WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.240 Welcome to your custom deep dive. I'm so glad 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:05.639 you're joining us today because, well, we have 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:08.939 a truly compelling and honestly quite dark stack 00:00:08.939 --> 00:00:11.539 of research to get through. Yeah, it is definitely 00:00:11.539 --> 00:00:14.099 on the darker side. For sure. For this deep dive, 00:00:14.279 --> 00:00:17.019 our mission is to explore the ethically complex 00:00:17.019 --> 00:00:20.440 and frankly incredibly grim history of the early 00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:23.190 Internet. And we are doing this by unpacking 00:00:23.190 --> 00:00:27.010 a single, deeply detailed Wikipedia source. It 00:00:27.010 --> 00:00:29.890 covers the rise, the various controversies, and 00:00:29.890 --> 00:00:32.210 the ultimate fall of a Canadian shock site known 00:00:32.210 --> 00:00:36.149 as Best Gore. And right off the bat, because 00:00:36.149 --> 00:00:38.130 of the nature of the source material you've provided, 00:00:38.350 --> 00:00:40.750 we are going to be discussing the existence of 00:00:40.750 --> 00:00:43.789 some highly disturbing content today. Yeah. Viewer 00:00:43.789 --> 00:00:45.969 or listener discretion is advised for sure. Exactly. 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:48.469 But the reason we're exploring this isn't for 00:00:48.469 --> 00:00:51.149 some morbid history lesson. It's a really profound 00:00:51.149 --> 00:00:54.450 look at the Wild West days of the web. It forces 00:00:54.450 --> 00:00:57.229 us to ask how society decides what information 00:00:57.229 --> 00:00:59.929 is simply too dangerous to view. You know, where 00:00:59.929 --> 00:01:01.890 the legal line of obscenity is actually drawn. 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:04.439 And what happens when those boundaries are pushed 00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:07.480 to their absolute breaking point? We are looking 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:10.180 at how a website that intentionally hosted the 00:01:10.180 --> 00:01:13.180 Internet's most gruesome content ended up sparking 00:01:13.180 --> 00:01:16.799 a massive national legal battle. A battle over 00:01:16.799 --> 00:01:20.140 morality, freedom of information, and the very 00:01:20.140 --> 00:01:22.519 definition of Internet censorship. Okay, let's 00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:24.819 unpack this. We need to start with the anatomy 00:01:24.819 --> 00:01:27.040 of this site and the bizarre economics of running 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:30.760 it. Best Gore was launched on April 30th, 2008. 00:01:30.939 --> 00:01:33.439 The site was owned and operated by a man named 00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:36.200 Mark Merrick, and it stayed active all the way 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:39.500 until November 2020. Which is wild. 12 years 00:01:39.500 --> 00:01:42.400 is an absolute eternity in internet time. Yeah. 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:44.760 Especially for a site operating on the extreme 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:47.359 fringes. Yeah. Absolutely. You have to remember 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:48.920 what the Internet landscape looked like back 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:51.780 in 2008. We didn't have the heavily sanitized 00:01:51.780 --> 00:01:54.260 algorithmic social media feeds we have today. 00:01:54.379 --> 00:01:56.939 The Web was still very much a frontier. And the 00:01:56.939 --> 00:01:59.159 content on this particular frontier was exactly 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:01.159 what you would expect from the term shock site, 00:02:01.239 --> 00:02:03.859 but taken to the absolute limit. Yeah. They didn't 00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:06.340 hold back. Not at all. We're talking about photos 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:09.419 and videos of murders, suicides, torture, and 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:12.800 mutilations. They hosted unedited footage of 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:15.479 open surgeries, horrific traffic collisions, 00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:18.479 and even live assassinations. Just incredibly 00:02:18.479 --> 00:02:20.659 graphic stuff. And beyond the physical violence, 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:23.300 the site also hosted leaked government documents 00:02:23.300 --> 00:02:26.879 and raw files from the CIA and the FBI. It was 