YouTube carries 11 percent of the world’s bandwidth.
Self policing the site will be difficult for the corporation, but is necessary.
5
@Jean
Expensive, maybe, but not that difficult.
3
I see that the ‘wingers continue to push the baby-fantasy that they get to enjoy all the perqs of liberal society, without accepting even a smidge of the responsibilities.
You didn’t build that, kids. You didn’t smelt the steel and make the powder for your little boomsticks. You didn’t invent the tech or build the networks to yack on the Internet.
And you don’t maintain any of it, either.
So you can yell about how you’re being oppressed all you like, while within some kind of reason you get to wave your little guns and bellow your little views all you like. You even get to scream at the Times and the governments that give you your soapbox, and pretty much keep you informed and fairly safe. Good for you. Go home, clean yer gun, huddle over that first edition “Turner Diaries,” you bought on e-bay.
But there are limits, and they’re old ones.
You don’t get to incite to riot.
And you don’t get to make deathporn. Especially the kind with kids in it.
7
The need for scapegoating is as big as the need for denial.
Of course, they do go hand-in-glove.
Step one in a crisis - assign blame as fast as possible.
Nevertheless: The fault, dear Prime Minister, lies not in our computers/smart phones but in ourselves.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
3
New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is going to Paris this week to meet with world leaders and tech people to urge prevention of live-streaming mass-murder on social media platforms. Today is Mother's Day here in America. We wish Ms. Adern a good day with her family and her people. Every day is mothers' day. Women -- bearing and raising each generation of children on Earth -- know that life is precious, that it turns on a dime, ends in an instant.
How can social media broadcasting massacres of innocent human beings by mentally-ill young killers, be stopped? How will P.M. Adern (and the other world leaders) cut off freedom of speech among demented and angry people? Our president is among social media's leaders, communicating daily by Tweet. Will Mr. Trump be meeting in Paris with the other leaders who want to reform the World Wide Web?
Today is not a "Happy Mother's Day" for so many of Earth's mothers. Too many mothers are grieving the loss of their children today. Horrors upon horrors. The world is reeling from the continuing massacre of mankind's children this 21st Century. Wishing Godspeed to Ms. Adern and all the leaders she's meeting with in Paris on Wednesday, the Ides of May, 2019.
5
Any openings in New Zealand?
3
I'm jealous of New Zealanders. They have a leader who is wonderful in so many way. America has a leader who is abysmal in so many ways. MAGA? Replace the monster who resides in our White House!
21
Selling ads while mass murder is being livestreamed is most profitable for the social media companies. As one of New Zealand's major trade groups asked, how can the companies so very efficiently target ads while claiming they can't possibly be responsible for the content they publish for mass murderers?
7
NZ is closer to China so it makes sense that the NZ government would adopt the values and methods of their looming, powerful neighbor. When such incidents happen in China the state controlled media immediately censors any mention that anything ever happened. If a Chinese cop shoots an unarmed, innocent civilian the government takes away the body and buys off all of the witnesses and certainly censors any mention of it in the news media.
This is the inspiration for Jacinda Ardern. The government has the duty to preserve public order and various methods are acceptable to preserve that order. So says I and so shall it be done.
4
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Yes, that strong desire to repress discussion must be why PM Ardern is writing an essay for the NYTimes and spearheading an international meeting to call our great American corporatists all the way from their Fat & Happy Valley homes to attend to the task!
She may need you to show her around China's systems a little more thoroughly, please stand by!
6
No worries, Mark Zuckerberg says that he has this under control through his self regulation.
6
Ardern: "We can tackle racism and discrimination, which we must."
Ardern neglects to mention that the shooter is an Australian who was, apparently, living in New Zealand legally.
I so admire this Prime Minister. If only the GOP wasn’t morally corrupt and bought.
