HOPE WINTER
Special to the Leader
Terror interrupted two peaceful services in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15. Sadly, 50 people were killed and fifty people were left injured as they celebrated a Muslim holiday, Holy.
One gunman was responsible for both attacks, which were just a ten minute drive down the road from each other. The terrorist’s motive behind the attacks were his beliefs in white nationalism in New Zealand, leading him to take action against innocent people who were in the middle of peacefully practicing their beliefs.
Events like the Christchurch attacks are becoming common around the world. Ever since then, New Zealand, along with people from all around the world have come together to mourn the lost souls and the injured.
This attack represented how far terror has traveled throughout the past decade. The current question is how far will it advance in the future?
The criminal who committed this act went as far as to live stream the whole act on Facebook.
The video was flagged by Facebook after 26 minutes of airing live for people to see all around the world. The video is now banned from the internet; however, a hate group has continued to spread the video on the dark web.
This is a new level in terrorist attacks, as the media has expanded with the availability to see anything at our fingertips.
How will the media take action in preventing such an event from being open to public viewing across the world? According to the Washington Post, only 200 people watched it live, yet villains of the internet posted the video for millions of people to see.
Facebook is undergoing reevaluations on what is capable of being re-watched over live stream. Before Christchurch, Facebook’s rules were, in the terms of live-streaming, that it could immediately be taken down if the live event involved suicide.
However, after such an event that no one in their right mind would guess could happen, Facebook has decided to take action.
“We are re-examining our reporting logic and experiences for both live and recently live videos in order to expand the categories that would get to accelerated review,” Facebook said.
The company is trying to navigate ways to speed up the censorship of live-feed posts. If Facebook allows anyone to report live-feed posts, people may spam the reports with posts that aren’t actually detrimental to viewers.
Facebook came out with the statement, saying, “If thousands of videos from live-streamed video games are flagged by our systems, our reviewers could miss the important real-world videos where we could alert first responders to get help on the ground.”
As society learns to cope with the recent terror attacks on innocent people, social media platforms are working to find a solution to prevent copycats from acting out just to gain views.