Click here to see the New Zealand livestream mass-murder vid! This is the internet Facebook, YouTube, Twitter built! An Australian who murdered dozens in New Zealand on Friday livestreamed the deaths on Facebook, spinning a spotlight onto the abject failure of social media to control harmful content. The 28-year-old shooter, whose name isn't worth publishing, fired on defenseless people attending prayers at two Christchurch mosques, killing …
I would say these guys (including a woman apparently) are members of the christian fuckwit branch of IS
.. although I doubt they would be church goers as such.
Civilisation is the art of living in cities, and all these hate groups are violently opposed to the basic tool of acceptance of differences, which makes them enemies of civilisation itself, irrespective of whatever brandname they act under.
I would say these guys (including a woman apparently) are members of the christian fuckwit branch of IS
You would say wrong.
It's already well known that this person is not a Christian, nor in any fashion claims to be. He actively denied it even.
But hey, lets use it to spread even more hatred around. Not like the world has an over-supply of people spewing hate right now.
Long one. Please bear with me.
So I just got back from the playground with my 2.5yo. The playground is beside a lake, and there is a carpark that faces the lake, and a scenic walking/biking track that goes around the lake.
As we're walking to the car I remote open the boot and a few seconds later a group of guys walking behind the cars, stop behind my car?
I find this a bit odd. Why walk behind the cars when there is a really nice scenic walk 5 steps away (around the lake). Why stop in the middle of the car park? Why stop behind my car.
I'd usually leave my child's bike and bottles and junk near the path and carry her to the car to strap her into her seat, then go back and get all the junk and put it in the boot. I leave the boot up during this process, because parking spots are at a premium, and I want anyone cruising for a spot to realise this is not going to happen quickly. But given this group of guys is now behind the car, I decide to carry toddler, bike, etc. all with me and put the stuff in the load space first, and then go around and strap her in.
They guys, 4 or 5 of then, mid-20's to mid-30's, white, 5'8" to 5'10" short hair and clean shaven, wearing athletiwear (shorts/t-shirts) remian behind my car the whole time, talking.
They are talking about the terrorist video. They are trying to decide which bits they like best. The shooting outside? The shooting inside?
I almost throw up.
I get my daughter strapped in, close the tailgate, and start the car. They move one car spot away, stop behind the next car. I lock the doors and reverse out. As I drive around the car park to the exit, they are still there. The lights change and I leave.
With 20/20 hindsight, I could have taken a good photo from the other side of the car park while waiting for the queue of traffic at the lights. But I didn't think of it. No I don't have a dashcam.
About 15 minutes later when I have time I call the local police station to 'report it. No they were not carrying anything. No they didn't seem to be prepared for any immediate violent act. Their loitering behind the cars in the car park was suspicious and their conversation revolting, but nothing more than that. The police directed me to a web page where I could record the particulars, which I promptly did. During the process of describing it, I realise that where they were standing was probably not covered by any security camera, possibly explaining their preference to remain there.
So why repeat all of this here?
Because the item the author of the article fails to address, is that A LOT OF PEOPLE like and share this stuff.
It's abhorrent that they do, but they do.
Yes it's less than the total user base of facebook, but it's clearly not a tiny proportion.
Yes, it's been proven clinically that it's a sign that they are more likely to abuse animals and people.
In China, I imagine they would not so much do a better job of banning the content, as severely reduce the points in your social balance once they found out you had watched it, and even more if you'd shared it. You'd likely never get a house, job, car or date ever again.
I don't want that to happen in facebook-land, and besides, it won't stop the guys in the car park, will it?
The root of the problem is people actually liking this stuff.
And whilst it's a socal problem, it's not a problem I think social networks can fix, and certainly not with time-delayed video.
Without the same reach as a vid streamed on Facebook, though.
Look, you can't stop small / niche / dark web platforms hosting this stuff, and I dunno if full-blown suppression of anything deemed nasty is the answer. I'm uncomfortable with heavy handed moderation. I don't want all bad stuff stamped out because it's v hard and there's the potential for certain views to be swept away.
OTOH I can think of a few things FB could spend some of that $22bn profit it made in 2018 on. The FB platform is too big and unmoderated. Would you live in a city with no police?