4
The man who did this act was not produced by New Zealand, his violence was something that he brought with him. There is no way that New Zealand can do but be vigilant and pay attention to who are coming into their country. This man’s hatred and homicidal drives preceded any of his expressions on social media. Terrorists become who they are before they share their feelings. Mass murderers cannot be stopped by hiding them from others. Narcissists and people who long for attention have no related homicidal urges based upon those psychologies, homicidal acts are motivated by different psychological issues. While it’s repulsive and frightening to have people sharing heinous ideas, these displays don’t make people into haters and killers, they appeal to people with hatred and urges to do harm.
3
It's funny how many commentators wringing their hands about censorship are choosing here to participate in a highly moderated forum.
Why aren't they/we on Facebook instead? Because here, at least, we are safe from the worst elements of the internet and we are willing to trade a little free speech for that privilege, on behalf of holding civil public discourse.
6
There’s a very large difference when the NYT controls content on its properly compared to a government controlling everyone's access to ideas, however depraved.
2
@Johnny Stark
And is FB more like a public park or the NYTimes? I'd argue it's actually a public park (where we have agreed to ban public urination, graffiti, murder and other socially-adverse behaviors). Currently our big global park is being run more like M. Z-berg's private game reserve. And the wild animals are rampantly creating chaos.
5
The simple solution to this is to put a time-day into any live-streamed video of say 30 minutes. Our 24/7 instant news and entertainment media cycle has generated a hyper-reactive society world-wide that is easily manipulated and exploited. We are not given any time to process all the information blasted at us. Such a time delay gives law enforcement time to time to remove material and removes some of the incentive for deranged individuals wanting to publicize their actions. This is actually part of a much bigger problem - the use of modern media to exploit 'consumers'. We need to wake up and switch off.
5
Of course, this episode was horrific. And of course, the Prime Minister has good intentions. But the fact is she's just one more in a long string of censorious and authoritarian leaders.
This desire to make the whole world as much a safe space as a Women’s Studies class at Oberlin will only be accomplished with crushing censorship and an infantilized and docile population.
Somewhere, Mao is smiling.
5
There is a relevant parable. A man is looking under a lamp post for his lost watch. While he lost it in the dark, but there is no way to see it except under the lamp. Preventing unpredictable events can drive people to seek solutions which really don’t focus upon the problem because they don’t have any way to do so, so they try something that they can do.
2
@Casual Observer
Then let's take the lamp into the darkness.
Clearly social media does play a role in both stimulating and becoming one of the weapons that these murderers have sought to employ to achieve whatever warped objective it is they sought. We would be rather blind not to see that, and negligent in the extreme not to hold those at the reigns accountable for addressing it. Exactly how to do that, not if it needs to be done, is now on the table, in broad daylight. We need to get on it ASAP and with full force, not accepting lame promises or excuses from those industry titans who haven't chosen to examine the evidence or devise effective solutions to the problems thus far.
5
Yes, depriving people of access to guns is really the way to go: no guns, no mass shootings!
2
How could anyone convince you to join in an act of terrorism? Don’t just assume that the ability to instill a suggestion to by some product or to admire some politician is equivalent but think how you would be convince to act to destroy other people as you look at them.
The point is that that capacity does not come from social media but from inside people.
Thank you, Prime Minister Ardern, for using your position and influence in this forum to urge the leaders of the technology industry to police themselves and to be more responsible about their products' reach into the always-expanding internet.
Noticeable in this essay was the absence of "the United States" or "America" or the name of its "president" as you outlined the international cooperation that you hope to bring to bear to enforce needed changes.
Perhaps one reason that you, as a head of state, and New Zealand, as a nation, will be on the cutting edge in changes for the way that live-steaming will be reduced as an incipient call to terrorist arms, is that you are responsible. You have the well-being of your citizens at heart.
Secondly, your nation recognized a threat, whether external or internal, and made a change in your gun laws. Here, in the American West of the 21st Century, the National Rifle Association is the paymaster of the Republican Party in state legislatures nationwide and on Capitol Hill. This pernicious group funds the re-election campaigns of Republicans whose sole purpose for running for office is to run again to stay in office. The N.R.A. treasury may not be what it once was but it is substantial. This group's identity is founded upon a willfully-misunderstood reading of our Constitution's Second Amendment. It's a guarantor of future atrocities because the lives of Americans are not sacrosanct--but the right to carry is.
