Shameful Reporting. – 3D printing clickbait

This 3D printing clickbait is the sort of thing that pisses me off. It’s often the case that the media will sensationalize anything negative about new tech. Apple and Samsung can attest to this but this is clearly a case of miss information. If the printer had caught fire on its own or been faulty that is one thing. To blame a machine for user error though is just wrong. What happened was a tragedy but they are using it as a way to get views or push the anti 3d printer agenda. I’m not going to make many friends on this but A 3dprinting website I can’t name.org should be ashamed of themselves. I expect this from mainstream media but they also used this to get views. “Explosion caused by 3D printer and hairspray kills teenage boy” I know their response and some of your will be to say “what about you”? I’m tired of seeing these click baity posts about how evil 3d printers are doing ______. At least the Telegraph doesn’t have any connection to the 3dprinting community. we have an obligation as members and writer to report the honest facts not help drill holes in our own ship.

Just the facts – 3D printing clickbait

I want to clearly lay out the facts of this event based on the reports from The Telegraph and their sources because in their own words this had nothing to do with a 3d printer.

1. Supposedly 3 whole cans of hairspray were used to get a print to stick based off an internet video the owner saw and emulated.  I scoured youtube for a video and nowhere did I find a video that advocated using more than a light coat from a single can that lasted more than a couple seconds.
2. They had Flashpaper from their magic business improperly stored very close to the 3d printer. Let’s reflect on this for a moment.  The owners had highly flammable materials improperly stored under a heat source. But this is still the 3d printers fault.
3.  They have not determined whether the ignition was caused by the 3d printer’s “print bed” or a socket. But we are still going to blame the printer in the article because of views. Shame on you.

This is user error and failure to abide by safety regulations not the fault of a “Chinese 3d printer”. We don’t know how old the flash paper was either over time it becomes unstable. It very well could have self-ignited for all we know. Look we all know a lot of crap can come from china and if left alone one of these Chinese printers could burn your house down. Pop the case on your Chinese power supply sometime those solder joints are scary. This story is tragic. One of our fellow makers was taken from our community. The attempt to lay the soul blame on a 3d printer though is equally tragic. This hurts our community. Things like this spread fear and if left unchecked could make it harder for us to own and operate 3d printers. It’s bad enough that the everyday person thinks all we do is make guns with them now they will think they can explode.

Let them know we aren’t happy. – 3D printing clickbait

We aren’t going to get the mainstream media to stop writing crap like this but we can tell the sites involved in out community that if they are going to write crap like this we won’t stand for it. When you repeat the garbage they spew you only hurt yourself.  Here is a google search of the top listings of this story I think a few of you will not be happy with the top listing and the title of the article. I’m not telling you to go there and give them hate. I just want you to be informed. We do need to make sure that this is seen as how not to report a story otherwise we might as well shoot the other foot.

I’m going to leave you with some wise words from the 3D printing Nerd.