aren't being caused by external groups, they're being caused by the police themselves [fivethirtyeight.com].
It's inevitable when you think about it. When you see a video of cops pepper spraying, assaulting, and shooting rubber bullets at peaceful protesters and journalists don't you feel righteous indignation? Don't fantasize about jumping in and saving the innocent by fighting off the bad cops? It's literally a movie scene.
Now imagine you're actually at a protest against police violence and a bunch of cops show up making a big show of force, demanding that you submit to their superior physical power.
Don't you think you'd be just a little tempted to stand up and show them they can't intimidate you?
Sure I'm playing up the narrative, but the narrative works because the cops are doing their part to play the agressor.
Compare this response to the anti-lockdown protests. People were walking around with military gear and assault rifles and even entering legislative buildings. They were playing out a fantasy about standing up to an unjust political authority. Now what do you think would have happened if police tried to break up those yahoos with riot gear, tear gas, and rubber bullets? You would have ended up with a mini-insurrection.
If the cops had just kept their presence low-key and let the protesters protest there probably wouldn't be much rioting to report on, but US police seem to be obsessed with establishing their dominance over African Americans, and people tend to resist being dominated.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the cops that are rioting. They came for a fight and when they don't get one they just start it themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Protests justified, because in the US the police protect their bad apples.
I can't even tell if the police are getting ready to round up and execute all the liberals or not. It is scary!
What was that saying about bad apples? A few bad apples is OK, leave them there? Oh, wait...
In Ben Franklin's time it was, The rotten apple spoils his companion.
Re: (Score:2)
There is an abundance of research and development on effective police tactics. It seems that some departments are not interested in improving, and just want to bust heads. Minneapolis seems to be the worst offender. [cnn.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Shoot all white looters. It would deter a lot of people to see other looters getting shot, and there would be zero media concern over a few thousand white looters dying/injured.
So you are advocating of extra judicial killings of a specific racial group as a solution tot his problem? You need to ask yourself a question as how you arrived at advocating bigotry.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if we set aside huge moral questions, you have not thought your idea through.
Re: (Score:2)
Social Media is a race to the bottom (Score:2, Insightful)
Social media makes money from engagement, and nothing engages quite like incendiary dialogue, sensational images, and conflict.
The United States is a country wracked by division. What it needs is a Nelson Mandela, but what it's got is Bunker Boy fanning the flames on social media. What a disaster.
Re:Social Media is a race to the bottom (Score:4, Insightful)
Social media makes money from engagement, and nothing engages quite like incendiary dialogue, sensational images, and conflict.
Well, no. They make money off ads, so they want to try and convince people to stay on the social media sites for as long as possible to show them as many ads as possible. And they've decided the best way to determine how to do that is through "engagement" and it turns out what generates the best "engagement" metrics are incendiary dialog, sensational images, and conflict.
There's no real reason to suspect that higher "engagement" actually draws higher ad views. It's just that "engagement" is an easy metric to calculate: it's easy to count "shares" and "likes" and it seems logical that someone is more "engaged" with content that they share and like and is therefore more likely to come back to view more of it.
Of course, maybe that same content pushes them away from staying on the site, because it's all they ever see. Maybe less "engaging" content would keep people on the site longer, because it would make the site less stressful. But since engagement is the metric they've optimized for, that means people optimize content for engagement. And that means "click-bait" and that ultimately means incendiary content.
It's a lot like using "click-through" to determine the effectiveness of an ad. There's no real reason to think that an ad wasn't effective just because someone opted not to click on it. In fact, maybe an ad did convince someone to buy something, but not immediately, and not by clicking on the ad. But click-through is an easy metric to measure, and it seems like it should be related to effectiveness, so it's what people optimize for. Which is why you get ads designed to "trick" people into clicking on them.
If you only measure one metric, people start to optimize for the metric, even if that metric is merely a stand-in for what you really want to measure.
Re: Social Media is a race to the bottom (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Nelson Mandela co-founded the uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed militant wing of the ANC. At the time the government called him a terrorist and he spent a long time in jail.
So far the only armed group I've seen lately was a bunch of white guys upset that they couldn't get a hair cut.
Just Avoid Social Media (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You are a real genius aren't ya?