Thank you, Ms. Ardern.
14
Disasters cause spikes in social media use, which increases the income of social media companies. People need to be able to use social media to communicate during disasters, whether natural or caused by human misdeeds. If we want social media companies to cooperate actively in preventing terrorists from exploiting their services, governments will have to change laws and regulations to give the companies an economic incentive to make their profits differently, without causing them to interfere with communication among the victims of disasters. Doing so without reducing the companies to mere government servants following party lines is going to be extremely difficult. I don't have a magic solution in mind. I'm just sure that, without a change in economic motivation, social media companies won't do more than pay lip service to efforts such as Ms. Ardern is engaged in.
1
Every government has objectives which oppose the preferences of somebody who might acquire support that impedes the intentions of those governments. Often these governments see such dissent as existential threats which they must censor.
2
I quit Facebook last Fall because of the actions of M. Zuckerberg and S. Standberg, especially their heinous scapegoating of George Soros.
However, I will rejoin the Facebook razzmatazz —pages, sharing, etc. if Zuckerberg commits to stopping this ability to livestream murder. How he’d do it, no idea? That may be tricky. Along with Chris Evans, I feel quite queasy over the power to censor messages as it is. Paradox, I know.
1
"How he’d do it, no idea?"
As numerous commenters have suggested, put delays on live broadcasts so that they can be analyzed before being published. Radio and television broadcasters have long used delays on live broadcasts.
Vetted and reliable online broadcasters could be excepted from automatic delays.
"I feel quite queasy over the power to censor messages as it is."
Facebook already censors content based on various secret criteria. See:
Revealed: Facebook's internal rulebook on sex, terrorism and violence
Leaked policies guiding moderators on what content to allow are likely to fuel debate about social media giant’s ethics
by Nick Hopkins
21 May 2017
The Guardian
2
This isn't complicated - to stop people from shooting each other, take away their guns.
12
Actually, taking away an estimated 390 million guns in America alone is quite complicated. Got a more immediate idea? Like not live-streaming mass murder?
4
@Maryjane
Then they will knife each other.
Take that away...
They will punch each other.
It never ends
It should be relatively easy to limit live streaming mass murder or individual murder for that matter.
If a video includes harm to one or more humans or animals as well, it should be removed and replaced with a black and white announcement indicating violent content has been removed.
I will draw a distinction with harm to plants lest a video of Forrest Gump mowing his lawn would be culled as well.
2
Impose a one hour (or 24 hour) delay on all live feeds.
6
"Impose a one hour (or 24 hour) delay on all live feeds."
Several commenters have suggested imposing a delay, but the videos would still need to be reviewed by moderators. Since Facebook already does extensive moderation, there is no actual impediment to implementing delays.
Vetted and reliable online broadcasters could be excepted from automatic delays.
3
I hope and pray that we can one day have a leader like you. Thank you for this article.
7
What a wonderful leader of a wonderful nation.
10
I would like to see an article in the Times that addressed a simple statistical study of the effect a ban on assault and other weapons might have on the occurrence of these mass shootings in general. I don't doubt for a minute that there would be an effect, but I'd like to see the study.
Hateful thoughts don't kill people. Guns kill people.
7
There was such an experiment. The US banned “assault weapons” for ten years from 1994 to 2004. The ban had no measurable effect on gun violence.
3
Is there any evidence that seeing such video, absent hate speech, leads to more violence? Is it possible that seeing the real impact of the current situation would actually encourage the outrage necessary for us to take real action, and by banning it we are just hiding our heads in the sand?
I suggest a painful, disgusting dose of reality may be just what we need.
1
Is there some way we could multiple-clone Jacinta Ardern and put her in charge everywhere for a little while? Say, long enough for people to collectively recover their common sense, moral courage, and capacity for empathy and good will?
14
Heroine Ardern is naive if she thinks these measure will "stop" the next massacre. In addition, is any one else tired of her typically political look of anguished concern, illustrated in the accompanying picture?
