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 …
The author mentioned that the video was made available on "publishing platforms." Unfortunately, in the eyes of the law they aren't publishers and there lies the problem.
If social media organisations were treated as publishers then do you think this video would have been made available on their sites? I'm sure they would suddenly be able to find a way to moderate all posts to prevent this happening rather than being fined out of existence.
Given the sheer volume of materials that passes through them everyday, you'd just be putting them into a dilemma: either they get fined out of existence or they'll be pushed into obscurity (and replaced with a new entity based in a more-lenient country) because of the sheer physical limits of moderation versus that tidal wave of stuff they get every day. Odds they'll pull a fly-by-night and become said new forum in the friendlier country (which WILL be there for the country that wants their tax revenues).
Because social media platforms have acted to remove 'political' content, I think they've already lost the publisher argument. Especially as in some cases, it seems to have been done on their own initiative, ie 'deplatforming' controversial accounts.
But that's necessary, especially if those accounts are promoting hate, inciting illegal activities and posting content that is illegal in X jurisdiction. Problem there is with global reach, what's legal in one country may be illegal in another. But the 'social' media companies allegedly use their sophisticated analytics to profile all their users so they can flog ads.. And location is rather key for that. So the same analytics could surely be turned to filtering out illegal content.
Problem there is defining it, given legislation can be a bit vague on the subject, but that's all part of the great debate between industry and politicians. Many years ago, I was at a LINX meeting where the new head of the IWF told us that they were going to start censoring political content. The IWF chap was ex-police and quite forceful in his view. Other members and I pointed out the IWF was funded by the members, and we weren't happy with the idea of scope creep away from it's purpose of stopping child pornography. That debate continues. If it's illegal, there should be effective methods to remove content and allow investigations.
With video and live streaming, I guess it's trickier. But the content providers already use analytics and fingerprinting to identify and remove copyright content, often pretty rapidly. One option may be to agree standards for video/live streaming and apply DRM to it so that sharing becomes impossible, or at least harder. People will still find ways around it, but it may slow the spread of noxious & illegal 'viral' videos.
Great to tick the boxes in people's minds that "SOMETHING's gotta be done... DONE, problem solved!" But the problem won't be solved by banning automatics if somebody's determined enough, they'll find a (legal) way, petrol bomb, poison, or any other chemical, etc. It's not to say that weapons' control shouldn't be tighter, but it's not going to solve a problem of people with festering hatred towards this or that group, or "group". I don't see any viable solution. And yeah, kicking facebook is also great for the mob mentality (which I gleefully cheer) of "hang the bankers! burn the rich!" etc, but it won't solve the problem either, although I don't claim to know if there's any solution. Trouble is, most, if not people, hold a lesser or stronger grudge against this or that group of "others", and unless we re-engineer the humans, which is not likely to happen, tight control only makes those feelings fester, waiting for the right moment, when the controls drop...
But the problem won't be solved by banning automatics if somebody's determined enough
But we must have less guns! Guns are bad and kill people!
Lets just ignore the fact that in the last 24 hours more people have died from alcohol than from guns, more have died from the use of cars than from guns, probably more have died in home and work accidents, many many more have died from preventable starvation and disease, if only us richer people weren't so damned greedy and selfish.
This guy had a car with a decent amount of cargo space. A little more thought into his IEDs (shoulda spent more time in the library, easy to avoid the censors and the sensors that way!) and he could've gone out in a "blaze of glory" and killed a LOT of people as well.
Admittedly, his method perhaps was one of the more effective methods, just like how the Washington Sniper killed relatively few yet had quite a significant effect on the area, but he could've done more damage without guns.
"Lets just ignore the fact that in the last 24 hours more people have died from alcohol than from guns,"
Let's just ignore the fact that alcohol as a vice pretty much predates civilization and is so ingrained in most cultures that taking it away pretty much takes away their identity. Why do you think bootleg liquor became familiar even among the everyday people during the height of US Prohibition?
"Lets just ignore the fact that in the last 24 hours more people have died from alcohol than from guns,"
A necessary evil as more people needs to be able to get to their jobs (emphasis on the plural) on time or be unable to feed their families and/or pay the bills.
"probably more have died in home and work accidents"
I don't know about that. The average life expectancy has been trending upward since way back when.
"many many more have died from preventable starvation and disease"
Preventable in what ways specifically. As a comedian once said, "You Can't Fix Stupid."
"Admittedly, his method perhaps was one of the more effective methods, just like how the Washington Sniper killed relatively few yet had quite a significant effect on the area, but he could've done more damage without guns."
And it would've been hard to stop any sniper who legally acquired a scoped hunting rifle on account of say being a licensed deer hunter. Just as it's hard to stop an ANFO bomb (a la Oklahoma City) because the key ingredients are ubiquitous to any farmer (and Bath Township was committed by a farmer exploiting his legal supply of excavation charges).
I appreciate all the solutions offered here, but most are out of my realm of influence.
I do know that I can keep a watchful eye for that person who is desperately in need of something I can give.
I can't cure 'Crazy', but maybe by giving of myself to someone other than 'myself', I can possibly keep their insanity from leaving the ground level. Use my influence to keep that person in need in the world with consequences before they reach the level of where the only thing that is important is being 'noticed'.
Is it insane to search social media for people who are lonely?
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