C.
"...I dunno if full-blown suppression of anything deemed nasty is the answer. I'm uncomfortable with heavy handed moderation. I don't want all bad stuff stamped out because it's v hard and there's the potential for certain views to be swept away.
On that we can agree, and strongly. I don't like the idea of people who are likely to join the 'wrong crowd' being able to get such material, but on the other hand I want those who are in the 'right crowd' to always be free to disseminate their views without restriction. I'm pretty sure that as a left-wing gay conservative Christian I belong to the "right crowd", but just in case I'm not I would like to be able to have material contrary to my views so I can weigh it up and incorporate or rebut it as I wish.
But stuff like this, well, that's another matter. But there is a lot of this stuff on YT and I assume FB. I know on YT I can quickly and easily locate footage of people being killed which has yet to be stopped, for example the many "dash cam" compilations which show people being killed in serious traffic accidents. They aren't considered violent deaths as it is not a deliberate act on the part of another person, but the end result is still the same. And we did have TV news footage some weeks back of a bus going over a bridge I believe in China where a fight between a couple of passengers caused the driver to crash (I think one of those fighting fell against him). We weren't shown the footage of the bus entering the water but we were shown the bus going over the bridge, from inside and outside, and have a glimpse of what went through those people's minds in their last seconds. Hell, we were watching their last seconds. And back when I used to watch what is called "news" on TV, I also saw, often, people being shot at. But it's only footage of a bomb hitting a building so it doesn't count despite being told that a second before the explosion there were 300 people alive in that building.
Anyway, it's a tough thing and I don't have answers. What I can do is my best to show anyone I can a better way to live, without violence and without fearing what others may do.
Would you live in a city with no police?
I seldom have dealings with the cops, and with my family's history, well lets just say our view of the police is less than pleasant - and with reason.
I would happily live in a city with little or no police presence. It is only on very rare occasions that they're a deterrent to crime, and they would much rather be out harassing some young person who has the wrong skin colour or the wrong sexuality than respond to any sort of crime. Unless it's something with a bit of excitement of course.
"I would happily live in a city with little or no police presence. It is only on very rare occasions that they're a deterrent to crime, and they would much rather be out harassing some young person who has the wrong skin colour or the wrong sexuality than respond to any sort of crime. Unless it's something with a bit of excitement of course."
So, basically, you're an anarchist who feel order is always misused and that ANY problem in your area is a YOYO.
You don't trust agents of order, which are necessary to maintain order against those who would just assert their own authority (everyone for oneself). You claim they have better things to do than their job, which is why you don't trust them. You said yourself you'd rather live without police (agents of order). From that assertion, one can conclude you're an anarchist (one who doesn't believe in an orderly society).
No.
But from your posts one can conclude you live in a fantasy world where you make stuff up to suit your own mind, and you read things into posts that have never been said, then try to argue as if what your own weird imagination dreamed up is reality.
It is likely to be a waste of time explaining anything to you as your reality distortion field is way to strong, but the reason my family distrusts the police is summed up in my original post in this thread.
Then we must agree to disagree, as police literally saved my life and brought the cold-blooded killer of a close relative of mine to justice. Our firsthand perspectives are just to different to find common ground and the medium is UNhappy.
I agree we should not share such things, we should not even look it up!
But sadly, a lot of this has been started by the mainstream media. Showing CCTV camera footage, and cutting out "just before" an incident. This drives curiosity and desensitises people. It made me stop watching the news. I don't mind knowing what is happening, but I have *no* reason to see it, on TV of all things!
I stuck to the RSS feed headers for this one for exactly that reason: People need to know what happened, but no-one outside the case investigation needs that much detail!
Part of my brain was curious, of course: it is presently in the corner reflecting on the shouting-down the rest of my brain gave it!
Well, for some people, that tiny little corner is able to shout back 20 times as loud, initiate a hostile takeover of the rest of the brain, and even threaten to take the whole person primal. And there's very little we can do about these kinds of people: Law of Averages and all.
The shouting down bit is part of a specific set of neuro-circuity that is now known to be absent in 75% of the human population (you can find it - or its absence - on a medium-resolution active MRI, and they even know which gene generates the required neuro-structures it in those who have it).