3
No, what we are tired off are meaningless platitudes about 'thoughts and prayers.' Compassion, courage, and a will to act are always welcome, whatever facial expression they are accompanied by.
9
Yes, the current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is for political propaganda and the NRA profiteers
scam.
10
Social media did not cause the massacre, it only broadcasted it. In New Zealand, it is now a crime to have viewed the broadcast, even though it is the best way to understand the thinking and motivations of the murderer. You cannot censor your way out of extremism, you have to understand the motives of extremists. And in a democratic society, this means that the voters and general public must understand it, not an authoritarian leader like Ardern who believes only she and a few like her should have the right to know exactly what the murderer said.
2
@Amanda
How would it benefit you to know what the murderer said? Let forensic criminologists/psychologists dissect him and write a book. Giving these types any forum at any time is dangerous and wrong. It feeds the threat and further destabilizes society.
5
Thank you Jacinda,
You are showing the world that you can be compassionate, resilient, and unbreakable in the face of those who want to destroy you and your beliefs.
Thank you for being a catalyst for change, I hope to follow your lead.
7
I don't understand what the PM is proposing. How do we magically stop broadcasts like that without in effect stopping live-streaming altogether. The Atlantic reported how takedowns are hindering work by human rights campaigners to document atrocities: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/facebook-algorithms-are-making-it-harder/588931/
1
Courageous. Resilient. Respectful. Magnanimous.
These are the attributes of a leader, who also happens to be NZ’s PM.
Take note, Republican leader and the cronies making up the ‘Russian’ Party (formerly GOP).
9
New Zealand and our Prime Minister can’t do this alone - please support this.
7
Very good initiative. How long have terrorist groups used social media to advertise their terror? Since the beginning. How many videos have appeared of beheadings, bombings, shootings and other murders? Countless. How many views of the WTC catastrophe have been made? How much money have you tube, Facebook etc made off of these views? Why is it taking so long to react? Profit for clicks and the virtualization of human suffering by all media. Time to realize these social media platforms are designed to make money for their shareholders. Connecting is the mechanism for the cash flow. They need to be regulated like any traditional media, print, radio or television and stop pretending they exist for the social good.
5
@Daniel Salazar
Thank you!
1
The ability of ISIS to attract recruits by displaying atrocities committed by themselves is horrifying but it does not appeal to people who are not severely screwed up psychologically. Their efforts reflect the fact that one one-hundredth thousand of seven billion is seventy thousand people. Actually, if when people visit these sites they come into the scrutiny of counter terrorist agencies would not that help identify people who are likely to join with the terrorists?
1
"New Zealand could reform its gun laws, and we did."
All it took was one atrocity.
The United States could reform its gun laws, but it didn't - one atrocity after another after another. That's one example of what happens when you elevate money to the status of speech. And the big tech companies are paying attention, so don't expect things to work out any better.
22:35 EDT, 5/11
13
Ardern conveys the pain and horror both of the acts and of displaying it while it happened. All of us focus upon our pain but addressing the cause of the pain usually is not accomplished by stopping the experience of pain but that is exactly what Ardern is doing. While it is atrocious to spread the acts across the internet, that is not the problem. The problem is the violence and Ardern is being distracted by something that is not related to preventing that kind of honorable event. Sadly, she does not understand that.
@Casual Observer
By your logic, AIDS is caused by a virus, not sexual contact, so employing condoms would not be an appropriate strategy while we seek to eradicate the virus.
The transmission of violent acts, like AIDS, requires interruption wherever we can find a reasonable strategy. Arming teachers and rabbis is not reasonable. Putting a collar on social media and much better gun control are two highly likely places to start.
5
Horrible event not honorable event.
Prime Minister Ardern: You are correct. There is no legitimate reason for mass murders to be broadcast. There is also no legitimate reason for the media to report as many of the details about mass murders as they do either including the name of the murderer or his or her motivations. Of course, there is no way of "proving" that refusing to broadcast the actual murders or refusing to permit publication of the details of the murders will prevent any future massacres but anything that can be done to reduce the likelihood of such atrocities should be done.