Does it not occur to you that Slashdot is "Social Media"?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think a website that has below 0.00000001% of the world population as registered members qualifies as "Social Media".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot has a great feature for finding articles with higher quality comments. At the top right of every story is a little black speech baloon with a white number in it. The lower that number the higher the quality, at least for stories that haven't just been posted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I've always thought of Slashdot as antisocial media.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
But that is the risk you take when you let people goad you into violence. In a case like this... Ice Cube is right...
"You better check yo self before you wreck yo self"
People quick to violence are responsible for their own demises and I never feel sorry for them... be they government or citizen.
Re: (Score:2)
The media can no longer control the narrative. The era of Walter Cronkite making or breaking the public perception is over. Like it or not, but social media has made it possible for people to see=
Older voters are far less likely to use social media as there primary news source and they have a significantly higher voter turnout rate. That completely ignores the fact that most people choose to listen to there own pre-established biases. A conservative is much more likely to see and believe a video of looters and think that all the protests are riots, while a liberal is equally likely to watch and believe a video of peaceful protests sabotaged and turned violent.
Sure, nobody cared about Franz Ferdinand shot at (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And your point would carry more weight if the US were a fragile patchwork of complicated treaties between kingdoms, intermarried royal families, and governments. We're not structured like 19th century Europe, nobody is. By the early 20th century that old structure was cracking and Europe was never the same again, with new borders and some countries completely swallowed up.
Hopefully I'm not wrong in this, but my understanding is that the American Civil War resolved the question that States are not allowed to
Re: (Score:2)
My point is that the existence of the Internet or social media is not a prerequisite for people abusing arbitrary pretense to start riots or wars.
And it is a common pattern in the media that whatever technology emerged in recent years is made responsible for arbitrary bad things.
Re: (Score:2)
In those good old days without the Internet and social media, nobody except for some local newspapers took notice when that rather irrelevant Mr. Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot in Sarajevo.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria, younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne? You're obviously being sarcastic but it's hard to see your point. In the past the killing of nobodies like George Floyd would have been shuffled under the carpet. If the rich and powerful got killed, then you send nobodies to kill nobodies to avenge their deaths.
The latter is still true, how many hundreds of thousands have died for 9/11? Maybe it's the cyn
Arguing on the Internet (Score:3)
“Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.” --- Neal Stephenson
You know what's greate about social media? (Score:2)
Unlike the real world where protests happen, etc, you can just turn off social media and the whole issue disappears.
If someone post on social media and no one is there to read it, does it make a sound?
Protests? (Score:5, Informative)
Protests, sure they started that way a week ago. But where are you getting your news to think that they are still protests, CNN or MSNBC?
In the real world these 'protesters' looted and or burned over 250 homes or businesses. Almost all of which were owned by minorities by the way - many of them immigrants. The majority of those were owned by Asians - which had nothing to do with the issue to begin with. If you've ever been to Brooklyn that is a good analogy for the neighbourhood where this started.
https://bringmethenews.com/min... [bringmethenews.com]
The arson related to the riots costs these families their life savings. Did you know that standard business insurance policies don't cover looting or rioting damage? The 'protesters' destroyed the families livelihoods as well as their life savings, however their debt will live on.
The protesters also wiped out a lot of grocery stores and have now created food deserts in some neighbourhoods:
https://www.startribune.com/mi... [startribune.com]
These 'protesters' have attacked people with rocks, knives and bullets and some people have been murdered.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]
They have attacked cars with bricks, including throwing bricks off of freeway overpasses. This is something that can easily be fatal.
https://www.nydailynews.com/ne... [nydailynews.com]
The 'protestors' started cars on fire, sometimes with people still in them.
https://www.syracuse.com/state... [syracuse.com]
The situation started as a protest against the killing of George Floyd. This outraged the nation regardless of political party and were united in their anger over the matter. The cop who killed him has been arrested for days now and will certainly spend decades behind bars. He was a bad cop with a history of 17 previous infractions.
Let's call a spade a spade, this hasn't been about George Floyd in almost a week. This was just an excuse for a lot of people who were angry, broke and bored from months of Covid lockdowns to go on a crime spree. Even Democrat Minnesota Governor Tim Walz finally came out and admitted several days ago that this was âno longer about the murder of George Floydâ(TM)
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I would also argue it speaks to the restraint of the general police force at large.