00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:29.039 essentially this repository for things you were 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:31.750 never supposed to see. You would think. Given 00:02:31.750 --> 00:02:34.250 the dark voyeuristic nature of human curiosity, 00:02:34.530 --> 00:02:37.569 that a site offering such forbidden content would 00:02:37.569 --> 00:02:39.610 be highly lucrative. Right, you'd assume he was 00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:41.830 making a fortune. But this is where the mundane 00:02:41.830 --> 00:02:44.250 reality of the internet collides with the fringes 00:02:44.250 --> 00:02:47.039 of content hosting. Running a website with massive 00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:49.120 amounts of high bandwidth video traffic costs 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.740 a fortune. All the server costs alone. Exactly. 00:02:51.740 --> 00:02:54.259 You have server costs, constant maintenance, 00:02:54.439 --> 00:02:57.340 exorbitant bandwidth fees. In a 2017 interview 00:02:57.340 --> 00:03:00.159 with GQ Australia, Mark Merrick actually admitted 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:02.800 that running Best Gore costs more than it generated 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.719 in revenue. Wait, so if he's paying those exorbitant 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:08.280 server costs out of pocket and basically losing 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:10.639 money for 12 years, why keep doing it? Was it 00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:13.479 purely ideological for him? It seems to be this 00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:16.860 mix of intense... ideological commitment, and 00:03:16.860 --> 00:03:20.020 just a total inability to monetize the traffic. 00:03:20.259 --> 00:03:22.740 It really reveals the hidden architecture of 00:03:22.740 --> 00:03:25.840 the internet ecosystem. How so? Well, we often 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:28.520 think of these extreme shock sites as lawless 00:03:28.520 --> 00:03:31.120 spaces. Right. Existing completely outside the 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:33.979 rules of normal society. But ultimately, even 00:03:33.979 --> 00:03:36.699 the darkest corners of the web are bound by the 00:03:36.699 --> 00:03:39.800 incredibly mundane realities of ad revenue. Oh, 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:42.629 right. Advertisers. Yeah. You can host the most 00:03:42.629 --> 00:03:45.069 shocking content on earth, but if a mid -level 00:03:45.069 --> 00:03:47.590 marketing executive at a mattress company won't 00:03:47.590 --> 00:03:49.530 put a banner ad next to it, your site is going 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:51.849 to bleed money. Merrick actually had a very telling 00:03:51.849 --> 00:03:54.969 quote about that specific ad revenue irony. He 00:03:54.969 --> 00:03:57.270 said, and I'm quoting here, no company with a 00:03:57.270 --> 00:03:59.069 reasonable budget would want to advertise on 00:03:59.069 --> 00:04:01.770 a website that exposes police brutality, government 00:04:01.770 --> 00:04:04.569 abuse of citizens, war profiteering, and similar 00:04:04.569 --> 00:04:07.270 anti -people activities. He goes on to say, so 00:04:07.270 --> 00:04:10.400 all I'm left with is porn. Worse yet, porn earns 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.060 less today than it did five years ago. It grounds 00:04:13.060 --> 00:04:15.759 the whole operation in this weird bureaucratic 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:19.240 reality. The modern Internet is largely sanitized 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:22.500 by corporate interests. Best Gore was a massive, 00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:25.360 highly trafficked anomaly that simply couldn't 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:28.160 survive the corporate ad model. But despite those 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:30.540 financial struggles, the site continued. And 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:33.939 then in June 2012, it hit a major inflection 00:04:33.939 --> 00:04:37.019 point. A huge one. This was the catalyst that 00:04:37.019 --> 00:04:39.160 brought best score from the dark corners of the 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:41.600 web right into the glaring spotlight of mainstream 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:44.699 media and international law enforcement. The 00:04:44.699 --> 00:04:46.959 site gained massive attention for hosting a graphic 00:04:46.959 --> 00:04:50.740 video titled One Lunatic. One ice pick. This 00:04:50.740 --> 00:04:53.319 was a highly publicized, deeply disturbing case. 