Lacking that particular mental ability in no way effects general intelligence, but it does make for phenomenally ineffective decision-making abilities!
And now we have "videos of people being murdered in cold blood" on Facebook and everyone's having panic attacks - but we have had computer games that show this and movies in the theater that shoot up people left right and center for years - and all we say then is it's a fantastic plot, great acting, wonderful special effects ... killing people in movies used to be quite rare but these days it's become common - Die Hard is a Christmas movie ...
Society as a whole is responsible for creating the conditions that push the fringes towards this - is it reasonable to say that it's OK to shoot someone in a computer game but we'd rather you didn't do it in real life, and then expect that nobody will ever disagree with you?
Anybody old enough to have a gun license should be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality.
We have had movies depicting good people fighting bad people for about as long as we have had movies.
I have been playing first person shooters for at least 25 years, and have never had the urge to obtain a weapon and start attacking people in real life. I have watched violent action, fantasy and sci fi movies for even longer, yet have had no desire to blow up anybody's planet.
it's a downhill process, of course. There's a new computer game in which, apparently, the main plot is rape (as in: you're a character that goes round raping women). This text was published in a mainstream media outlet, which claims to be "the most influencial". And you have gems in the text, when "experts" are quoted that, you know, if steam bans it (as it apparently did), it's going to to "feature" elsewhere, because there're people who'll want to try it anyway. [conclusion: so it goes, get on with it, business is business]. Another point made defending this game was that nobody complains about murdering people in computer games, so why all this fuss about raping someone, which is fair, in one sense, but obviously, ridiculous to justify something nasty by the fact that there are other nasties out there (which HUGE MAJORITY of people ENJOY PLAYING, absolutely).
Larry Laffer? His problem was that he couldn't score. Anyway, I found the title in question and, compared to the aforesaid stuff from Japan, this title is pretty tame. Rape-themed visual novels have been around for a long time in Japan. Prominent works of the likes of Type-Moon mix rape with other controversial themes all the time.
No, you got it right. Larry Laffer was his real name (though he often said it, "Larry, Larry Laffer" which produced a running joke that Larry was both his first and middle name). "Leisure Suit" Larry was just the nickname he made for himself to drive up his image. The common theme of the games (at least until original creator Al Lowe left Sierra, which later got acquired by Activision) was he kept trying to score only to end up in hijinks.
But going back to controversial subjects being passe in places, I think there was one story where someone tried to rape the girl, she fought back, and he just killed her because his second fetish was necrophilia. Yes, it can get pretty gross, but it seems some Japanese have become a bit jaded over the centuries. What they would call "vanilla" just doesn't cut it anymore.
They are trying to decide which bits they like best. The shooting outside? The shooting inside?
This made me both want to retch and wonder what in the world is wrong with sociopaths like that. Thinking about it a bit I came to the following conclusion:
We allow people like that to walk around free in society solely because we decided a long time ago that every viewpoint had a place in a free society. That the majority would invariably find such a viewpoint abhorrent and keep the general structure of society in line with the morality of the majority.
Two points follow from this:
1.) If we have given up our freedom and privacy in the name of "convenience", "free stuff", and "safety" already, then the only reason for allowing such evil speech to go free in society has been removed. Drop the pretense and arrest them before they go on and execute what they oviously think is not only acceptable but, *shudder*, likeable and entertaining.
2.) Have we really become such an isolated, siloed, ridiculously non-social society that not only is this allowed but the rest of us civilized folk don't essentially shun people like this? Liking people being murdered in cold blood should give anyone looking to lease a flat to those proto-terrorists, hire them, or even associating with them serious cause for concern.
It's a sick world out there but we're supposed to be more civilized than this. Thanks for the stark reminder of what a mess things really are.
I dunno if full-blown suppression of anything deemed nasty is the answer. I'm uncomfortable with heavy handed moderation. I don't want all bad stuff stamped out because it's v hard and there's the potential for certain views to be swept away.
One only needs watch the modern 'news' shows on TV, or look at any nation's military where they advertise the idea of killing people as "a fun adventure". Few recruiters these days push the idea of serving and protection your nation from foreign attackers, they all seem to promote joining the army so you can go overseas and have fun. Of course, said fun must obviously be during the act of depriving others of the chance to have fun, in the worst ways possible.
