Shooter video ‘destroyed innocence’
A Tauranga mother says attempts by social media companies to remove horrific video footage of the Christchurch shootings from their platforms came too late for her 16-year-old son, and that they need to change their focus.
Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, admitted it could still not be sure that footage of the Christchurch shootings would not be circulating on Facebook and Instagram yesterday.
That was despite staff working ‘‘around the globe and around the clock’’ to remove it. Facebook said it had removed or blocked 1.5 million attempts to upload and share footage that was apparently live-streamed by the gunman before and during the attacks on mosques in Christchurch in which 50 people were murdered.
However, it could not guarantee that the footage would not be visible on the platforms because people were still attempting to upload it, a spokesman said.
Agri-scientist Amanda Gilbertson believed social media firms could have temporarily disabled the uploading of videos or delayed their publication, after they became aware live footage of the attacks was circulating on their platforms.
Gilbertson returned home after having had a conversation in her car with her other son and a friend about why the video should not be spread. ‘‘I got home and checked in with my other kid and he said he had seen the video. ‘‘It was gutwrenching. Once you have seen something like that you can’t ‘unsee it’ – it is a lot to process.
‘‘I was angry the innocence has been ripped away.’’ Facebook was deciding whether to take action against people who shared or uploaded the footage on a case-by-case basis, depending on their motivation, its spokesman said.
Spark managing director Simon Moutter also criticised the social media giant on Friday, tweeting that he agreed with an assertion that if Facebook ‘‘put as much effort into algorithms for preventing the spread of hate material as they put into targeted advertising they could easily solve the problem’’.
Spark and other major internet providers had now blocked more than 10 overseas websites that were hosting footage of the shootings, spokesman Andrew Pirie said.
Facebook was now seeking to block and remove any part of the video from being uploaded and shared – including by news organisations, the spokesman said. Facebook’s focus at the moment was on ‘‘removing that harmful content from our services’’, he said.
‘‘We have teams working around the world and around the clock on this.’’