3
Keep electing Trump and the GOP who own the gun industry and don’t want change. In New Zealand all it took was one mass shooting and there politicians saw how bad it gets in America by doing nothing and voted to stop all automatic weapons and bullet sales to the public. We need that strict policy in America but it won’t happen because the NRA has been giving payments to the GOP to change nothing.
7
Defies logic. Make it a crime to broadcast a crime that the criminal had no qualms about committing.
The net result is that the criminal can be prosecuted for two crimes for at least two laws that he ignores.
Now there is another law he can ignore if he choose to ignore laws outlawing semi-automatic weapons most of which are not so-called “military style assault weapons.”
If not, then he can just use bombs as in Sri Lanka.
2
I wish this woman was our President!
8
Why do these "leaders" who espouse liberal values end up acting like totalitarian dictators?
The day before the massacre I would have been welcomed into the country. I'm not a criminal. I hadn't done anything to violate New Zealand laws, but just a week or two after the massacre occurred, I would now be considered a criminal because I have a copy of the killer's publicized manifesto and a copy of the video. The same video that she says she "inadvertently" saw. What does that mean? She's the prime minister of a nation and she can't accept the responsibility of learning about what happened, even if it means watching a video she later bans with serious prison terms just for having a copy of something that was broadcast worldwide, even by national news networks? It was widely broadcast on Indian television, for hours. I am questioning her honesty. She's not being truthful, or she is shirking her responsibility.
If she isn't honest with herself she can't be honest with others, the citizens of her country. Unless she can accept the truth, even if it is embarrassing to her and New Zealand she won't see the situation for what it is and her remedies to "make sure it never happens again" will be wasted oppression of innocent thinking people who had nothing to do with the acts of one, single, solitary, individual who saw the weaknesses in New Zealand and therefore chose a soft target like Christchurch.
8
Why do you have a copy of the killer's manifesto, and why do you have a copy of the video of the massacre? The chief censor of NZ classified this video as objectionable and illegal, rightly so in my opinion. Respect the dignity of those poor murdered men,women and children; do not watch them dying in terror and pain. Those who need to do so in order to formulate security responses will be able to view it but you and I do not need to indulge in such voyeurism.
9
@Lisa
The chief censor of New Zealand.
This incident is opening my eyes to the little island nation of New Zealand. Most people have a tendency make assumptions about others based on their own situation. I didn't know that New Zealand doesn't have a Constitution or a bill of rights like we do in the USA. But we have a common cultural background in English common law and language. How did NZ become such a repressive, controlling society? We con't have official censors in our government. The news editors censor themselves better than any government official could do.
@Lisa
I was sort of expecting an accusation such as yours. What makes you think I am not one of those people who uses that video to formulate a security response? Perhaps you are thinking of security officials like those in New Zealand who did not show up on the scene until the shooter had already done his evil and left?
Whether you want to tax your mind with such thoughts that video was invaluable in showing how a shooter operates. Tarrant wasn't especially original with his tactics. Considering that plain old ordinary people are always the first to encounter these mass murder shooters it is entirely legitimate that ordinary citizens be able to view and study such videos to learn how to protect themselves. No one is making you view it if you don't want to. My having a copy of such newsworthy items is not an imposition on you.
1
Tick-Tock!
This is aspirational, but it's a bandaid that will likely take too long to implement and may be impossible to enforce. While it is critical for us to make progress in this area, this does little to repair the culture that created these problems or prevent another hateful act of extremism. Countering extremism, fear and hate must start from the ground up.
Until we understand and address the source that creates this toxic fear in the hearts of these actors, which in turn drives them to these unspeakable behaviors...this will sadly continue.
Until we start to equip our children with a connected view of The Other and a clear understanding that hating another is an act of self-hate...this will sadly continue.
Until we are clear that if we don't develop healthy social-emotional skills in our youth, their ever-escalating fear and anxiety will eat away at them and....this will sadly continue.
