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Associated Press

Why was the live stream video of the New Zealand twin mosque attack aired for 17 minutes on Facebook? Didn’t anyone report it?
The answer is no, said the company. According to its deputy general counsel, Chris Sonderby, none of the 200-or-so people who watched the live video flagged it to moderators.
Sonderby said the first user report did not come until 12 minutes after the broadcast ended.
Facebook said it removed the video “within minutes” of being notified by New Zealand police. But since then, Facebook and other social media companies have had to contend with copies posted by others. Some 1.5 million videos of the attack were removed by Facebook in 24 hours after it first went online.




New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed frustration that the footage remained online four days after the massacre. The video has been banned in New Zealand, making it a crime for anyone to store or distribute the content.
Earlier this week, a New Zealand teenager appeared in court for distributing the video. A second person on Wednesday was charged with the same crime.
Christchurch terrorist posted racist manifesto online before rampage
Philip Arps was arrested by New Zealand police on Tuesday with two counts of distributing objectionable material under the Films Act, and was remanded in custody after appearing in Christchurch District Court. The 44-year-old, who owns a business that had company vans emblazoned with neo-Nazi references, was due back in court on April 15.
The attack raises many questions – among them, why so many people watched without saying anything, whether Facebook relies too much on outsiders and machines to report trouble, and whether users and law enforcement officials even know how to reach Facebook with concerns about what they’re seeing on the service.
Bangladesh man whose wife was shot dead in Christchurch tells her killer: ‘I love you’
“When we see things through our phones, we imagine that they are like a television show,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. “They are at a distance, and we have no power.”
Tim Cigelske, who teaches about social media at Marquette University in Milwaukee, said while viewers have the same moral obligations to help as a bystander does in the physical world, people do not necessarily know what to do.
“It’s like calling 911 in an emergency,” he said. “We had to train people and make it easy for them. You have to train people in a new way if you see an emergency happening not in person but online.”

To report live video, a user must know to click on a small set of three grey dots on the right side of the post. A user who clicks on “report live video” gets a choice of objectionable content types to select from, including violence, bullying and harassment. Users are also told to contact law enforcement if someone is in immediate danger.
New Zealand gun reforms to come in 10 days, says PM Jacinda Ardern after terror attack
Facebook also does not appear to post any public information instructing law enforcement how to report dangerous or criminal video. The company does have a page titled “information for law enforcement authorities” but it merely outlines procedures for making legal requests for user account records. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment and questions about its communications with police.
Facebook uses artificial intelligence to detect objectionable material, while relying on the public to flag content that violates its standards. Those reports are then sent to human reviewers, the company said in a November video.
The video also outlined how it uses “computer vision” to detect 97 per cent of graphic violence before anyone reports it. However, it’s less clear how these systems apply to Facebook’s live streaming.
As New Zealand grieves, it must come to terms with how hatred was allowed to spread
Experts say live video poses unique challenges, and complaints about live streaming suicides, murders and beatings regularly come up. Nonetheless, they say Facebook cannot deflect responsibility.
“If they cannot handle the responsibility, then it’s their fault for continuing to provide that service,” said Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami.
She said it was “incredibly offensive and inappropriate” to pin responsibility on users subjected to traumatic video. In some cases, it’s not clear at the outset whether a video or other post violates Facebook’s standards, especially on a service with a range of languages and cultural norms. Indecision did not seem to be the case here, though. Facebook simply did not know about it in time.

Facebook’s Sonderby said in a Tuesday blog post that the company “designated both shootings as terror attacks, meaning that any praise, support and representation of the events” are violations.
Vaidhyanathan said Facebook’s live video feature has turned into a beast that Facebook can do little about “short of flipping the switch”.
Though Facebook has hired more moderators to supplement its machine detection and user reports, “you cannot hire enough people” to police a service with 2.3 billion users.
‘Traumatised and paranoid’: Malaysians struggle with Christchurch terror attack
“People will always find new ways to express hatred and instigate violence,” he said.
Machines can detect when users try to repost banned videos by matching patterns, or digital fingerprints, in the files. But users determined to get around these checks can make small alterations, such as tweaking the colour or the video speed.
The Global internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a group of global internet companies led by Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft and Twitter, said it has identified 800 different versions and added them to a shared database used to block violent terrorist images and videos.
‘Lives were saved’: New Zealand police foiled gunman’s third attack
Sonderby said some variants are tough to detect and that Facebook has “expanded to additional detection systems including the use of audio technology”.
In a series of tweets a day after the shootings, Facebook’s former chief security officer, Alex Stamos, laid out the challenge for tech companies as they raced to keep up with new versions of the video.
“What you are seeing on the major platforms is the water leaking around thousands of fingers poked in a dam,” he said.
Stamos estimated the big tech companies are blocking more than 99 per cent of the videos from being uploaded, “which is not enough to make it impossible to find”.


