No Facebook apology

Facebook is regretful but not apologetic for the way it failed to block the online footage of the March 15 terrorist attack, which is still available on the online platform today.

The social media giant’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, standing alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in New York yesterday, paid tribute to Ardern and pledged that Facebook would do all it could to fight terrorist and violent extremist content online.

Asked if Facebook should apologise because the March 15 video footage can still be found today on its social media platform, potentially retraumatising victims’ families, Sandberg did not answer directly.

“Any time anyone sees anything [of that footage] on Facebook, that is something we deeply regret. We have tried as hard as possible to get things down. We will continue to look for every instance to get it down.

“We can’t wait until a moment like this happens again. We have to do the hard work now to establish the systems, and the protocols, the co-operation, and that’s what today is about.”

Earlier Ardern announced the next stage of the Christchurch Call, including making the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism an independent body to oversee a number of work programmes. These include prevention work such as researching how algorithms affect social media users and intervening if they are being pushed towards radicalised or hateful content, and overseeing a crises-response framework to stop terrorist content from going viral.