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:56.259 The video depicted the actual murder, rape and 00:04:56.259 --> 00:04:58.319 dismemberment of an international student named 00:04:58.319 --> 00:05:01.240 Jun Lin, committed by a man named Luca Magnata. 00:05:01.379 --> 00:05:03.259 And we should clarify the terms here. Right. 00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:05.319 Just to be technically precise about the terminology. 00:05:05.540 --> 00:05:07.220 While some media might loosely call something 00:05:07.220 --> 00:05:09.240 like that a snuff film, legally and technically, 00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:11.819 a snuff film implies a murder committed specifically 00:05:11.819 --> 00:05:14.699 for commercial financial gain. Which this wasn't. 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:17.860 No, this was a recorded murder uploaded for notoriety. 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:21.699 And when this video surfaced on Best Gore, the 00:05:21.699 --> 00:05:25.620 public outcry was immediate and intense. Almost 00:05:25.620 --> 00:05:28.199 immediately, we get these wildly clashing narratives 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:31.000 about how the site handled the video. According 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:33.720 to the police, Mark Merrick initially refused 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:36.100 their request to remove the horrific footage 00:05:36.100 --> 00:05:38.720 from the website. But Merrick vehemently denied 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:41.399 that version of events. Yeah, he was very specific 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:44.680 in his denial. He was. Merrick stated that he 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:47.240 took it down himself. on his own terms, without 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:49.879 being asked. He went on to say that if the police 00:05:49.879 --> 00:05:52.379 had made a request, as they alleged, he would 00:05:52.379 --> 00:05:53.839 have simply told them that the video had already 00:05:53.839 --> 00:05:57.079 been down for days. So you have a direct, unresolvable 00:05:57.079 --> 00:05:59.180 contradiction between law enforcement and the 00:05:59.180 --> 00:06:01.199 site operator regarding the timeline and the 00:06:01.199 --> 00:06:03.480 intent behind removing the video. Which brings 00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:06.360 up the crucial legal threshold of all this. It's 00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:08.300 one thing to have a platform where users might 00:06:08.300 --> 00:06:11.220 upload terrible things independently. It's another 00:06:11.220 --> 00:06:13.680 thing entirely once the platform owner knows 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:16.589 it's there. Exactly. The source brings in the 00:06:16.589 --> 00:06:19.829 perspective of a Toronto -based lawyer specializing 00:06:19.829 --> 00:06:22.699 in internet law named Gilles Velloni. What did 00:06:22.699 --> 00:06:25.160 he say? He argued that the evidence absolutely 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:27.819 supported the laying of obscenity charges against 00:06:27.819 --> 00:06:31.459 Best Gore. Zvonoyne stated, there's no real crime 00:06:31.459 --> 00:06:33.420 where there's no knowledge. But once they got 00:06:33.420 --> 00:06:35.759 notice of that and they allowed it to stay on 00:06:35.759 --> 00:06:38.019 there, that's when the legal line is crossed. 00:06:38.339 --> 00:06:40.959 It's the critical debate of active hosting versus 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:44.540 passive platforming. The Internet largely relies 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:47.139 on safe harbor laws. The idea that a platform 00:06:47.139 --> 00:06:50.060 isn't responsible for what a user posts, as long 00:06:50.060 --> 00:06:52.300 as the platform acts to remove illegal content 00:06:52.300 --> 00:06:54.420 once they are made aware of it. Right, like YouTube 00:06:54.420 --> 00:06:57.100 or Reddit taking down flag posts. Exactly. The 00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:59.740 legal argument against Merrick hinges on that 00:06:59.740 --> 00:07:02.339 exact moment of awareness. Once the operator 00:07:02.339 --> 00:07:04.759 is aware that a recorded murder is actively being 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:07.420 hosted and viewed on their servers, any delay 00:07:07.420 --> 00:07:10.000 in taking it down transforms the site from a 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.860 neutral host into an active distributor of obscene 00:07:12.860 --> 00:07:15.009 material. