A gunman opened fire in a mosque in Christchurch

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A gunman opened fire in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 49 people and injuring 20 more. As he did so, he filmed the entire crime and live-streamed it directly to Facebook.

What ensued was an exhausting race for social media pages to take the footage down, as it was duplicated seemingly endlessly and shared widely in the wake of the attack. And through social media, it found its way onto the front pages of some of the world's biggest news websites in the form of still images, gifs, and even the full video. This series of events has, once again, shone a spotlight on how sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Reddit try - and fail - to address far-right extremism on their platforms. 49 dead in mosque attacks Attacks mapped What is known about the suspects? As the video continued to spread, other members of the public put up their own posts pleading with people to stop sharing it. One pointed out: "That is what the terrorist wanted." What was shared? The video, which shows a first-person view of the killings, has been widely circulated. About 10 to 20 minutes before the attack in New Zealand, someone posted on the /pol/section of 8chan, a message board po[CENSORED]r with the alt-right. The post included links to the suspect's Facebook page, where he stated he would be live-streaming and published a rambling and hate-filled document Before opening fire, the suspect urged viewers to subscribe to PewDiePie's YouTube channel. PewDiePie later said on Twitter he was "absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person" The attacks were live-streamed on Facebook and shared widely on other social media platforms, such as YouTube and Twitter People continue to report seeing the video, despite the firms acting pretty swiftly to remove the original and copies, and copies are still being uploaded to YouTube, faster than it can remove them. Several Australian media outlets broadcast some of the footage, as did other newspapers around the world Ryan Mac, a BuzzFeed technology reporter, has created a timeline of where he has seen the video, including it being shared from a verified Twitter account with 694,000 followers. He claims it has been up for two hours What is the response of the social media companies? All of the social media firms have sent heartfelt sympathy to the victims of the mass shootings, reiterating that they act quickly to remove inappropriate content. Facebook said: "New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the live-stream commenced and we removed both the shooter's Facebook account and the video. "We're also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we're aware. We will continue working directly with New Zealand Police as their response and investigation continues." And in a tweet, YouTube said "our hearts are broken", adding it was "working vigilantly" to remove any violent footage.

Edited March 16, 2019 by -Dark ✖
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