Tech Platforms Diverge on Erasing Criminal Suspects' Digital Footprints (nytimes.com) 99
Social media giants confronted a familiar dilemma over user content moderation after murder suspect Luigi Mangione's arrest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO on Monday, highlighting the platforms' varied approaches to managing digital footprints of criminal suspects.
Meta quickly removed Mangione's Facebook and Instagram accounts under its "dangerous organizations and individuals" policy, while his account on X underwent a brief suspension before being reinstated with a premium subscription. LinkedIn maintained his profile, stating it did not violate platform policies. His Reddit account was suspended in line with the platform's policy on high-profile criminal suspects, while his Goodreads profile fluctuated between public and private status.
The New York Times adds: When someone goes from having a private life to getting public attention, online accounts they intended for a small circle of friends or acquaintances are scrutinized by curious strangers -- and journalists.
In some cases, these newly public figures or their loved ones can shut down the accounts or make them private. Others, like Mr. Mangione, who has been charged with murder, are cut off from their devices, leaving their digital lives open for the public's consumption. Either way, tech companies have discretion in what happens to the account and its content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects companies from legal liability for posts made by users.
Meta quickly removed Mangione's Facebook and Instagram accounts under its "dangerous organizations and individuals" policy, while his account on X underwent a brief suspension before being reinstated with a premium subscription. LinkedIn maintained his profile, stating it did not violate platform policies. His Reddit account was suspended in line with the platform's policy on high-profile criminal suspects, while his Goodreads profile fluctuated between public and private status.
The New York Times adds: When someone goes from having a private life to getting public attention, online accounts they intended for a small circle of friends or acquaintances are scrutinized by curious strangers -- and journalists.
In some cases, these newly public figures or their loved ones can shut down the accounts or make them private. Others, like Mr. Mangione, who has been charged with murder, are cut off from their devices, leaving their digital lives open for the public's consumption. Either way, tech companies have discretion in what happens to the account and its content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects companies from legal liability for posts made by users.
No different (Score:2, Interesting)
Honestly it looks to me no different than the flood of should I cut off my $family because they voted a way I donâ(TM)t like posts.
The second someone is at all despised by a certain group of people, all they can do is try to cut/shun that person out of active society.
Re:No different (Score:5, Insightful)
If society sees no difference between murder and voting for a rival political faction, we are in trouble.
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Certainly, there are a lot of individuals (on both sides) who see no difference.
Re:No different (Score:4, Insightful)
Luigi has all the makings of a folk hero and the assholes in charge still don't get the message. https://www.foxbusiness.com/bu... [foxbusiness.com]
If my doctor says something is necessary, its necessary. Not your shitty software https://www.foxbusiness.com/ma... [foxbusiness.com] or bean counters. This company has blood on it's hands.
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You can't say that with any certainty. You're just repeating rumor and innuendo and self-serving media and party narrative.
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Sounds like it's time for a class to form around wrongful death claims against United Healthcare.
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Not really. He got screwed by his insurance company and decided to kill a guy who runs some other insurance company because hey why not?
He isn't exactly Denzel Washington from John Q.
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If society sees no difference between murder and voting for a rival political faction, we are in trouble.
That's an interesting thought. To a certain degree, voting is murder.
I think it's obvious that individual political choices cost or save lives, and sometimes both. A law that increases access to medical care probably saves lives. A decision to get involved with a war in another country likely costs lives. Those are easy to guess at. But say... cutting spending on education. Sounds like long-term it'll lead to lower quality-of-life, but on the other hand that spending might be exactly what pays for b
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Voting is not murder. Sorry to have to tell you that, but it's true.
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Voting is not murder. Sorry to have to tell you that, but it's true.
Your overwhelmingly well-presented series of points has me convinced how wrong every element of my musings were. My philosophical introspection is utterly demolished before such a powerful onslaught of logic and persuasion. I bow to your eloquence.
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Obviously.
He's only been accused.. (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, this Luigi Mangione has only been accused of murder. He has yet to stand trial and most certainly hasn't been convicted. While I understand these social media platforms are indeed private platforms and therefore the site owners should be able to decide who gets to play on the platform, at this point in time, this is more about the court of public opinion then any legal basis.
