I am struck by the parallels wrt Trump and the recent Kai Cenat craziness. Kai is apparently going to face charges for instigating the riot in NYC, where he said he was giving away PlayStations. Trump, of course, told his minions to come to DC, “It’ll be wild”.
The similarities are apparent. I’ll call Trump an influencer for now, tho he is clearly more than just that. But how do we hold influencers accountable if their actions trigger violence? I’m not sure we have any laws about that, since the whole social media thing is so new. Using existing law makes it weird.
Pretty sure everyone would agree that both times, the influencer was involved. (Gotta be careful before using the word responsible). I’ve heard defenses, in both situations, stating that the influencer did not have control over the minions behavior. But that doesn’t quite work for me since they certainly had control enough over them to get the crowd to show up. Better to say they lost control at some point, not that they had none.
In both situations, bad shit happened. Clear injuries and damage. But where is the justice in arresting some of the minions, but letting the influencer walk? It’s the influencer that is making money on the actions. The whole thing is the result of their behavior. Maybe not intentional, but wrong has been done none the less. (If you lose control of your dog and the dog mauls a child, you’re going to be in legal and civil jeopardy).
IANAL, but I think we need some new laws regarding culpability of influencers who cause harm via their crowds. The current laws get entangled because of Free Speech. All very fine, but social media puts power in people’s hands that didn’t exist before. Technology presents us with a conundrum in the existing legal framework.