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Shot 9 times at New Zealand mosque, survivor walks for peace on 3rd anniversary of attack

New Zealand shooting

New Zealand shooting: More than 200 users watched live stream video of Christchurch mosque attacks, but nobody reported it, says Facebook

Family members from Fiji visit a memorial site for victims of Friday's shooting, in front of Christchurch Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

Mourners carry the first coffin of the Christchurch mosques massacre victim at Memorial Park Cemetery during the funeral ceremony in Christchurch on March 20, 2019. - As the first bodies of the Christchurch mosque shooting victims were returned to grieving families, Muslim volunteers from across New Zealand and Australia descended on the small town to help in the burial process. Islamic custom dictates that people have to be buried as soon as possible, but the scale and devastation of March 15's massacre -- that saw 50 killed in the usually quiet southern New Zealand city -- has delayed the handover of bodies to next of kin. (Photo by Anthony WALLACE / AFP)

Facebook said it removed the video “within minutes” of being notified by New Zealand police. Photo: AP

New Zealand shooting: Christchurch mosque gunman posted racist manifesto online before rampage

Officers from the Armed Offenders Squad push back members of the public following the shooting. Photo: Reuters

Members of a family react outside the mosque following a shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 15, 2019. REUTERS/SNPA/Martin Hunter ATTENTION EDITORS - NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

An injured person is loaded into an ambulance following a shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 15, 2019. REUTERS/SNPA/Martin Hunter ATTENTION EDITORS - NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

New Zealand shooting: Gunman, who called himself ‘Brenton Tarrant’, painted white supremacist icons on his guns

In this frame from video that was livestreamed Friday, March 15, 2019, a gunman who used the name Brenton Tarrant on social media reaches for a gun in the back of his car before the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. (Shooter's Video via AP)

Australian personal trainer Brenton Tarrant, whose name matches that used by the New Zealand mosque gunman, and whose appearance matches that of the man in a video of the attack. Photo: ABC

How European ideas motivated Christchurch killer

epaselect epa07441366 New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (C) meets with members of the Muslim community in the wake of the mass shooting at the two Christchurch mosques, in Christchurch, New Zealand, 16 March 2019. At least 49 people were killed by a gunman, believed to be Brenton Harrison Tarrant, and 20 more injured and in critical condition during the terrorist attacks against two mosques in New Zealand during Friday prayers on 15 March. EPA-EFE/BORIS JANCIC AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT NO ARCHIVES

epa07441894 The Silver Fern of New Zealand is seen projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House to pay tribute for victims of massacre in the mosques in Christchurch, in Sydney, Australia, 16 March 2019. Reports say about 50 died after terrorist attack on mosques in Chistchurch in New Zealand. EPA-EFE/PAUL BRAVEN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT

Brenton Harrison Tarrant is accused of killing 49 people in two New Zealand mosques. Photo: EPA-EFE

Five Eyes fail: Christchurch attack exposes how little intelligence US and allies share on domestic terror threats

The gunman’s two targets were the Masjid al Noor mosque (picture), where 41 people were killed, and a second, smaller mosque in the suburb of Linwood, where seven more died. Photo: Reuters

epa07441050 Brenton Tarrant (Pixelated) makes a sign to the camera during his appearance, on a charge of murder for Christchurch mosque massacre in the District Court, Christchurch, New Zealand, 16 March 2019. At least 49 people were killed by a gunman, believed to be Brenton Harrison Tarrant, and 20 more injured and in critical condition during the terrorist attacks against two mosques in New Zealand during Friday prayers on 15 March. EPA-EFE/Martin Hunter / POOL NEW ZEALAND OUT

TOPSHOT - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to the media during a press conference at the Justice Precinct in Christchurch on March 16, 2019. - A right-wing extremist who filmed himself rampaging through two mosques in the quiet New Zealand city of Christchurch killing 49 worshippers appeared in court on a murder charge on March 16, 2019. (Photo by Marty MELVILLE / OFFICE OF PRIME MINITER NEW ZEALAND / AFP)

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The video on Facebook was reported only 12 minutes after the broadcast ended, said the tech company


The live stream, which was watched by some 200 users, was flagged only 12 minutes after the broadcast ended, said the tech company.


New Zealand shooting: More than 200 users watched live stream video of Christchurch mosque attacks, but nobody reported it, says Facebook

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}The video on Facebook was reported only 12 minutes after the broadcast ended, said the tech company

The video on Facebook was reported only 12 minutes after the broadcast ended, said the tech company