This is one of those scenarios where there really isn't a "correct" answer. They are private platforms, so they should be able to kick anyone off they want. With that said, just being accused of a crime should not have you ostracized from the public. Unfortunately, this happens way to often and innocent peoples' lives are ruined because of it.
P.S. I'm not saying he is innocent or guilty. That's for a jury of his peers to decide after getting to hear testimony and gather evidence. I also don't have enough information to say one way or the other.
Re:He's only been accused.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And they don't do this for all people accused of crimes. Just ones that catch media attention. Pure CYA, no actual policy. Exactly what you expect from social media companies.
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And they don't do this for all people accused of crimes. Just ones that catch media attention. Pure CYA, no actual policy. Exactly what you expect from social media companies.
Err... how are they supposed to do it for people who don't catch media attention? Are they supposed to have in house teams that scan police blotters for people to ban or something?
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That actually wouldn't be all that technically difficult to do. Police release scrapers and a review system for matches.
It won't catch non-obvious aliases, and it would have a non-zero ongoing cost, but the volume of names released by police daily isn't really a significant percentage of the population, there's no reason a script couldn't easily keep up with the work and reduce the review load so that the staffing requirement wouldn't be onerous.
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What are you going to match people on? Not like they'd be able to match on SSN
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Names and photos. Whether you've given it up deliberately or not, chances are pretty solid your social media account includes your real name in the site's database. Every new connection approved, every post liked, every comment made... As well as posts made from other accounts. They're all used to build a comprehensive profile on you well beyond the one you see through the public interface. And then they start matching it with records on other databases they have access to, to fill in even more blanks.
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Both photo and name matches are just about statistical likelyness.
Blocking people because your name and photo are like that of a suspect or criminal sounds like a bad idea. Remember the no-fly list where tons of innocent people got extra searches because their name looked like someone on the list?
I think they depublicize profiles because they are causing a scene, not necessarily for being a criminal.
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If you have a policy on your platform, you ought to have a strategy for enforcement.
If you don't have a strategy for enforcement, you don't have a policy, you have a paper thin cover for the actions you choose to take when you feel like it.
Re:He's only been accused.. (Score:5, Informative)
Meta quickly removed Mangione's Facebook and Instagram accounts under its "dangerous organizations and individuals" policy... but Donald Trump's account remains active despite repeated instances of violence and terrorist activity by his followers.
Hmmmmmmmm.
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It mostly depends on whose side you're on.
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Re: He's only been accused.. (Score:1)
"Remember the claim Trump is colluding with Russia?"
Yep. It turned out to be true
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but Donald Trump's account remains active
Heh. Mangione won't be able to harm Facebook/Meta for removing his account. He's easy to pick on.
But for some reason, Zuckerberg/Facebook is not keen on picking a fight with Trump.
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P.S. I'm not saying he is innocent or guilty. That's for a jury of his peers to decide after getting to hear testimony and gather evidence.
Can't wait to hear healthcare CEOs whining about how juries are unfairly biased against people with more blood on their hands than the most prolific serial killer.
Re: He's only been accused.. (Score:2)
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The standard "innocent until proven guilty" is a standard that applies to conviction and sentencing for a crime. But even under the law, that is not the only standard. Why is Mangione being held in prison today, even though he hasn't been convicted? One could argue that he is already being punished by being sent to jail, without a conviction. The reason this has happened is because the case against him is already strong enough that the courts recognize that there is a high probability of conviction.
If the c
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They may consider him a flight risk as well. He killed a person in broad daylight, premeditated. Regardless of who he killed, that's not something a stable person tends to do. He's also pretty smart and comes from enough money that he probably could leave the country, etc.
Considering his manifesto, that's definitely going to be used as evidence against him.
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My opinion... (Score:4)
If you are accused of a crime and gain a high enough public profile that a social media company is aware of it, making your account private and locking it against changes unless and until you agree otherwise is the correct thing to do. Whether that's good business for the social media company, I don't know.
Upon conviction... maybe there is a public interest in opening that profile again, but I suspect there is a greater public interest in removing it completely and blocking attempts at impersonation or parody to resist glorification of criminal behavior.
