This isn't the first time we’ve seen this pattern play out: It’s been nearly four years since two news reporters were shot and killed on camera in Virginia, with the killer’s first-person video spreading on Facebook and Twitter.

Many hours after the shooting began, various versions of the video were readily searchable on YouTube using basic keywords, like the shooter’s name. News organizations as well started airing some of the footage as they reported on the destruction that took place.īy the time Silicon Valley executives woke up Friday morning, tech giants’ algorithms and international content moderating armies were already scrambling to contain the damage-and not very successfully. Almost immediately, people copied and reposted versions of the video across the internet, including on Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube. The shooter apparently seeded warnings on Twitter and 8chan before livestreaming the rampage on Facebook for 17 gut-wrenching minutes. Sky News Australia chief executive Paul Whittaker said the local live news feed was withdrawn and switched to sports coverage for the New Zealand broadcast but not because of the distressing video (which did not include any shootings or victims).At least 49 people were murdered Friday at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in an attack that followed a grim playbook for terrorism in the social media era. Traditional television companies have also come under scrutiny over their handling of the footage, with several complaints received by the regulator. 'It is tragic it has taken something of this scale to get people to notice,' he said. 'If the idea of being famous among the hard right racist supremacist mob is the goal, then nothing comes close to livestreaming on Facebook for an instant non-editorial non-checkable method,' he said. It’s unclear whether there will be another inquiry into the social media giants on this topic as Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims said the terms were very broad but the 'appalling livestream is under a different heading'.ĭavid Vaile, co-convenor of UNSW’s Cyberspace Law and Policy Community and Australian Privacy Foundation chairman, said this was a 'tragic and inevitable result' of social media giants not being held to account in the past.

Christchurch shooting video