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:07:15.110 --> 00:07:17.750 though, because you would think the defense for 00:07:17.750 --> 00:07:19.910 running a site like this would just be a strict 00:07:19.910 --> 00:07:22.629 First Amendment style freedom of speech argument. 00:07:22.850 --> 00:07:24.410 Yeah, the classic Internet should be completely 00:07:24.410 --> 00:07:27.149 unregulated. Right. But Mark Merrick's defense 00:07:27.149 --> 00:07:30.189 of his website was far more bizarre and honestly, 00:07:30.329 --> 00:07:34.250 a complex psychological claim. He argued a public 00:07:34.250 --> 00:07:36.589 service defense. He essentially claimed the best 00:07:36.589 --> 00:07:39.750 gore served a positive, necessary function for 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:42.769 society. To explain this, Merrick used a really 00:07:42.769 --> 00:07:46.269 striking analogy. He compared the extremely gory, 00:07:46.269 --> 00:07:49.269 horrific videos on his website to the graphic 00:07:49.269 --> 00:07:51.870 images that the Canadian government mandates 00:07:51.870 --> 00:07:54.629 be printed on cigarette packaging to deter people 00:07:54.629 --> 00:07:57.220 from smoking. The logic being that if you see 00:07:57.220 --> 00:07:59.800 the horrific physical consequences of an action 00:07:59.800 --> 00:08:02.259 in vivid detail, you will avoid that action. 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:04.379 Precisely. And Merrick actually tried to back 00:08:04.379 --> 00:08:06.540 this up with testimonies from his readers. He 00:08:06.540 --> 00:08:08.819 said he regularly received positive feedback 00:08:08.819 --> 00:08:11.160 about how watching this horrific content saved 00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:13.920 lives. Really saved lives. That's what he claimed. 00:08:14.139 --> 00:08:16.980 Users allegedly told him that viewing these tragic 00:08:16.980 --> 00:08:19.879 accidents and violent outcomes convinced them 00:08:19.879 --> 00:08:23.040 to avoid everyday risks. He specifically cited 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:25.199 things like speeding, darting between traffic 00:08:25.199 --> 00:08:27.920 on a motorcycle and even horseplay with forklifts. 00:08:28.040 --> 00:08:30.379 Wow. He even went so far as to claim that the 00:08:30.379 --> 00:08:32.500 site had persuaded some individuals not to commit 00:08:32.500 --> 00:08:35.340 suicide. What's fascinating here is it prompts 00:08:35.340 --> 00:08:38.159 you as the listener to really think critically 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:40.539 about human nature. He's presenting exposure 00:08:40.539 --> 00:08:43.860 to raw trauma as a form of extreme aversion therapy 00:08:43.860 --> 00:08:45.840 for the general public. Like staring at a car 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:48.340 crash. Exactly. We all know the phenomenon of 00:08:48.340 --> 00:08:50.679 rubbernecking at a car crash. There is a dark. 00:08:50.889 --> 00:08:53.929 human impulse to look at disaster. Merrick was 00:08:53.929 --> 00:08:56.330 arguing that satisfying that impulse makes us 00:08:56.330 --> 00:08:58.669 safer. Does it, though? That's the debate. Does 00:08:58.669 --> 00:09:00.909 witnessing the absolute worst case scenario, 00:09:01.190 --> 00:09:04.190 the unedited brutal reality of a workplace accident, 00:09:04.409 --> 00:09:07.129 actually act as a deterrent to risky behavior? 00:09:07.370 --> 00:09:10.049 Or does indiscriminate exposure to that level 00:09:10.049 --> 00:09:13.110 of graphic violence simply traumatize and desensitize 00:09:13.110 --> 00:09:15.330 the viewer? I have to imagine most psychologists 00:09:15.330 --> 00:09:17.720 would lean toward the latter. And unsurprisingly, 00:09:17.879 --> 00:09:20.100 the police did not buy the public service argument 00:09:20.100 --> 00:09:23.100 either. The legal hammer eventually fell. It 00:09:23.100 --> 00:09:25.279 was only a matter of time. Following the investigation 00:09:25.279 --> 00:09:27.440 by the Montreal police into the Magnata video, 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:30.259 Mark Merrick was officially charged by Edmonton 00:09:30.259 --> 00:09:34.159 police on July 16th, 2013. And the specific charge 00:09:34.159 --> 00:09:36.740 is what makes this case so historically significant. 00:09:37.139 --> 00:09:39.259 Because it wasn't just a generic internet crime? 00:09:39.580 --> 00:09:43.120 No, he was hit with a highly unusual charge under 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:47.070 Section 163 of the Canadian Criminal Code. The 00:09:47.070 --> 00:09:50.470 charge was corrupting morals. Corrupting morals. 