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I suspect there is a greater public interest in removing it completely
I don't understand -- are you saying that social media companies should remove convicted felon's accounts?
That sounds insane, particularly as some of them (maybe not Facebook but something like LinkedIn) may be needed to find a job and try to reintegrate into society. Even murderers tend to get less than a life sentence in many cases (or might be paroled and released).
Innocent until proven guilty much? (Score:5, Insightful)
The man is still technically innocent, but it looks like Big Tech has judged him and condemned him already.
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Only the government has to treat him as presumed innocent until proven guilty. There's little to no requirement for others to do so as well, though it may be a good idea (or not).
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It's difficult. Accuse someone of something awful enough and you can ruin their life regardless of their guilt. On the other hand, it's a probably a bad idea for a healthcare CEO to hang around a guy who is accused of shooting a healthcare CEO, whether the trial has happened yet or not.
More generally, handling this kind of situation ethically in a workplace can be extremely challenging. Companies usually just go for 'expedient' and 'least expensive'.
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This case is interesting because of his motivations, but the trial is going to be very simple, if it goes to trial. I can't even imagine what his defense would be, if he pleads not guilty.
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He is guilty. He did it.
A jury will decide that. While you're probably correct, you don't know all the facts.
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He could plead some kind of mental instability that makes him unfit for trial. Of course, this won't see him going free. He will still be institutionalized, possibly for the rest of his life.
I think timeOday is correct but we the public don't have all the information and likely won't until the trial happens. If it happens.
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Re:Innocent until proven guilty much? (Score:4, Insightful)
The man is still technically innocent, but it looks like Big Tech has judged him and condemned him already.
Ya, but it works both ways. For example, Trump is technically guilty, but Big Tech and his supporters have judged him innocent and forgiven him already -- or are, at least, willing to ignore all his criminal convictions and civil liabilities.
Re: Innocent until proven guilty much? (Score:1)
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I hear you, though he was also charged with a *bunch* of other things -- like foment an Insurrection, try to steal an election, and actually steal classified documents (then, when he was *not* President, hide them and refuse to return them when subpoenaed which is obstruction), etc... While the case(s) were dropped for DOJ technical reasons, it's pretty clear he did them, especially the documents, but he says "I did nothing wrong" and people seem to be letting that slide. So, ya, the U.S. is screwed. :-)
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Sensible gun control laws? Please. He literally 3d printed his firearm. At most, they might try to force serial numbers on some of the parts he bought. That won't stop him.
Honestly, he probably doesn't have a criminal record either. He could of just as easily jumped through whatever hoops NY has for gun ownership, but obviously he didn't want to wait 10 days (do they have that rule there?). He may of even saved money just buying a pistol instead of making one. He could then file the serial number off the gu
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>"I would love to hear of a sensible gun law that would of prevented this because beyond banning gun ownership"
That is EXACTLY what certain people think is "reasonable" gun control.
And yet, he could have killed him almost as easily with a knife or maybe a hammer. Messier, for sure. Or just waited and run over him with a car. Or slipped in and poisoned the guy's food. The reality is that truly bad/evil people will find a way to hurt/murder others, unfortunately.
Stripping good/responsible people of som
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While it's true that legally, he's innocent until proven guilty...even the government itself deems him likely enough to be guilty that they are already confining him to a prison cell. They have already deprived him of his liberty. If even the government itself can legally justify depriving him of his freedom, it doesn't seem so unreasonable for social media platforms to presume that he is guilty enough to take him offline.
Another win for Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just remember folks, if you should ever provoke the ire of public opinion it behooves oneself to have operated under the guise of pseudo-anonymity. Privacy is a practiced discipline.
Would investors trust a CEO who wanted to operate anonymously?
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If it was profitable, yes. Without question.
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If the ire you trigger is significant enough, hiding behind "Anonymous Coward" isn't going to save you. This guy took significant steps to hide his identity, even to the point of obtaining fake IDs and using a "ghost gun", but those efforts did not help him elude capture.
Erasing a suspect's footprints (Score:1)
Re:Erasing a suspect's footprints (Score:4, Informative)
Why is this not destruction of evidence? If anyone else did this, they'd be held in contempt of court.
