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Comment by redleggedfrog | Hacker News Reader

Cue Streisand effect in 3...2...

It's not the classic case of Streisand effect, because I don't think the tech platforms (to the extent that they can be anthropomorphized) care one way or another about the popularity of these cards. They just don't want the liability of being involved in their production and dissemenation. If someone else wants to take that on, it's somebody else's problem.

Either way, removing the cards from _their_ platform accomplishes their goal.

What liability are you referring to?

Maybe you don't remember this?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

Or this?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/21/how-misin...

Facebook never paid any reparations for the Rohingya genocide, and that was a genocide organized on their platform.

So I don't see how one could think some "most wanted" playing cards could create a liability?

Facebook took an enormous reputational hit over those events. They still receive bad press about them to this day. They Do. Not. Want. stuff like that on their platform.

Goodwill is literally an accounting line item.

And do you really think, if something like that happened in the US, that Facebook wouldn't get sued? Maybe they win, maybe not, but someone would definitely try.

We're talking about a deck of cards that satirize the USDIA Iraqi "most wanted". A deck of playing cards.

Think about all of the things you see on Facebook. Where does a deck of satirical playing cards fall on the spectrum of causing liability in your mind?

We're talking about a deck of cards that have US business executives one one side, a QR code explaining why they're evil, and a shooting target on the other side. Launched shortly after the murder of a CEO. This is an explicit call for murder.

If one of those executives ends up dead and the killer is found with this pack of cards in the pocket, everyone involved in the distribution chain is getting sued. Some may be criminally prosecuted. You might think it's funny, but judges and juries will not. Nor will grieving families.

Until recently, I ran a print-on-demand company. No way in hell I would touch something like this.

I would never heard of these cards except for they got the creator banned and ended up on Hacker news because of that. Seems pretty Streisandy to me.

Streisand tried to stop the publication of a photograph, and consequently the photograph became more widely disseminated.

The tech platforms just don't want the content on their platform. Removing it from their platform accomplished the goal. Unlike Streisand, it's unlikely they care if the content is widely distributed on someone else's platform. Not their problem.

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