This is fucking disgraceful (Daily Mail)

[rootypig]

Daily Mail is framing a teenage girl as being at the root of the Santa Barbara shootings, because she 'teased' the perpetrator (according to his 'manifesto'). They have posted pictures of her (with her face pixelated, some concession), in varying states of undress, of course (bikinis, short shorts, things that best fit the narrative).

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2639555/Meet-model-named-Santa-Barbara-killer-reason-saw-women-mean-cruel-heartless-creatures.html

I loathe them already, but this has shocked me. The poor girl. How can they get away with this?

[EffectiveCommunication]

I kind of feel sorry for the guy who killed people in a way, he was let down as much as his victims. His parents seem to have done all they could to prevent this from happening.

[rootypig]

Nancy if you're somehow qualified to tell me in what way I'm wrong, then I'd be happy to hear it. But just saying I'm wrong, without explaining why, is so unhelpful.

And the code, as it is written, is as a matter of necessity a question of interpretation.

[PetiteRaleuse]

The PCC won't think it does. Nancy is right, the guidelines aren't broken.

Doesn't detract from it being a disgustingly intrusive and nasty article though.

[rootypig]

On a narrow interpretation it doesn't violate the code. I don't doubt that that PCC will find that the article doesn't violate their code. But I think it does. I think, if they purport to care about privacy, and children, and the fair reporting of crime, and discrimination, then the article absolutely violates their code.

[rootypig]

Farce I appreciate that, but what is the logical end to that argument? we shouldn't look, and we shouldn't discuss, because it in part benefits them? Isn't that an incredibly dangerous argument? It would only work if we could deprive them of the oxygen of publicity. But what is driving the DM market share is people who agree, not people who don't

I highlighted thoroughly that it is DM link, so that people who do not wish to click, don't. I am using MN as a forum to discuss it, as opposed to their website, in part to avoid those outcomes.

[Nancy66]

'Children' means under 16. This woman is in her 20s

Her privacy is protected because she is not named and she is pixelated. TBH even if they had named her I reckon they'd still have been ok.

[rootypig]

His is the end game for male entitlement, it has nothing to do with bullying, teasing or any other thing that any woman or child has done to him. He believed he was owed sex, and when he didn't get it, he decided to punish the world.

Well said Chaos

(sorry for endless little posts, am trying to coral DD and be online outraged at the same time)

[rootypig]

They are discussing her conduct when she was a child.

I KNOW that they won't take this view, but that doesn't mean that my interpretation is wrong, whatever we mean by that - intellectually indefensible.

[EffectiveCommunication]

Actually, I am sure I read somewhere recently they think antisocial personality disorder was caused by brain damage, bullying and a trauama like divorce. Not everyone with those things will end up with a personality disorder, just seems to be a recipie for it.

I think there was also something about brain scans showing these people have brain damage in the part of the brain that controls empathy.

[OwlCapone]

They are discussing her conduct when she was a child.

But she isn't a child and I don't believe any of the photos are of her as child.

[Nancy66]

when it comes to the PCC your interpretation is wrong rooty - she isn't a child now that's all that matters. Its the age of the subject at the time of publication that's relevant.

[rootypig]

Owl she was 13 when they met.

If any of you is having difficulty distinguishing the substantive point I'm making, why don't you imagine your 13 year old daughter knew a boy, who grew up to be a multiple murderer, and the papers felt entitled to discuss your daughter's life and conduct at the time she was a child, in relation to this crime to which she has not been linked, on the front page of a website that gets 12 million visitors daily.

[Nancy66]

DM have now named her and stopped pixelating

[Joylin]

Bullying can drive the victims to kill themselves, some will take others with them. Maybe she did bully him to breakdown or maybe he misconstrued certain things as bullying, only the people who were around at the time know for sure whether he was tortured by her. If true hopefully she'll regret her actions along with all his other tormentors and they'll raise their children better than they were raised.

I have sympathy for anybody who's been bullied to the point of insanity, add in a disability which makes him very vulnerable to harassment by every little shit out there and limits his ability to understand, cope and get through it, combine his extreme isolation, loneliness, resultant rage and misery with young male hormones and easy access to weapons, it's understandable that he'd react like that. He sits around all day killing things on a screen to avoid the rejection he experiences in real life, shooting people for real is the only way he feels he can engage with a world he's entirely detached from.

This is a tragedy but it should be an avoidable one; there needs to be care to ensure that potentially dangerous people don't have access to firearms, bullying shouldn't be tolerated in schools or anywhere for that matter and isolated kids shouldn't be allowed to retreat even further from the world into 24 hour computer games. Not suggesting the latter causes violence in most people but it does push kids who are already detached from reality even further from it and the only thing in their head hour after hour, day after day is kill kill kill...

[bialystockandbloom]

joylin what a tremendously thoughtful and insightful post. There is a reason for what this boy did which goes beyond "he was just a woman-hater".

[EffectiveCommunication]

I agree what a well thought out post Joylin.

The mail thinks they are above other press, who print the bare backside of Kate Middleton.

[rootypig]

Joylin your post is so speculative and generalised as to be ridiculous. There is no evidence that this kid was bullied to insanity, least of all by this girl, other than his own deranged testimony. Even if he were, the misogynist content of the Mail article is indefensible.

The article now includes direct comment from this woman's father (yes, now named and full pictures Nancy, thanks for your barely concealed glee), who says:

"'She was ten years old for God's sake - she can barely remember the guy. He's a sociopath. She hasn't seen him since school.'"

It is patently ridiculous, sensationalist journalism, and the fact anyone here is defending it in the context of being aware of the dangers of bullying is so ironic it is jaw dropping.

[EffectiveCommunication]

It is not defending, it is explaining, sharing thoughts and idea's as far as I can see.

[rootypig]

It is speculative nonsense that justifies his deranged misogyny - worse than that, it completely overlooks it, in favour of a version of events that we have no idea is true.

Joylin gives a list of factors that s/he thinks makes his actions "understandable". They are: being bullied to the point of insanity; a disability which makes him very vulnerable to harassment by every little shit out there and limits his ability to understand, cope and get through it; extreme isolation, loneliness, resultant rage and misery; young male hormones and easy access to weapons.

Apart from not knowing where half this list comes from - imagination? - and that the woman we are discussing is presumably one of these "little shits" - utter speculation - it leaves no place for the fact that the murderous hatred of women that this young man harboured flourished beautifully in our society, let alone (the point of this thread) that his hateful misogyny is now being propogated in the wake of his death. It is the most appalling tribute to his memory imaginable.

[EffectiveCommunication]

He had a diagnosis of being on the Autistic spectrum, that does limit those on the spectrum in some ways, and does make him vulnerable.

[rootypig]

I don't feel, Effective, that your response is to the most salient points of my comment.

We're saying that it's ok for the Daily Mail to humiliate a young woman, based on what she may or may not have done as a child, to a man who violently murdered 7 people, because he had an ASD diagnosis?

His ASD diagnosis was absolutely relevant to the support he should have received in life (and from the coverage, it sounds as though he had sustained access to professional help). It has fuck all to do with the Daily Mail's coverage. In fact - more irony for you - it barely features, if at all.

[EffectiveCommunication]

I have not seen anyone say it was ok for the DM to humiliate anyone, because someone with an ASD diagnosis murdered 7 people, you are saying that.

[Nancy66]

'barely concealed glee' - eh? what the fuck are you talking about.

[rootypig]

I'm referring to your post at 20:00 Nancy, in the context of all your other posts on this thread in support of the DM.

Anyway I've just hopped over to feminism to read the thread that cat mentions and as a result I think that people there are interested in this so I've ask MN to move the thread.