You think they're deleting the data or something? The evidence is still there and can be obtained by law enforcement (or civil litigants) via warrant or subpoena.
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What evidence are you talking about?
And what evidence do you have that the evidence is destroyed, rather than ceasing to be shared?
This cannot possibly be the first time a website had to temporarily disable an account. And many times, disabling is followed by re-enabling. They're almost certainly just twiddling a privacy setting, rather than destroying records and then later restoring them. If there is some evidence associated with the account, the operators can almost certain still run the queries to ful
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When 90% of the reactions to the CEO's death were laughing emojis they knew it had to be suppressed.
Of course Elon rewards him (Score:2)
There are questions on what should happen to his accounts and there are legitimate points on both sides. But leave it to Elon to not only reinstate his account, but to then reward him with a free upgrade as well.
In China they will jump to do anything! (Score:2)
In China they will jump to do anything!
Don't touch it with a six foot pole (Score:2)
If laws state you have to, follow the law. If not, do not touch it or you should become responsible for all good/bad content. Just stay a neutral party.
Just my bent $0.02.
Manifesto? (Score:2)
They want to silence him (Score:5, Informative)
Notice how no big news sources have published his short manifesto and only refer to his "outburst" while being lead into a facility. If the news starts reporting what he said it would upset the establishment and give people similar ideas.
“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
There would be hell to pay if the major news outlets made headlines with the fact that the USA pays the most in healthcare and gets shit results. This could start a movement and the elite are terrified.
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There's nothing in there that hasn't been obvious for years. No new ideas, or facts, or insight. Just repeating stuff that needs to be repeated a lot.
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Of course not - it's the country's worst kept secret. But it's one thing for everyone to know it and just keep up with the Kardashians and a whole other thing for it to be the focal point of everyone's attention. The only things keeping this country from rising up against the elites are: relative financial comfort (despite inflation, most people are keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table), plent
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The part about murder being necessary to draw attention to the situation is apparently new.
When I was younger I had no idea the USA had such horrible health outcomes vs. funds spent. LM has Reddit paying attention all of a sudden [reddit.com]. Reddit is a younger average demographic than Slashdot.
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In particular, the proceedings of the criminal justice system are not a platform for public messaging.
If
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Notice how no big news sources have published his short manifesto and only refer to his "outburst" while being lead into a facility. If the news starts reporting what he said it would upset the establishment and give people similar ideas.
Really?
I read it, and... there's nothing there that everyone doesn't already know, and isn't discussed regularly in the news. I suppose UHC's market cap isn't regularly in the headlines, but it's super easy information to find. The fact that our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world and that we rank fairly low in life expectancy is in the news all the time, in various ways and for various reasons.
If I were a journalist, I'd have read his "manifesto" and written about his outburst, becau
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I read it, and... there's nothing there that everyone doesn't already know, and isn't discussed regularly in the news.
All the news is about stuff that is regularly discussed in the news: crimes, accidents, scandals and such. It's almost entirely things that have zero impact on your life, other than the weather report and boring policies, but it's why your neighbor thinks crime rates are terrible (the availablility heuristic). There's huge differences between what people intellectually know, what they treat as real, what they focus on.
What the elites are really scared of (Score:1)
It wouldn't be a movement it would be stochastic terrorism it's just that they are used to being able to lure in the shadows. Many years ago people figured out that if you called yourself King you'd have no end of people coming to lob your head off but if you change the name to CEO and did the exact same things as a king does people couldn't put two and two together...
Also I'm not entirely convince
Re:They want to silence him (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing in this statement is surprising, we all know this. But it doesn't give anyone license to kill.
I don't think people would react to reading this statement as strongly as you seem to imagine they would.
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Life expectancy is higher by about 5 years in other industrialized countries, compared to the US. https://www.healthsystemtracke... [healthsystemtracker.org]
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Nothing in this statement is surprising, we all know this. But it doesn't give anyone license to kill.
Many people die each year because of decisions made by executives at insurance companies. If there is no legal recourse, recourse will be taken inconveniently, as it just was.
