>According to the U.S. Coast Guard and the Marine Exchange of Alaska, which monitors ship traffic in Alaska, there was no distress call — just a general request for assistance.
As much as I wish bad things on Zuckerberg, this seems pretty clearly on the "rude but not illegal" side of things. Super-yachts are kinda by definition rude already, so this seems entirely expected.
I don't even know if this situation is intrinsically "rude." There's a lot more important context in this:
> “From my experience, I know that situations like this contain myriad details for the vessels involved, so the AIS (tracking) snippet you obtained only reveals one of those details,” he said by email. “I do know that Wilderness Legacy is an UnCruise vessel and is very familiar with Alaska waters, so that may have contributed to them rendering assistance quickly.”
Some rando skiff comes on with "hey we're out of gas in Randeaux Inlet" and the nearest vessel might not even be the best boat to render aid and might not even know the terrain well enough to provide real assistance without undue risk to themselves. Even with modern navionics, etc. The captain of the super yacht might go up to SE AK a couple of times... in their whole career? Maybe 10? Tops? Meanwhile the Wilderness Legacy is up there all the time - that's their bread and butter. While the captain of the super yacht is trying to find the skiff on the chart, the Wilderness Legacy might already know exactly where the skiff was and how to get there, if they could safely go there, etc.
Like, Zuck sucks, but... this isn't really his fault, Facebook's fault, or even the yacht crew's fault. Even if they heard the initial call for assistance, and even if the people crewing the yacht knew the area extremely well, there could be a whole host of other reasons why it would have been better for the Wilderness Legacy to respond.
The whole concept of this article is basically rage bait.
It's being drummed up to "the ship was in distress and this is illegal under maritime law" absolutely everywhere that I've seen.
Like this post. The "Ship in Distress" part of "Mark Zuckerberg's Yacht Refused to Help Ship in Distress" in the display text here is inaccurate, in a legally-significant way. (Was this the original headline text? I don't see any evidence of it, at least)
Clearly, the tone comes because the accused weren't guilty of the alleged crime (as you rightfully pointed out), and saying someone's behavior is expected to be bad isn't defending them.
You said "alleged crime", but there is no alleged crime in the article.
Yes, "it's expected" isn't always a defense, but your implication is wrong: More often than not, it is a defense (the most common format is "why are you surprised?"), and that applies here (otherwise, it makes no semantic sense in the parent's comment).
Regardless, why resort to petty insults? It hurts to see this on HN.
I've read the article, and I don't see anything like what you're referring to. There is no mention of legality.
Sure, of course the internet is chock-full of wrong articles or comments, either innocently or outright dishonestly.
If you are refuting those articles/comments, then reply to them (or at the very least mention them). You were commenting directly on an article that does not commit the specific sin you are lamenting. This is how shitposting begins.
This is like the classic internet fallacy: A story negatively painting X person/group appears (in this case, the story writer, rather than the story subject). Somebody says, "This is just another example of those people", and when confronted with the revelation that it is not an example of that, the reply is not "Whoops, sorry", but rather, "Well... they would do that, though."
You already provided the facts, and they want to pretend like there isn't a legal obligation to respond to a distress call and the Zuck hate clickbait was otherwise.
Honestly, Zuck haters should be the first ones to point this out so it doesn't distract from other criticism.
It's a bad article, aside from not exhibiting the specific problem you were originally reacting to. I think it deserves to be flagged. I have not heard about this event anywhere else, and I have not read these bad takes about legality (but it's not surprising to hear that such a "flood" exists).
I only wanted to engage you with the idea that the "rude but not illegal" and "expected of yacht owners" lines are a common form of downplaying bad behavior (we see this all the time when people talk about the bad behavior of large businesses).
And to be clear, I'm not personally attacking Zuckerberg. I don't even know if what he did was actually rude! That's just the premise of your comment.
Depending on the boat and the crew and the knowledge of the crew, it might have been more dangerous for them to help than the other boat in the area too.
As much as my gut instinct is "screw Zuck" the reality is "we don't really know the full picture, and the Wilderness Legacy knew what was up well enough to handle the problem so they did"
That Ars these days. They want attention and this is the way their audience wants them to do it.
Personally I'm a bit bummed out about it because there's less that I want to read and the articles make the comment section... well, like the articles. I shouldn't complain though - someone took note of where the traffic was and it wasn't people like me. Also I still visit the site, it just seems like there's for me.
> In a statement, a spokesperson for the Meta founder said that “Mark and his family were not on board at the time of the incident,” the superyacht was using a different radio channel, and the skiff was not in distress. “By the time the crew reviewed the Coast Guard contact on a different radio channel from the one they were operating on, the assist was already underway,” the spokesperson said. “We’re grateful all parties are safe.”
