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eBay's Ill-Timed Lifetime Achievement Webby
theodp writes "eBay CEO Meg Whitman will accept a special Webby Lifetime Achievement Award next month on behalf of the eBay Community, which has 'permanently changed the way people connect, discover and interact with each other.' Perhaps by then, people will have forgotten how eBay enabled buyer 'Blazers5505' to hook up with sellers like 'oneclickshooting' just weeks before the worst mass shooting in modern US history, prompting eBay to issue a gun-parts-don't-kill-students-guns-and-ammo-do statement that showed little evidence of its celebrated commitment to social consciousness. CEO Whitman, who received $11.1M last year for her leadership efforts, has kept a low profile since tooting eBay's trust-and-safety horn for Wall Street analysts two days after the Va. Tech rampage."
is this for real? EBay has made HUGE differences. They have moved auctions to the web in a big way. Now, you may blame e-bay for selling the weapon, but then why not blame the steal worker who dug the iron as well? Or the farmer who provided the food to the steal worker so that they can live. EBay did not even sell the gun. They simply provided a means to it being sold. If your logic says that everybody who is connected is guilty, then you have blood on your hands.
And yes, e-bay, the gun maker, the steal worker, and the gun did not kill. Cho did. And he could have done more had he made IED and used them. Are you going to stop selling gas or other fuels for that potential?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Ok he got magazines, not filled, but empty magazines, get over it people!
Seriously, Ebay has changed the way we interact. Why are we quibbling over this? Oh yeah people want to shame ebay for this and blame it on anyone other than the student who commited the murder. They didn't tell him to do it, they didn't pull the trigger, this is one sale out of a couple million?
Ebay and the founders deserve this award, hell they deserve another award for taking an idea from the dot com bubble and making a couple billion dollars off of it (kudos to them for that). Trying to throw dirt on them now is petty as hell, and Kdawson needs to figure out if he wants to keep posting biased and muck racking summaries or if he wants to actually post interesting news.
> Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale
> movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?
Oh I dunno, perhaps because there IS such a grand scale movement? There were only two things certain when the VT shooting story broke, that Sarah Brady was racing to the closest sat uplink and that it would be a mad scramble to see who would get to interview her first. Sen Schumer was even honest enough to admit he still wants more gun control but that since the Democrats have figured out they lose seats every time they try it that he wasn't going to start a new push and hose the chance to take the White House. So yes, they still want our guns; they just want the White House more.
> I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with gun-ownership in the hands of responsible adults, but
> there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a gun. Psychological evaluations....
Oh that makes me feel so much better. No I don't have the inalienable Right to Keep and Bear, but if I'll submit to hours of abuse at the hands of some government hack, pay out the ass, and generally jump through as many hoops as it takes for the last pantiwaist to feel 'comfortable' I'll be granted a License to buy a weapon... after I agree to keep it unloaded and locked away in a vault.
Listen up cornholio, that sort of unreason just doesn't fly. The 2nd is either just as much part of the social contract or the 1st won't hold either. Hell, look how much abuse #1 has been taking lately at the hands of the same preening pansy elitists. No, ordinary people aren't safe to be entrusted with Free Speech, only the government can decide who can speak near elections.
Or how about we just recast your silly statement:
I think the great majority of the country (even the blue states) is okay with media licenses in the hands of responsible adults, but there should be certain barriers before being allowed to purchase a purchase a newspaper or TV station. Psychological evaluations (especially for a license to blog or post anonymous), a background check, and a mandatory waiting period without any Internet loopholes seem perfectly reasonable to me. It's not something I feel particularly strong about, but I also don't see any reason media licenses should be 100% easy to obtain.
After all, the pen IS mightier than the sword... or the gun. Dan Rather with a gun might could cap one or two people before he was gunned down by the police as the mad dog he is. But with a irresponsible lying Pen he damned near got to pick the leader of the Free World. Tell me guns should be licensed while irresponsible journalists are free to operate without the slightest safeguards against the danger they can present to society.
But in the end it comes down to two competing visions of what society should be. In mine government derives it's just powers from the People. The People are generally sane, trustworthy people who are capable of self government. I trust my neighbor with a ballot so I have no problem with trusting him with a gun cabinet. And then there is the vision of the gun control gang.
Democrat delenda est