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Even if other people kill, through action or inaction or bureaucracy, it still doesn't give you a license to kill in response.
And there is legal recourse.
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And there is legal recourse.
I am glad that you believe this. I am guessing that you are basing this off of what you have "perceived" rather than direct experience as it is radically out of line with my own experiences. Sure, occasionally, some family wins some sort of lawsuit to get some money for their dead mother, child, etc; however, for the vast majority, money after the fact is irrelevant to the desired goal. Even then, the amounts are paltry and rarely awarded.
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I have fought plenty of battles with insurance, and thankfully, have not had to resort to the legal system. Through persistence and self-education, I was always able to get the coverage that was expected.
But even if there is no legal recourse, it's still not license to kill.
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But even if there is no legal recourse, it's still not license to kill.
A society exists when its members protect each other. One particular guy was murdering thousands and worsening the lives of millions using the rules that the society he existed in provided to him. Since there will be, and has been, no systemic relief, non-systemic relief was used. It seems that you are thinking that murdering with a pen is just dandy and that murdering with a gun is bad. In a properly functioning society, that would be the correct take; however, as we just discussed, there were no pen based
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No, I don't condone the actions of insurance companies. Their actions are in many cases, pure greed, and that greed often does lead to people experiencing worse outcomes and even death. There is no excuse for that.
And yet, still not license to kill a CEO.
If I had any clues about this guy's whereabouts before he was caught, I would absolutely have turned him in to the police, even though I sympathize with his frustrations.
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The laws and morals of society are of the utmost importance. When the social contract is broken, it is like undefined behavior in a C program. The rules no longer matter as ANYTHING could happen.
I would not have turned him in. I would have sat there munching popcorn and laughing at the CEO, the killer, and Society. This was inevitable and it is only going to get worse. The surveillance state can't stop it, merely disrupt it temporarily. Many more people are going to unnecessarily die.
Those deportation camps
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You have a much more dystopian view of the world than I.
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You are fortunate. I am currently fortunate; however, I have not always been so fortunate. I can see enough of what is happening to know that something terrible is going to happen within 5 years. The increased surveillance, government personnel ignoring/disrespecting laws, the record profits but lack of pay increases for the rank and file, using AI to override a doctor's prescription, and reading history all tell me that this shit is about to blow up and the USA will no longer be the USA (this part will tak
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I know, right! It's a conspiracy, man!
As Paul Harvey used to say, "Any excess is, ultimately, its own undoing."
Yes, there is a lot of excess in medicine in America today. But the trends will not continue forever, the pendulum will eventually swing the other way.
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Notice how no big news sources have published his short manifesto and only refer to his "outburst" while being lead into a facility. If the news starts reporting what he said it would upset the establishment and give people similar ideas.
“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
There would be hell to pay if the major news outlets made headlines with the fact that the USA pays the most in healthcare and gets shit results. This could start a movement and the elite are terrified.
And there you #$s$%^ go ... justifying murder (at least in in your minds).
You make endless crap up about people you don't like, but you literally support murder, as long as it jives with your politics.
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That's pretty much true for everyone though. Obviously killing can be justified. We do it every day. It's okay if the government kills people (cops, military, cia) but not for ordinary citizens. It's extra okay to kill people if they are poor or non-white, especially if it's the government doing it, right?
No, that's not right but we let it stand anyway.
So while I disagree with this person deciding to kill another person that he blames for his medical outcomes, I also disagree with the government sanctioned
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There would be hell to pay if the major news outlets made headlines with the fact that the USA pays the most in healthcare and gets shit results. This could start a movement and the elite are terrified.
And there you #$s$%^ go ... justifying murder (at least in in your minds).
You make endless crap up about people you don't like, but you literally support murder, as long as it jives with your politics.
I'm not seeing where that was said anywhere, and why do I have the sneaking suspicion you cheered for Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny.
You did, didn't you. Save me the trouble of looking through your post history and have a little dignity man. It's your opinion, you can have it.
Projection, every single time.
Well, ya ... (Score:2)
Tech Platforms Diverge on Erasing Criminal Suspects' Digital Footprints
Otherwise, how will people find info on their favorite politicians and tech moguls? :-)