"In general, any vessel equipped with a VHF marine radiotelephone (whether voluntarily or required to) must maintain a watch on channel 16 (156.800 MHz) whenever the radiotelephone is not being used to communicate."
The only exception is if in a Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) area, then must be monitoring the VTS channel.
(But even cheap handhelds VHFs will monitor two channels at once)
This wouldn't just be an apparent breach of international maritime law, but it's also a US federal crime not to do so under 46 USC 2304 punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and/or 2 years in prison. Not sure how the flagging of Launchpad in the Marshall Islands affects it or not, but the captain could be held liable if the owner weren't such good buddies with the current regime.
The original source in the top comment of this thread is much better than the hit piece linked in the thread itself. Read that and see if your comment is still accurate, because as much as Zuck is a terrible human, this article is presented really dishonestly.
It's true that small fixed fines not regularly reindexed to inflation don't matter much to the rich and their allies. That's why about half of European countries use structured fines instead, which might still be circumvented when the owner is far richer than the captain and can gift the amount. Perhaps some judges in structured fine jurisdictions have the discretion to adjust them to be so onerous that the fine ensures corrective behavior, which is the primary ostensible reason for fines and penalties of laws to begin with. At present though, there are many more things the Epstein class are able to get away with openly now than in the near recent past.
From the original article they link to: https://alaskabeacon.com/briefs/cruise-ship-helps-stranded-s...
>According to the U.S. Coast Guard and the Marine Exchange of Alaska, which monitors ship traffic in Alaska, there was no distress call — just a general request for assistance.
As much as I wish bad things on Zuckerberg, this seems pretty clearly on the "rude but not illegal" side of things. Super-yachts are kinda by definition rude already, so this seems entirely expected.
I don't even know if this situation is intrinsically "rude." There's a lot more important context in this:
> “From my experience, I know that situations like this contain myriad details for the vessels involved, so the AIS (tracking) snippet you obtained only reveals one of those details,” he said by email. “I do know that Wilderness Legacy is an UnCruise vessel and is very familiar with Alaska waters, so that may have contributed to them rendering assistance quickly.”
Some rando skiff comes on with "hey we're out of gas in Randeaux Inlet" and the nearest vessel might not even be the best boat to render aid and might not even know the terrain well enough to provide real assistance without undue risk to themselves. Even with modern navionics, etc. The captain of the super yacht might go up to SE AK a couple of times... in their whole career? Maybe 10? Tops? Meanwhile the Wilderness Legacy is up there all the time - that's their bread and butter. While the captain of the super yacht is trying to find the skiff on the chart, the Wilderness Legacy might already know exactly where the skiff was and how to get there, if they could safely go there, etc.
Like, Zuck sucks, but... this isn't really his fault, Facebook's fault, or even the yacht crew's fault. Even if they heard the initial call for assistance, and even if the people crewing the yacht knew the area extremely well, there could be a whole host of other reasons why it would have been better for the Wilderness Legacy to respond.
The whole concept of this article is basically rage bait.
Why would you adopt a defensive tone regarding "rude and expected" behavior? Are either of those things good? Is illegality the bar for criticism?
It's being drummed up to "the ship was in distress and this is illegal under maritime law" absolutely everywhere that I've seen.
Like this post. The "Ship in Distress" part of "Mark Zuckerberg's Yacht Refused to Help Ship in Distress" in the display text here is inaccurate, in a legally-significant way. (Was this the original headline text? I don't see any evidence of it, at least)
Or comments here, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49251495
Clearly, the tone comes because the accused weren't guilty of the alleged crime (as you rightfully pointed out), and saying someone's behavior is expected to be bad isn't defending them.
The parent comment is just edgy pontification.
You said "alleged crime", but there is no alleged crime in the article.
Yes, "it's expected" isn't always a defense, but your implication is wrong: More often than not, it is a defense (the most common format is "why are you surprised?"), and that applies here (otherwise, it makes no semantic sense in the parent's comment).
Regardless, why resort to petty insults? It hurts to see this on HN.
> but there is no alleged crime in the article.
Now, you're trying to conveniently ignore the context of the post you replied to here [0].
> isn't always
> More often than not
I skimmed the rest and saw too many weasel words. Good luck.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49251688
I've read the article, and I don't see anything like what you're referring to. There is no mention of legality.
Sure, of course the internet is chock-full of wrong articles or comments, either innocently or outright dishonestly.
