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YouTuber in Barcelona receives fifteen-month prison sentence, 20,000 euro fine, and five-year ban from social media for toothpaste-filled Oreo prank
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- Title
- Filling Oreo With Toothpaste Earns YouTube Prankster a Jail Sentence
- Published
- Jun 2 2019
- Word count
- 495 words
Fuck that guy. Positive? Really? Seems he wouldn't have had a smidge of regret if it didn't blow up so much.
Crucial detail is that even though he got a jail sentence, he's unlikely to actually go to jail:
And also part of the judgement:
...
Seems to me like a fairly even-handed punishment.
I'm guessing "It was just a prank, bro!" didn't work on the judge.
Have there been any legitimate cases of social media stars messing up in a major way and actually reforming?
No, because to get that big off of something so absolutely inconsequential, you have to have an eccentric (read: insufferable/narcissistic) personality in order to pull in gullible idiot viewers. These people are big because they can spend so much time talking at people and showing only the sides of them they want. It's no surprise that many are predominantly shitty people
I don't know the law, but, from an ethical standpoint, I think this is actually an underreaction. The perpetrator showed a perverse disregard for the moral integrity of another human being and did so for frivolous reasons. In my language, we call this "danos morais" (moral damage), and that is a factor in the calculation of sentences.
AFAIK, around here this kind of thing can only make you pay fines and face sanctions, not jail time. But I'm not opposed to it.
Am I the only one who thought this was a massive overreaction? Sure its not nice to trick someone but as far as youtube pranks go this one wasn't so bad, no one was hurt and nothing was destroyed.
If it was up to me I would require the uploader to give all ad profit made on the video to the person in the video and require them to take the video down and post an apology.
Its hardly a punishment because its hardly even a crime. In most countries you would be fine doing something like this legally but maybe looked down on by others.
The punishment should fit the crime and a minor punishment seems fair here. The law doesn't have to enforce we be nice to each other. I can call up my friend and say "You're an ugly piece of shit and everyone hates you" Its obviously the wrong thing to do but legally its fine. And thats ok.
You might be right tbh. Youtube pranksters are definitely a drain on society and I would hate to think how kids who watch these videos thinking they are an acceptable way to behave end up.
There are a lot of reasons to not consider this an overreaction:
As a society, we have a real problem with power disparity, and that's a big part of what makes this the big deal that it has become. People need to be significantly dissuaded from abusing their power and privilege for entertainment; this sort of coercion is deplorable, and examples need to be made to prevent it from happening in the future.
To me, that's more a sign that Youtube pranks as a whole are a toxic swamp.
Previously, Youtube pranks have involved bomb threats and child abuse. So yes, compared to those, giving a homeless man a fake Oreo is not so bad. But it's still pretty bad.
If you rob a bank, and get caught, the punishment isn't just "give the money back to the bank". It's much more severe, because it's something we recognize as harmful to society beyond the money taken.
This guy had 1.2 million followers, and turned "lol this homeless man is desperate for food, let's give him some fake food and film his reaction" into a joke that he could exploit for further fame and profit.
A forced apology is not an apology. This probably would have been a "I'm very sorry I got caught...make sure to like, comment and subscribe!" video, and then going on with videos as usual.
From the article:
Not enough.