Until we realize that fear begets fear, and we undertake the work to shift the consciousness in our children, away from fear and towards love, these acts of violent extremism and the putrid nature of our interactions on social media will intensify and continue.
The only work that can END this insanity is challenging ground-up work with our youth. We MUST get started creating a more accepting and interconnected generation, so that we can shut down the hate and fear by delivering the healing tools of love and connection to kids the world over. Tick-tock!
2
Many thanks for your immediate response banning assault rifles that belong strictly in the military realm. It is an example the US needs to follow. Organizing an international meeting including countries and tech regarding content on the internet that generates potential harm, further divisions regarding discrimination and future violence is an admirable task. It saddens me to think this has been motivated by a tragedy the citizens of New Zealand have experienced in order for the dialogue to begin and I hope resolved
4
I like her. Wish I was a Kiwi.
9
I don't think politicians appreciate the difficulty of policing millions of uploads by users. No amount of reform will catch everything immediately, unless you want to go the China way which is to censor everything with a certain word in it. YouTube does a relatively good job. Facebook needs to do better. Beating up these private companies or breaking them them up will not help at all. Maybe a reasonable fine when they missing something everytime will keep them on their toes?
This leadership. Take a lesson, world.
6
Now if only we in the U.S. can do our part to further the chance of calm and sense on global social media by removing from office the "world leader" most notorious for using it to spread fear and hate to his personal political advantage, with the capable occasional assistance of Mr. Putin, his minions, and their bots.
3
If only we had such sensible, stable leadership here in America. Instead, all we have is Trump and his army of armed Fox news trolls, his stable of Republican lackeys and enablers, and a public more eager to see the next episode of Real Housewives or The Bachelor, than to put an end to mass shootings.
Sad.
4
Ms. Arden, when your term is up, ever thought of running America? We let just about anyone do it. Why not a Kiwi? Think about it. We could use you. -Us
2
@Matt Doran
Only US Citizens per US Constitution
Why are you so addicted? No wonder we neglected the end of the real world. Get rid of facebook and everythng it owns, detox from all the cognitive unreality it breeds. Come back to life. And watch Google with hard eyes. Saving anything requires this as well.
2
I’m still so shocked that the shooting video was uploaded over a million times... It might be nearly impossible to keep initial videos like this from making it online, but why can’t there be severe consequences—legal, social, and including being banned from platform posting—for the monsters who re-post and upload traumatic content like this? What is stopping platforms from ID’ing those who kept the video in view when it was clearly being taken down as aggressively as possible?
1
Interesting piece Jacinda Ardern, I thought your first move was the Arms (Electronic Transactions) Amendment Regulations 2018.
You remember that surely?
The law changes you made just before the shooting that gave the terrorist easier access to the weapons he used?
3
It is difficult to disagree with the notion that broadcasting mass murder is unacceptable. But I recollect watching shock-and-awe bombings on television during the invasion of Iraq, white phosphorus shells discharging over Gaza, cruel bombardments in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, etc. So what Jacinda Ardern is really talking about is a ban on viewing blood and gore and the screams of the dying.
2
Jacinda Ardern may be a female and New Zealand may be tiny but she and her country are providing the global leadership that is lacking.
The UK is mired in Brexit and is unable to focus on anything else. The USA has a mob boss, who is utterly disinterested in anything but his personal welfare, at her helm. And so it is up to the lady in charge of little New Zealand to reach out to Emmanuael Macron of France to organize this conference.
Isn't it time for all of us to say, "I am a Kiwi?"
#IamaKiwi
3
We actually have leaders like this in America. But too many people are willing to entrust their kids’ lives to an NRA loving clown who makes up childish names about his opponents. So, we endure the carnage and do nothing to stop it, not even universal background checks. Quite a price to pay for some silly laughs.
6
It’s time to just shut down twitter and facebook entirely… they're clear and present threats to our democracy and to humanity. They’re both cons on America to make a few of the Silicon Valley Mafia uber wealthy at or expense.