"This made me both want to retch and wonder what in the world is wrong with sociopaths like that."
Not so much sociopaths as idiots detached from reality. There seems to be a mentality that nothing outside oneself or immediate surroundings is real, that what one does has no consequences.
Detachment from reality is one aspect of sociopathy. It's a spectrum. You can have high-functioning sociopaths and low-functioning ones.
Thing is, what is society supposed to do with the "rejects": those who refuse to conform and actually think it's society that refuses to conform?
I find the fact that you felt the need to run to the police to report a group of people having a private discussion far more disturbing than anything those same people might have been talking about.
It seems freedom of speech will rapidly come to an end with such Stasi-like, "report your neighbours" behaviour alive and well in the UK.
In this case, it means that people have been _viewing_ and _distributing_ terrorist material in the UK - are openly discussing it in a public place and are probably continuing to do so.
I'd put it to the police in those terms too - their calls are recorded, so failing to act on that information reflects badly on the forces concerned (and the OP should be escalating that up his local police's food chain until he gets to someone who realises the significamce of what's just transpired in terms of the size of the failing - I'd suggest the chief constable or area commander as a starting point)
Fortunately I can post about this in a more 'abstract and philosophical manner' - as your story didn't happen to me.
My take is that groups of people, as you describe, thrive when they can talk in their little echo-chamber - nobody calls them out, and within they can one-up each other with their most transgressive statements. If your friends all seem to be "medium-strength racists" - your social win is being "more racist" ~ Nobody joins a club and wins the leadership election by questioning the doctrine.
It's a disease of being human. These little cliques go off, get ignored, fester and metastasize in their own filth - and then when they erupt we all claim collective ignorance.
Only defense we have is to ensure they remain connected to the majority, nothing is hidden, and we can inoculate the majority early on.
It's a disease of being human. These little cliques go off, get ignored, fester and metastasize in their own filth - and then when they erupt we all claim collective ignorance.
I did find it interesting that the Mayor of Christchurch and also one of two politicians have been claiming to be surprised and offended at the claims that there have been any issues in that city with "right-wing extremists" or any other groups who are excessively racist. I know from people I've had the misfortune of actually knowing that there are groups with very racist views down there (probably elsewhere as well).
Officially they've not existed, and it's apparently even offensive now to say they are, and so these groups can sit under the radar with less likelihood of other people being able to suggest they pull their heads in and get some education about what other people are like.
Only defense we have is to ensure they remain connected to the majority, nothing is hidden, and we can inoculate the majority early on.
Agreed. The more light gets cast into dark places, the less darkness remains.
"Officially they've not existed, and it's apparently even offensive now to say they are, "
New Zealand has far more problems than it likes to let on and the usual response to anyone pointing the issues out is mass ostracisation for daring to break step from the "accepted legends" of 'Rugby, Racing and Beer', 'Clean Green'(*), 'egalitarianism'(**)and the 'Fair Go'
Whatever you do, don't bother with Transparency International NZ "perceptions" reports - bearing in mind that TINZ NZ is 100% government funded, kicked out (and issued trespass notices to) its actual researchers and activists about 20 years ago and has remained 100% opaque since around 2002.
This is the "NZ Way" of dealing with problems - pretend they don't exist and if that doesn't work, shut down or take over the outfits showing them up.
(*) This one is particularly pernicious as NZ has some of the most polluted rivers in the world and spent the best part of 60 years denying increasing levels of pollutants by desperately clinging to the "it can't happen here" mentality,
(**) Unless you're a brown NZer or a poor NZer or not in the right Old Boys' Club,
It's a social environment which has allowed issues like this (and rampant systemic corruption) to fester for decades without being dealt with because the first step to dealing with such issues is to admit they're actually occurring.
Corruption has been a particularly difficult issue to address because the _only_ legal definitions of it in NZ are related to bribery - the other corrupt practices defined by the OECD aren't touched and as such are regarded as "acceptable" - in fact a number of them are "standard practice", if not outright encouraged, particularly nepotism/cronyism and influence peddling.
