A male sits outside the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, following the mass shooting.
Marty Melville/Getty Images
Facebook has actually been implicated of “going missing” when it concerns combating hate speech and playing an “unrestricted role” in terrorist attacks, following 2 mass shootings at mosques in New Zealand on Friday.
The remarks originate from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the nation’s opposition leader, Bill Shorten, who have not kept back in slamming the function innovation business have actually played in magnifying extremist views.
Both political leaders alert that the web has actually provided a house to the type of white supremacist hate speech upheld by the supposed mosque shooter, an Australian nationwide, stating tech business need to do more to mark it out.
In a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ahead of the upcoming G20 top in Osaka, Morrison stated web innovations are playing an “unrestricted role” in the spread of extremism, which world leaders need to set out “clear consequences” not just for those who perform terrorist attacks, however likewise “for those who facilitate them.”
The letter was likewise sent out to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has actually stated she intends on going over the concern “directly with Facebook.”
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Facebook deletes 1.5M videos after shooting, Democrats…
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But while Morrison did not mention the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by name, his political opponent, Labor leader Shorten, was more forthright.
“A platform like Facebook goes to potential advertisers and says, ‘We know everything about the users of Facebook, we can tell you everything so that you can geo-target and you can market to them,'” Shorten wrote in an op-ed for the Herald-Sun newspaper. “Well, if that’s your business model, fair enough; but you can’t go missing when it comes to hate speech.”
“Social media is a marvelous tool that has the potential to empower us, but too often it resembles a toxic swamp where wrongdoers can hide and where evil is nurtured,” he added.
The comments follow a terrorist attack in New Zealand on Friday, when a gunman entered a mosque in central Christchurch and shot worshipers while they prayed, livestreaming the shooting on Facebook. The attack, which also involved a second shooting at another Christchurch mosque, claimed 50 lives. The alleged attacker, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, was an Australian national.
As New Zealand counts the cost of the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand history, attention has turned to the role the internet and social media played in the attack.
While Facebook and Twitter deleted the alleged attacker’s social media accounts within hours of the attack, footage of the shooting spread quickly. The roughly 17-minute live clip was downloaded from Facebook and reuploaded across the internet on sites such as YouTube, with some users editing out the more graphic content in an attempt to circumvent censors.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Twitter said the company was “committed to working and cooperating with governments around the world, particularly as it relates to safety and wellbeing” and that it has “rigorous and rapid response processes in place” for emergency situations.
Facebook has previously said it deleted 1.5 million versions of the video within the first 24 hours of the attack.
But Morrison is calling for a tougher approach to weeding out extremist content on the internet, saying technology firms have a “moral obligation to protect the communities which they serve and from which they profit.”
He added that social media companies, content service providers and gaming platforms all had a part to play to keep communities safe.
“We know that violent extremists use the internet for recruitment, radicalisation and to carry out their evil acts,” the prime minister’s letter reads. “That they will continue to try to use any means their disposal does not mean governments and technology firms should abrogate their responsibilities to keep our communities safe.”
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
Originally published March 18 at 5:32 p.m. PT.
Update on March 18 at 9:27 p.m.: Adds comments from Australian opposition leader Bill Shorten.
Update on March 19 at 4:02 p.m.: Adds comment from Twitter.