And no, it’s not censorship… you can still still get real news by reading real investigative journalistic newspapers (you can even read them on line for semi real time world news!).
The president can do it by executive order. So Come on trump, do something useful with your sorry narcissistic existence.
Happy Mother's Day. : )
2
She might just as well outlaw talking person to person about forbidden subjects.
2
Because since we lived in caves, it’s been natural for us to shoot video and yack on the Internet.
1
Thank you PM Jacinda Ardern, I have long admired you from afar but your actions on Christchurch solidified your status as "One of the World's Best" in my book. Please continue to speak out.
We must embrace knowledge if humanity is to survive, literally.
The old days and ways must give way to better reasoning and our minds must be open to using technology or we will surely perish, taking all with us.
Ignorance is one of our worst, if not the worst, enemy that we face. Burying our heads in the sand will NOT stop the march of knowledge or technology. Properly used, technology can be a panacea for so many ills. Badly used, we can go ahead with human slaughter and suffering, with the creation of dictators. We must join together to stop the spread of Putin's, Xi's, Trump's and Rupert Murdoch's or they will make us all slaves.
Great knowledge MAY save us all while great ignorance is SURE to kill us.
3
You can pass all the laws and restrict all the freedoms you want won't stop the next determined attacker. In fact it is almost certain New Zealand will be struck with a retaliation bombing or shooting, committed by Muslims most likely against Christians. It is not something that can it happen, it is something that will happen.
2
as long as hatred grows and spreads around the world we'll have more incidents like New Zealand and the larger Sri Lanka incident
2
This is leadership.
4
The person behind the mass suicide attacks on the Christians of Sri Lanka, on Easter Sunday, was a Muslim extremist/hardliner who spread his message and became famous in Youtube videos.
He too died as a suicide bomber (fighting against those 6% of Sri Lankans that are Christian!!!) but there are others like him, other espousing hatred of "different" groups in nations all over the world. They attract the needy, the "lost" and the gullible.
I hope something can be done about social media's reach in so many negative ways in our lives but I fear that the pandora's box is opened.
2
Thank you PM Ardern for showing us what leadership looks like.
2
While I admire Ardern on some issues, be aware,.....I m beginning to see she is an opportunist in the way many NZ'ers before the massacre were already saying.
Why do I know this?
Because Australia has already put through laws in the wake of the Christchurch massacre to outlaw actual terrorism, murder and rape to be broadcast via social media. Facebook executives will actually go to jail in Australia if that happens ever again.
Ardern is lifting her profile internationally. This stuff she is looking like she is a leader on....she isn't. It is not as hard to achieve as she and Marcon are trying to make you believe.
1
Get a clue people who wish the U.S. could have a President as smart, wise and decent as Jacinda Arden. We tried having a man like that...Barack Obama. How'd that work out? No way the average American male is secure enough psychologically to vote for a woman with those same qualities. A sociopath named Trump has a 45% approval rate in America...'nuf said, case closed. The hope of the world, now and into the future, is dependent on people and leaders like Arden.
3
@Cowboy Marine:"We tried having a man like that...Barack Obama. How'd that work out? "
Yeah, he allowed attacks on the US by Russia ("act of war" is how some on the OP-ED pages have described it) and helped destabilize Libya which contributed directly to the refugee flood into Europe.
To answer your question: not too well.
Prime Minister Ardern would you consider becoming an op-ed writer for the NYT---just one piece a month would be enough to assure me that there are places in the world governed by competent and rational leaders. Your response to the tragedy in New Zealand and subsequent interviews light up my day, that is often darkened by the Mad Max show in DC.
4
When anyone suggests that Pete Buttigieg is too young to be President, my response is two words: JACINDA ARDERN
2
Respectfully, I take exception with this: "We may have our differences, but none of us wants to see digital platforms used for terrorism." In fact, there may be some who do want to use digital platforms for terrorism. I can think of one such world leader who terrorizes the U.S. by tweet almost daily. Hitler made incredible use of the media in his early days as Germany's leader while much of the world watched passively. Christchurch shooting was a consequence of many factors, not least of which are the violent xenophobic misogynistic Tweets of world leaders.