00:09:50.570 --> 00:09:52.789 It's a phrase that sounds like it belongs in 00:09:52.789 --> 00:09:55.330 the 19th century, not the digital age. Very Victorian. 00:09:55.649 --> 00:09:57.870 Yeah. It's an incredibly rare charge, carrying 00:09:57.870 --> 00:10:00.490 a maximum sentence of two years in prison. And 00:10:00.490 --> 00:10:02.610 the language used by the authorities really highlights 00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:05.789 how they viewed the site. One police investigator 00:10:05.789 --> 00:10:08.490 didn't just call it a hub for violence. They 00:10:08.490 --> 00:10:11.970 described Best Gore as a racist website, inciting 00:10:11.970 --> 00:10:15.309 hate, hatred, violence, violence above and beyond 00:10:15.309 --> 00:10:17.940 anything normal. So the authorities are painting 00:10:17.940 --> 00:10:20.279 a picture of a site that isn't just a neutral 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:23.480 repository for morbid reality, but an active 00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:26.899 engine for societal degradation. Right. The legal 00:10:26.899 --> 00:10:30.169 saga that followed was messy. Merrick was initially 00:10:30.169 --> 00:10:33.389 released on bail, but then just 10 days later 00:10:33.389 --> 00:10:36.429 on July 26th, he was re -arrested for allegedly 00:10:36.429 --> 00:10:39.169 violating the terms of his release. This dragged 00:10:39.169 --> 00:10:41.570 on for years. Years of legal back and forth. 00:10:41.710 --> 00:10:45.230 Until finally in January 2016, Merrick pleaded 00:10:45.230 --> 00:10:47.889 guilty. He received a conditional sentence of 00:10:47.889 --> 00:10:50.190 three months of house arrest, followed by three 00:10:50.190 --> 00:10:53.070 months of community service. A seemingly light 00:10:53.070 --> 00:10:55.289 sentence after such a rare and heavy charge. 00:10:56.090 --> 00:10:58.429 But Merrick didn't just quietly accept the premise 00:10:58.429 --> 00:11:01.370 of the corrupting morals law. In a November 2013 00:11:01.370 --> 00:11:03.929 interview with Adrienne Jeffries of The Verge, 00:11:03.970 --> 00:11:06.090 he aggressively pushed back against the charge 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:09.850 itself, arguing that Section 163 was wildly antiquated. 00:11:09.970 --> 00:11:11.669 He actually made a great point about the history 00:11:11.669 --> 00:11:13.529 of the law. Merrick pointed out that Section 00:11:13.529 --> 00:11:16.149 163 originally prohibited the distribution of 00:11:16.149 --> 00:11:18.409 crime comics and methods of curing venereal disease. 00:11:18.789 --> 00:11:20.629 Just think about the absurdity of that for a 00:11:20.629 --> 00:11:23.159 second. The legal system is trying to regulate 00:11:23.159 --> 00:11:26.379 a 21st century digital shock site streaming global 00:11:26.379 --> 00:11:29.500 unedited violence. And the only tool they have 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:31.980 is a law originally written to stop teenagers 00:11:31.980 --> 00:11:34.639 from buying vintage crime comics or pamphlets 00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:37.480 about medical cures in the 1950s. It's crazy 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:39.340 when you put it that way. It perfectly illustrates 00:11:39.340 --> 00:11:42.580 how analog laws are often blunt, ineffective 00:11:42.580 --> 00:11:45.519 instruments when trying to police digital ghosts. 00:11:46.190 --> 00:11:49.009 Because of that outdated origin, Merrick argued 00:11:49.009 --> 00:11:52.129 the law was being enforced selectively. He felt 00:11:52.129 --> 00:11:54.070 it could be used indiscriminately against anyone 00:11:54.070 --> 00:11:56.129 the government simply decided they didn't like. 00:11:56.330 --> 00:11:59.129 If we connect this to the bigger picture, Merrick 00:11:59.129 --> 00:12:00.809 was constructing a narrative that best score 00:12:00.809 --> 00:12:03.289 wasn't a corrupting influence at all, but rather 00:12:03.289 --> 00:12:06.330 an essential tool for unvarnished truth. And 00:12:06.330 --> 00:12:08.330 this brings us to his most complex and arguably 00:12:08.330 --> 00:12:11.100 most controversial defense. OK, I'm ready. He 00:12:11.100 --> 00:12:13.519 claimed that his community of users, people who 00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:15.960 were drawn together by a shared morbid curiosity, 00:12:16.220 --> 00:12:19.519 had actually evolved into an elite, crowdsourced 00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:22.440 anti -propaganda unit. Now, to be completely 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:26.259 clear here, we aren't validating Merrick's geopolitics 00:12:26.259 --> 00:12:28.620 or independently verifying these global claims. 