If it were up to me, anyone seen vandalizing anything would be shot by snipers immediately. -- glorifying violence warning!
Of course I was raised not to vandalize shit, and I appreciate living places where shit isn't vandalized. Tough rules to live by, I know.
Sometimes you just accidentally vandalize a bunch of shit, it can't be your fault, it's probably the fault of the establishment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Protests? (Score:4, Insightful)
The frustrating thing here is that you're espousing the exact same thing the "other" side is, just aimed at different people.
One side has a tendency to overgeneralize by labeling all cops as the enemy. The other side has a tendency to overgeneralize by labeling all protestors as the enemy. Never mind that the vast, vast majority of cops go about their jobs as we would expect them to, seek to uphold the peace as they are called to, and never make the national news as a result. Never mind that the vast, vast majority of protestors are peaceful and non-violent, seeking to uphold the peace they say they want, and never make the national news as a result. Even my small-ish town has had protests, but they're barely even making the local news.
The problem here is:
1) Authority lends itself to abuse
2) Confrontation (e.g. protests) lends itself to escalation
As such, it's inevitable that when you're dealing with people on either side who are less than paragons of virtue, bad stuff will inevitably happen that needs to be dealt with, and we're not doing a good enough job of dealing with it, regardless of which side you'd put yourself on.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You have some fair points that I largely agree with. Credit where it is due. For example there have been reports of some black protesters that shut down incidents of violence.
https://www.redstate.com/brand... [redstate.com]
That being said, every conservative I talked to or listened to was outraged by what happened to George Floyd. No one I talked to defended the cop, nobody. The protests had universal support in the beginning. The riots have shredded the temporary and that made racial tensions much worse instead of better
Re: (Score:3)
I do agree that it isn't right to refer to people who are engaged in rioting and looting as "protestors", just to be clear, and I think you're right that people have been overly-generous in applying the word "protestor" to people who are plainly rioting. That said, there are still people who are actively engaged in valid, peaceful protests, including in areas near where rioting is taking place, hence my concern about withdrawing the usage of the term altogether.
I don't doubt that for many people this is ind
Re: (Score:3)
Some people are, in fact, defending what happened to Floyd. Not many.
A lot more are defending police attacks on unarmed, non-violent, non-looting protesters. A lot are defending police attacks on journalists. And yes, we're talking people they know are journalists, with press passes visible, in places where no other violence or anything is happening, and police attacking people.
There are lots of protests which are not riots, and there have been quite a few which were peaceful until badly-trained police show
Re: (Score:2)
Let's call a spade a spade, this hasn't been about George Floyd in almost a week. This was just an excuse for a lot of people who were angry, broke and bored from months of Covid lockdowns to go on a crime spree.
Bullshit. That a bunch of looting assholes are seeing their chance and grab it doesn't make everybody involved a bunch of looting assholes.
Your logic is flawed.
Street Riots. (Score:2)
"It nationalizes local issues like this" (Score:5, Insightful)
"It nationalizes local issues like this"
The whole point is that it's not a local issue in the first place. It's widespread systemic issue that has existed in one form or another for centuries, and this was just a trigger.
"maybe 20 years ago this might have only been covered at the local press."
This actually suggests that social media is part of the solution rather than the problem, as many here are arguing (says someone whose only "social media" account is on Slashdot and who'd rather drop dead than get a Facebook account, but never mind about that).
Re: (Score:2)
Well, thanks to Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) [ourdocuments.gov], most Chinese workers (that weren't poisoned by communist yet) were thrown away by America~
Re: (Score:2)
Did you wear your white hood while typing that?
And "divorce"? Really? You want to send all African-Americans back to Africa? In that case, go back to Europe, troll, and give the Native Americans THEIR COUNTRY BACK.
Re: (Score:2)
Even his neckbeard has a white hood!
Re: (Score:2)
Most self-described Libertarians don't care what happens to other people. They only care if they themselves are being oppressed. It's not an ideology that lends itself well to cooperating as a group.
Re: (Score:2)
But as I watched that live Unicorn Riot stream, not 10 minutes later, some asshat starts talking about 400 years of slavery, and reparations, and revolution.... and some racist dickhole walks buy with two middle fingers u