The government likes to deflect the issue too - I was peripherally involved in an incident in the early 2000s which resulted in the discovery that WINZ (welfare) and IRD (tax department) staff in _every_ office throughout the country were illegally selling personal information of individuals to private investigators and debt collectors(***) which resulted in thousands of staff being investigated and several prosecutions. Interestingly enough - although it was established this had been going on for many years, _nobody_ at branch management level or higher was "found to be involved" and the official government line was "These are all isolated cases of individual fraud"
(***) The IT contractors who discovered this came under severe economic and physical pressure to not take it to the police and the backlash shut their company down. The staffers who broke step and went to the police ended up leaving the country as a direct result of having been identified as the whistleblowers.
This is the "NZ Way" of dealing with problems - pretend they don't exist and if that doesn't work, shut down or take over the outfits showing them up.
I'd love to say that it's all National's fault ("What housing crisis? Thousands of homeless families isn't a housing crisis!"), but.. Well..
As to the rest of your post, afraid I'll have to plead the 5th there ;)
"Agreed. The more light gets cast into dark places, the less darkness remains."
But sometimes, the truth is scarier than fiction. Trying to cast out all the shadows can leave nightmares bare that should have never seen the light. To counter your adage, "Better to strike a match than curse the darkness," someone said, "Even if that match lights the fuse that blows us all up?"
"I know from people I've had the misfortune of actually knowing that there are groups with very racist views down there"
Seems to be centered on Timaru. So Christchurch isn't rascist compared to Timaru, Dunedin isn't rascist compared to Christchurch etc...
The mayor is obviously talking out of his arse. I lived in NZ for a couple of decades, of which I spent maybe a dozen nights in Christchurch. Both times I've been assaulted on the street have been there, and while I can't be certain of the political views of the skinheads with swastika tattoos that were busy stomping on me, I'd have guessed at somewhat right of center.
Perhaps the mayor just felt that hating non-pink people or pretty much any religion is just the norm, hence why there's no special attention paid to the skinheads. If he really doesn't think there are any, then he should take a stroll through the center of town on Saturday night in drag.
"I know from people I've had the misfortune of actually knowing that there are groups with very racist views down there"The mayor is obviously talking out of his arse. I lived in NZ for a couple of decades, of which I spent maybe a dozen nights in Christchurch. Both times I've been assaulted on the street have been there, and while I can't be certain of the political views of the skinheads with swastika tattoos that were busy stomping on me, I'd have guessed at somewhat right of center.
My friend, I fear you may have met some of the very same people I was referring to, and perhaps under much the same circumstances (although I have never walked anywhere in drag).
Some of those I know go through former business contacts as well. Finding out what I know now about these people was not a pleasant experience.
"Only defense we have is to ensure they remain connected to the majority, nothing is hidden, and we can inoculate the majority early on."
Part of their problem is their refusal to connect to the majority: convinced in their worlds that they're in the wrong. Meaning any attempt to force them to connect is only going to be considered a hostile act.
I don't like this content, but I feel they have the right to rant. It's freedom of speech. I have the right not to listen as well, and I'm not going to.
I feel the moment we "clamp down on propaganda" we're no better than China or North Korea.
One moment the net can show something like this, but I also remember hearing about Tiananmen Square over IRC as it happened.
I am dead against the government dictating what we can and can't see. If Fox News, NBC, BBC, etc decide it's too graphic to show real people being gunned down live, though, why is it beyond Facebook? Because of scale? Which is code for 'because we love making $$$$$$$$s from adverts with no consequences'.
If you make a TV show or documentary, and people refuse to broadcast it, or write a paper and a journal refuses to publish it, is it censorship or the application of standards? Don't get me wrong: this can be abused, and stuff can get suppressed for being uncool, unfashionable, or counter-cultural. That's why smaller platforms sprout up.
But if you have the reach of Facebook or YouTube, can't someone apply some kind of standards before a snuff livestream is disseminated? It's not black and white, freedom or zero freedom, it's not letting a platform with 1bn+ people just descend into Mad Max territory.
If there are riots in London, for instance, I expect and hope to see videos appear on the web. We don't need to see someone stave another person's head in with a mallet in real-time, though.
C.