00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:31.659 We're just looking at the defense he built to 00:12:31.659 --> 00:12:34.419 justify his site's existence to the public. Exactly. 00:12:34.460 --> 00:12:37.179 We are looking purely at the mechanism he claimed 00:12:37.179 --> 00:12:40.470 was happening on his site. Merrick argued that 00:12:40.470 --> 00:12:43.610 because his users consumed so much raw, unedited 00:12:43.610 --> 00:12:46.350 footage of global violence and accidents, they 00:12:46.350 --> 00:12:48.809 had developed an encyclopedic visual memory of 00:12:48.809 --> 00:12:50.809 tragedy. They remembered everything they watched. 00:12:51.009 --> 00:12:53.129 Right. So when governments or rebel groups would 00:12:53.129 --> 00:12:55.649 try to repurpose old footage to push a new political 00:12:55.649 --> 00:12:58.350 narrative, the best gore community would instantly 00:12:58.350 --> 00:13:01.419 recognize it and debunk it. There are three very 00:13:01.419 --> 00:13:03.740 specific, detailed examples that Merrick gave 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:06.259 to prove this point, and the geopolitical irony 00:13:06.259 --> 00:13:08.940 in them is wild. The first involves a brutal 00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:12.159 chainsaw beheading video. According to Merrick, 00:13:12.259 --> 00:13:14.779 a Syrian rebel propaganda team circulated this 00:13:14.779 --> 00:13:17.240 video claiming the atrocity was committed by 00:13:17.240 --> 00:13:19.720 people behind Syrian President Bashar al -Assad. 00:13:19.840 --> 00:13:21.860 But Merrick said his users weren't fooled for 00:13:21.860 --> 00:13:25.080 a second. They recognized it. Yes. They knew 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:27.139 the video was actually much older, that they 00:13:27.139 --> 00:13:29.460 had the full version with original audio, and 00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:32.200 that it was actually footage of Sinaloa cartel 00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:35.100 members in Mexico. So footage of cartel violence 00:13:35.100 --> 00:13:37.759 in North America was allegedly being repackaged 00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:40.440 to influence international perception of a Middle 00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:44.000 Eastern civil war. And this fringe, shock -site 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:47.169 community caught the lie. Because they had already 00:13:47.169 --> 00:13:50.289 scrutinized the original video years prior. Exactly. 00:13:50.690 --> 00:13:53.330 The second example Merrick provided was a video 00:13:53.330 --> 00:13:56.610 of a domestic gas leak explosion. He claimed 00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:58.950 this footage was maliciously manipulated and 00:13:58.950 --> 00:14:01.629 circulated to look like the aftermath of indiscriminate 00:14:01.629 --> 00:14:03.850 bombings by ruling powers. And let me guess, 00:14:03.950 --> 00:14:06.549 the users caught it again. Yep. Again, he says 00:14:06.549 --> 00:14:08.490 his community recognized the original context 00:14:08.490 --> 00:14:10.690 of the gas leak and busted the propaganda attempt. 00:14:11.029 --> 00:14:13.009 The third example is perhaps the most complex 00:14:13.009 --> 00:14:15.769 of all. Merritt claimed that a narrative was 00:14:15.769 --> 00:14:18.129 spreading globally about Muslims being slaughtered 00:14:18.129 --> 00:14:20.129 by Buddhists in Burma, which is now Myanmar. 00:14:20.750 --> 00:14:23.110 He stated that the video evidence being used 00:14:23.110 --> 00:14:25.870 to fool the world was actually a heavily manipulated 00:14:25.870 --> 00:14:28.710 mashup. A mashup? Yeah. According to Merrick, 00:14:28.830 --> 00:14:31.990 his users dissected the video frame by frame 00:14:31.990 --> 00:14:34.070 and identified that it was stitched together 00:14:34.070 --> 00:14:37.230 from three entirely unrelated events. The specifics 00:14:37.230 --> 00:14:39.769 of that mashup are staggering. They identified 00:14:39.769 --> 00:14:42.669 a lynching video from Kenya, footage of an earthquake 00:14:42.669 --> 00:14:45.529 in Tibet, and video of the tsunami disaster in 00:14:45.529 --> 00:14:47.830 Thailand. The claim is that they deconstructed 00:14:47.830 --> 00:14:50.549 a fake narrative by identifying a Kenyan lynching, 00:14:50.669 --> 00:14:53.610 a Tibetan earthquake, and a Thai tsunami, all 00:14:53.610 --> 00:14:55.730 spliced together to look like religious violence 00:14:55.730 --> 00:14:58.679 in Burma. So what does this all mean? We have 00:14:58.679 --> 00:15:01.460 a website built on the darkest impulses of human 00:15:01.460 --> 00:15:04.580 curiosity, a site that police called an engine 00:15:04.580 --> 00:15:07.980 of hatred. It creates a profound paradox. You 00:15:07.980 --> 00:15:09.879 have a community of people colloquially known 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:12.440 as gorehounds individuals who spend their free 00:15:12.440 --> 00:15:14.740 time watching the most horrific things imaginable. 