If you are refuting those articles/comments, then reply to them (or at the very least mention them). You were commenting directly on an article that does not commit the specific sin you are lamenting. This is how shitposting begins.
This is like the classic internet fallacy: A story negatively painting X person/group appears (in this case, the story writer, rather than the story subject). Somebody says, "This is just another example of those people", and when confronted with the revelation that it is not an example of that, the reply is not "Whoops, sorry", but rather, "Well... they would do that, though."
It's how high-quality communities like HN erode.
The "Ship in Distress" title editorializing here is part of a very active flood of "lol zuck broke the law" both here and elsewhere.
Which is probably why it's now flagged off the front page.
Don't bother.
You already provided the facts, and they want to pretend like there isn't a legal obligation to respond to a distress call and the Zuck hate clickbait was otherwise.
Honestly, Zuck haters should be the first ones to point this out so it doesn't distract from other criticism.
Please, I'm begging you to consider leaving this style of comment on the rest of the internet, where it normally lives.
It's a bad article, aside from not exhibiting the specific problem you were originally reacting to. I think it deserves to be flagged. I have not heard about this event anywhere else, and I have not read these bad takes about legality (but it's not surprising to hear that such a "flood" exists).
I only wanted to engage you with the idea that the "rude but not illegal" and "expected of yacht owners" lines are a common form of downplaying bad behavior (we see this all the time when people talk about the bad behavior of large businesses).
And to be clear, I'm not personally attacking Zuckerberg. I don't even know if what he did was actually rude! That's just the premise of your comment.
The entire article is just sloppy "Zuck bad, AI bad" clickbait. There is absolutely no indication anywhere that they refused to help.
Depending on the boat and the crew and the knowledge of the crew, it might have been more dangerous for them to help than the other boat in the area too.
As much as my gut instinct is "screw Zuck" the reality is "we don't really know the full picture, and the Wilderness Legacy knew what was up well enough to handle the problem so they did"
That Ars these days. They want attention and this is the way their audience wants them to do it.
Personally I'm a bit bummed out about it because there's less that I want to read and the articles make the comment section... well, like the articles. I shouldn't complain though - someone took note of where the traffic was and it wasn't people like me. Also I still visit the site, it just seems like there's for me.
It's been depressing to see the progression of a lot of formerly good tech sites/blogs into anti-tech doomslop.
> In a statement, a spokesperson for the Meta founder said that “Mark and his family were not on board at the time of the incident,” the superyacht was using a different radio channel, and the skiff was not in distress. “By the time the crew reviewed the Coast Guard contact on a different radio channel from the one they were operating on, the assist was already underway,” the spokesperson said. “We’re grateful all parties are safe.”
"Different radio channel"? The emergency channel is pretty standard in all mariner activities. They just didnt want to help.
Yes this is true.
"In general, any vessel equipped with a VHF marine radiotelephone (whether voluntarily or required to) must maintain a watch on channel 16 (156.800 MHz) whenever the radiotelephone is not being used to communicate."
The only exception is if in a Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) area, then must be monitoring the VTS channel.
(But even cheap handhelds VHFs will monitor two channels at once)
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/radio-watchkeeping-regulations
Article says this was in Farragut Bay which is not a VTS area. So, yes, every boat around was required to be monitoring VHF channel 16.
> Different radio channel
Are sailors as busy meowing at one another as those pilots on guard frequency 121.5?
Yep. Constantly monitoring VHF 16 and 70 (when DSC enabled) is pretty much required.
[flagged]
Source flagged a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49222993
[dead]
This wouldn't just be an apparent breach of international maritime law, but it's also a US federal crime not to do so under 46 USC 2304 punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and/or 2 years in prison. Not sure how the flagging of Launchpad in the Marshall Islands affects it or not, but the captain could be held liable if the owner weren't such good buddies with the current regime.
The original source in the top comment of this thread is much better than the hit piece linked in the thread itself. Read that and see if your comment is still accurate, because as much as Zuck is a terrible human, this article is presented really dishonestly.
USD 1,000 is just play money for Zuck, so I guess Zuck will pay this little bill for his captain.
It's true that small fixed fines not regularly reindexed to inflation don't matter much to the rich and their allies. That's why about half of European countries use structured fines instead, which might still be circumvented when the owner is far richer than the captain and can gift the amount. Perhaps some judges in structured fine jurisdictions have the discretion to adjust them to be so onerous that the fine ensures corrective behavior, which is the primary ostensible reason for fines and penalties of laws to begin with. At present though, there are many more things the Epstein class are able to get away with openly now than in the near recent past.
If the punishment is a fine, it’s legal if you’re rich.