I heard reported on t'wireless that some of the mainstream tabloids are (or were) displaying footage on their websites. But noone is reacting to that with the same kneejerk as they're scapegoating facebook.
For the record, I dislike Facebook and have never used it, on the grounds that I'm not about to support enclosure of the commons. But in this case (and many others), moral panic about them reeks of double-standards.
I heard reported on t'wireless that some of the mainstream tabloids are (or were) displaying footage on their websites.
On NZ's mainstream news media they also showed some of the footage. They showed a short clip of where the perp was getting stuff out of his car, and nothing more. The footage they showed of injured people being loaded into ambulances, or bodies in the street (perhaps pixelated or covered with a jacket) was far worse than what they showed of the gunman's own footage.
Perhaps these places showed only a limited portion of the footage. If not. then I hope there is room for them to be charged with distributing objectionable material - and as someone else said, make sure at least some of the 'C-level' types get their time behind bars.
"some of the mainstream tabloids are (or were) displaying footage on their websites"
For a large part of the media it's a race to the bottom. FB is a well-funded competitor. The fact that it's not the only one doesn't excuse them.
Once upon a time in the not too distant past, there was a lot of self censorship going on in the news world. They might show the scene afterwards, but maybe just some blood pools at most. Not live on the scene as it happens stuff, no bodies., no gunfire, etc. Some things were just too horrific for them to show.
Somewhere, something changed. Ratings? The "get there and cover it first" mentality? Or maybe even our media that makes the perps "celebrities" as such.
I definitely agree. That being said, how does free society handle the case of the nutters in an earlier post using this as entertainment? If we're expected to just deal with it because we're a free society, then treat us all as adults and stop all censorship and micromanaging of our lives. How absurd is it that we accept heavy restrictions on our lives to (as an example) stop something as relatively inconsequential as piracy (via DRM), yet allow cowardly murder to be used as free-for-all entertainment?
Something's very wrong here but I can't put my finger on it well enough to offer up a fix -- all I can see is the massive disconnect. Somehow we understand that media censorship is a red line not to be crossed, even when not crossing that line leads to some degree of abhorrent behaviour from a (thankfully small) minority. At the same time we are perfectly happy to restrict behaviour in other areas that are of almost no consequence in comparison (leading to minimal harm, if any, to surrounding folk if the rules are violated) to protect corporate profits.
What a world we live in.
"But if you have the reach of Facebook or YouTube, can't someone apply some kind of standards before a snuff livestream is disseminated?"
Kind of hard, especially if it's masked so that it looks all kosher for like 10-15 minutes beforehand and then, suddenly, BOOM! And any service that tries to delay could get left for those who don't and don't care about the consequences (because they're protected by foreign sovereignty or whatever).
If there are riots in London, for instance, I expect and hope to see videos appear on the web. We don't need to see someone stave another person's head in with a mallet in real-time, though.
How many people when they drive past a road accident can't resist rubber necking ? It's part and parcel of human nature that is curiosity rather than any conscious desire to emulate what is seen. One thing I will say is rubbernecking has made me a better driver when I've seen the consequences in all their uncensored horror.
When I was growing up profanity on TV was a serious no no along with a whole heap of other things while hawkishly watched over by Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers' and Listeners' Association but today it's everywhere. Conversely we had public executions in this country a couple of hundred years ago which was a grand day for the family which thankfully are a thing of the past where I live.
Is it OK that we are allowed to have such brutal graphic fantasy images of torture and murder as in the Saw movies while evidence of a horrific and real tragedy is censored ?
I just wonder if we are sending too many mixed messages.
It's true that people like watching bad stuff happen to other people. Getting a good look at something awful. Russian car crash dash cams are all the rage on YouTube. I dunno if that's possible to stop, or even a good thing to tackle.
OTOH while sites like LiveLeak have existed for ages and had loads of visitors, they're not on the scale of Facebook and YouTube, and also if you go to LL, you know you're getting gore and snuff. I suspect if LL had the reach of Facebook or YT, it would have been singled out early on.
I guess it boils down to this: censorship and moderation is harmful. Massive unedited and unpoliced platforms are harmful. There must be an in-between solution that keeps smaller platforms independent, and checks and balances kicking in when audiences start getting huge.
C.
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