Police Say Facebook Is Liable In Man's Death, Because He Was At A Flashmob Organized On Facebook
from the make-it-stop dept
Following the story we just had about a judge trying to order Facebook to stop students from skipping classes, an anonymous reader sends in an even more ridiculous "blame Facebook" story. This one takes place in France, and involves a flash mob that was organized on Facebook -- as many flash mobs are these days. This particular flash mob involved getting a lot of people together and having them all drink an alcoholic beverage. Tragically, however, a young man died during the flash mob (Google translation of the original story). Apparently this particular participant in the flash mob tried to slide down a guard rail, but missed, and fell off a bridge to his death. The article quotes some people suggesting Facebook should be blamed, and the person who submitted the post notes that a police spokesperson on TV also blamed Facebook:According to Mohamed Douane, a police official representative, on a live broadcast on the TV channel BFMTV, Facebook is liable for allowing the flash mob to be made by providing a space on which you can express yourself. In addition, whoever had the idea of making the flash mob are also liable for the death of this man, and this case would be under investigation, in order to find who had the idea of such a flash mob.Yes, it's tragic that this guy died, but blaming Facebook? And whoever organized a get together of people, because this guy apparently drank too much? That's going way too far.
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Filed Under: flash mob, france, liability
Companies: facebook
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It's strange how when the heard gets thinner, it also gets stronger. Weeding out the idiots is a good thing. Now if we could only get rid of that idiot cop.
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Re: Missing the Point
Similar reason, and similar legal rulings as to why you should not put a gun in the hands of the mentally challenged, or bartenders do not give totally free alcohol access to the alcohol consumption challenged, or they will be liable for any adverse results.
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Re: Re: Missing the Point
Put a gun in a retard's hand, you take away the ability of the other individual to avoid an accident. If the mentally challenged person shoots somebody, it is most clearly not the other person's fault.
However, look at this case. The man chose, by his own will, to attend this gathering. There is no justifiable means of blaming the person who started this gathering, or even the medium in which they used to organize it (in this case, Facebook).
If we're of the mind to excuse the actions of a person under the influence, then we wouldn't be handing out DUI's and prison sentences to those that have been apart of terrible accidents relating to alcohol consumption.
It was his own fault - not anyone else's.
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Re: Re: Re: Missing the Point
Maybe sue them all. They are all to blame. Certainly not me. I died. I must be a victim.
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Re: Re: Missing the Point
Am I missing something here? Are we so wrapped up in blaming someone or something else for something that we did have we forgotten about 'personal' responsibility?
I was injured on a scooter because the idiot I was giving a ride to stood up at speed on a curve to impress a girl. Did I blame him? Of course not, I blamed myself for letting that idiot on the back of my scooter in the first place.
People need to grow and put responsibilty squarely where it belongs; with themseleves...
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Re: Re: Missing the Point
Am I missing something here? Are we so wrapped up in blaming someone or something else for something that we did have we forgotten about 'personal' responsibility?
I was injured on a scooter because the idiot I was giving a ride to stood up at speed on a curve to impress a girl. Did I blame him? Of course not, I blamed myself for letting that idiot on the back of my scooter in the first place.
People need to grow and put responsibilty squarely where it belongs; with themseleves...
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Re: Re: Missing the Point
Gee, political correctness gone completely haywire?
For the record I'm an alcoholic (in recovery, thank you) not some namby pamby PC expression of the same. The real word, the real condition.
Second point. When I was out there practising my alcoholism I'd find a drink anywhere I could bartender rules or no bartender rules. I drank it, no one poured it down my throat, though I'd actually have appreciated that sometimes, I'm responsible for my consumption and my behaviour after consuming the stuff.
As for facebook being a home for fad idiots one could make the same argument about HuffPo (it gets easier every day to do that) or the Web in general so perhaps we should take web access and internet access away from everyone who doesn't pass your idiocy test?
Hold it a minute! Life is a home for fad idiots! How do we test for those and make sure they no longer have access to life? Got a test for that too?
hehehe
ttfn
John
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nature weeds out the idiots.
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I think we also need to blame
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Re: I think we also need to blame
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So the government should be liable, too, right?
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ROFL
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If he tweeted about it, Twitter should be blamed. If he emailed using Hotmail or Gmail, well, Microsoft and Goggle are totally to blame too.
But why stop there? I mean they drank alcohol. If they had just drank water, this wouldn't of happened. So we should also blame the store that sold them the alcohol. As well, just to make sure we've covered all the bases the maker of the alcohol should be blamed.
As others have already said, whoever put in that guard rail should be taking some of this blame too.
Someone has to be blamed after all. Accidents don't just happen, someone must be at fault.
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It amazes me that that "someone" is never a dead person! Do not speak of them bad or do not speak at all.
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The farmers who grew the ingredients for the alcohol.
The makers of his shoes for not preventing him from falling.
The bartender the sold him alcohol.
The people the bartender pays rent/mortgage to.
The bartender's family (if they have any.)
(Because its their fault that the bartender took up bartending as a way to pay for stuff.)
The bartender's boss. Its their fault for hiring the bartender.
The owner of the bar. Its their fault for putting a bar at that location.
.....
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Maybe we could include a few nubile virgins and a volcano and have a good old conflagration.
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Why stop there!
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Wasn't there an amendment or something?
I think I read something about this somewhere....
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Re: Wasn't there an amendment or something?
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Re: Re: Wasn't there an amendment or something?
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Facebook, flashmobs in France, death of a drunken firefighter...
This policeman did say what's reported above - but the interior minister (who isn't usually that considerate...) just said that "something needs to be done about this flashmob phenomenon - but that blaming Facebook or simply banning the events is not the answer".
Politicians and people in the street alike are now acknowledging (some with surprise!) the "power of FB" and (all in all) recognize that the social network is just the medium. Interesting "debate"... Lots of people just discovered the "importance" of FB: over 15m accounts in France - a quarter of the entire population. :)
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Re: Facebook, flashmobs in France, death of a drunken firefighter...
Just be watchful of widespread reporting of this kind, as we should all be world-wide. I sometimes have my doubts that this is simply blatant ignorance. Being a tyrant is easy when a misinformed public becomes outraged at all the wrong things, for all the wrong reasons.
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Re: Facebook, flashmobs in France, death of a drunken firefighter...
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Perhaps they should arrest his great, great, great grandson; he might invent something that will prod someone to do something really stupid in 2235...
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Blame
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Re: Blame
No, no, no, dumbass, it's only God's doing if it's a GOOD thing from the point of view of whoever's saying it. You should pay attention to post game sports interviews, where you always hear:
"Yeah, it was a good win today. First I have to thank God. Without him, none of this would be possible. It's only because of him that we won today."
Yet you never hear:
"Why did we lose to the Celtics? Because of God, stupid interview woman! God fucked it all up. We had an amazing gameplan, we had the best player in the league, all of our shots were on target, but then God pulled down his holy pantaloons and took a big steamy dump on us. Holy Shit! That's what we called it during that last time out. A Holy Shit on our game. Stupid God, always making the ball clang off the rim..."
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Re: Re: Blame
Bwaaahaaahaaaahahahahahahaha!!!!
Every time I read that, I hear Homer Simpson's voice!!!
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We are ALL to blame.
Do you think the prison is big enough to hold all the facebook users?
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Pretty ridiculous
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