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:18.200 Yet, according to Merrick, this exact habit inadvertently 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:20.879 turned them into incredibly effective forensic 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:22.879 analysts. Because they had seen it all before. 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:24.919 Because they had seen the raw source material 00:15:24.919 --> 00:15:27.730 of human misery. They were uniquely inoculated 00:15:27.730 --> 00:15:30.490 against visual manipulation. They could spot 00:15:30.490 --> 00:15:33.309 a geopolitical lie because they recognized the 00:15:33.309 --> 00:15:35.870 specific background details from a cartel video 00:15:35.870 --> 00:15:39.149 five years prior. It's a total inversion of the 00:15:39.149 --> 00:15:41.929 corrupting morals charge. He's essentially saying 00:15:41.929 --> 00:15:44.110 we aren't corrupted. We're the only ones seeing 00:15:44.110 --> 00:15:47.309 clearly because we refuse to look away. But ultimately, 00:15:47.549 --> 00:15:51.129 the era of best gore did come to an end. Interestingly, 00:15:51.330 --> 00:15:53.250 the site didn't fall to a massive government 00:15:53.250 --> 00:15:55.730 takedown in the end. The source material tells 00:15:55.730 --> 00:15:58.870 us that on November 15th, 2020, the website simply 00:15:58.870 --> 00:16:01.909 became defunct. Mark Merrick had decided to focus 00:16:01.909 --> 00:16:04.029 his attention on other interests. You just walked 00:16:04.029 --> 00:16:06.850 away. Yeah. A few days later, on an alternative 00:16:06.850 --> 00:16:09.649 decentralized video platform called Elberry .tv, 00:16:09.970 --> 00:16:12.090 someone asked if the site was down indefinitely. 00:16:12.549 --> 00:16:15.529 Merrick simply replied, most likely permanently. 00:16:15.850 --> 00:16:18.590 It ended not with a bang, but with a quiet server 00:16:18.590 --> 00:16:21.960 shutdown. A mundane end to a highly controversial 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:24.620 digital era. Which leaves us with the core tension 00:16:24.620 --> 00:16:27.820 we've been circling this entire deep dive. Best 00:16:27.820 --> 00:16:30.019 Gore existed right on the bleeding edge of the 00:16:30.019 --> 00:16:32.779 debate between public morality, freedom of information, 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:35.779 the legal responsibilities of hosting platforms, 00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:39.080 and the dark psychological draw of human tragedy. 00:16:39.549 --> 00:16:41.350 This raises an important question, and it's the 00:16:41.350 --> 00:16:43.590 thought we want to leave you with today. We've 00:16:43.590 --> 00:16:45.889 just analyzed how this deeply controversial shock 00:16:45.889 --> 00:16:49.149 site community inadvertently acted as a morbid 00:16:49.149 --> 00:16:51.929 but apparently effective verification system 00:16:51.929 --> 00:16:55.870 against manipulated videos and propaganda. Today, 00:16:56.190 --> 00:16:58.710 we are living in a rapidly evolving era of AI 00:16:58.710 --> 00:17:01.669 -generated deepfakes, highly curated algorithmic 00:17:01.669 --> 00:17:04.210 news feeds, and unprecedented digital manipulation. 00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:07.140 So who are the modern arbiters of visual truth? 00:17:07.380 --> 00:17:10.359 That is the big question. When the chaotic, unfiltered 00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:12.019 shock sites of the early Internet disappear, 00:17:12.339 --> 00:17:14.779 do we inadvertently lose an ugly but highly effective 00:17:14.779 --> 00:17:17.180 crowdsourced fact -checking mechanism? And if 00:17:17.180 --> 00:17:19.599 so, what takes its place in a world we're seeing 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:21.970 is no longer believing. It's a heavy question 00:17:21.970 --> 00:17:24.430 and one that only gets more relevant as technology 00:17:24.430 --> 00:17:27.130 advances. Thank you so much for joining you or 00:17:27.130 --> 00:17:29.869 rather joining us on this complex and challenging 00:17:29.869 --> 00:17:32.930 deep dive today. We hope it gave you a new perspective 00:17:32.930 --> 00:17:35.250 on the hidden mechanics of the Internet and the 00:17:35.250 --> 00:17:37.410 tricky balance between censorship and truth. 00:17:37.670 --> 00:17:40.190 Keep questioning the world around you and we 00:17:40.190 --> 00:17:41.470 will catch you on the next one.