1
You can stop the next Christchurch massacre in exactly the same way, as you can stop the next Sri Lankan massacre.
3
Ms. Ardern, you have no idea how many of us would love to see you running the show over here.
4
Courageous. Resilient. Respectful. Magnanimous.
These are the attributes of a leader, who also happens to be NZ’s PM.
Compare that with the attributes of the current US leadership (and the cronies making up the Republican Party):
Dishonest. Arrogant. Greedy. Racist. Xenophobic. Misogynistic.
Enough said.
4
Thank you, Jacinda Ardern: a true world leader.
2
Such a thoughtful op-ed from the leader of New Zealand. Imagine if our leader could write and think like this?
3
It's clear that these mass murder sprees are contagious, and that they spread like memes. Consequently, I would like to see news organizations like the NYT voluntarily commit to ending the wall-to-wall media coverage given to such events. The media circus spreads the sickness.
Dump Facebook for Christchurch. Period. Stop its profiting from violence.
#dumpfacebookforchristchurch
1
It is technically not possible to stop these things. Just like we cannot stop pirating of films and music. Most of the sharing of the video of these murders was done on Bit Torrrent. Its decentralized.
I watched the shootings. It was boring. Looked like a movie.
If you want to do something stop the reason for these shootings not just the broadcasting of them.
1
1.There should be no coverage of mass shootings.
2. If live streaming makes clear the perpetrator's ID, that person should be sentenced the next day --
to life in prison or execution without representation.
Enough with coddling and excuses. These losers are not ill; they're spoiled, wretched self aggrandizers.
3
With all respect for the sorrow of the New Zealand massacre and for all the other massacres, more recently the more than two hundred blown up in a coordinated bombing reminiscent of the even worse 9/11, it's difficult to see how the internet created this horror. An agreement as to what can be forbidden is fine along the lines of, say, child pornography which IS forbidden. Gun control, which did not function in this case, would also really help reduce the risk, but then there was the Oklahoma City bombing, done with fertilizer. We may need to face the role of sociopaths more realistically and actively.
1
Ban right-wing social media within New Zealand's borders. The political positions posted by the New Zealand murderer are simple bread-and-butter beliefs of every commentator on Fox News, and are standard fare for Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones and all other commentators who believe that any influx of migrants is an extinction-level event for white people. These "extreme" views are now perfectly acceptable dinner conversation for millions of bonehead, brain-dead Americans and Brits. But they need not invent New Zealand.
Ban the broadcast of the Fox News network within New Zealand, or New Zealand can join the merry high-school-shooting-every-week circus of USA life and culture
1
Jacinda orders confiscation of property without allowing the owners to have any real input on the situation. No plans are yet in place to actually handle the firearms turned. The confiscation is so broad that even civil war era lever action rifles that hold more than 10 rounds are illegal. It is looking like the cost to government will be approaching 1 billion dollars. This at a time when hospitals and schools are having budget troubles.
Now freedom of speech is her next target, anyone trying to say anything in opposition within NZ is squelched. Forums on hunting and fishing are deleting their discussion sections about firearm laws. The manifesto of the mass murderer, while being the wall of text nonsense you would expect, is not available to read by those in NZ. Instead of letting the public know what a kook the shooter was in his own words, there is now mystery which I think may lend the idiot credence, as if he had written something powerful.
A police state with modern day book burning is what Jacinda is offering.
While I like Jacinda, she is posturing....
Q: You want to know who is already making the tech companies work towards a solution?
A: Australia.
In the weeks after Christchurch, the Aussie parliament passed laws whereby it is illegal, punishable by fines and jail time, to broadcast actual terrorism, murder and rape via social media.
Facebook execs are still living in Australia - so I assume they are already working on the solution.
4
Gun issues, anyone?
3
Look at this young woman because this is what courage and leadership look like. Let it be seared in your brain.
We should all be worried about the 8chan/pol board and the radicalization that occurs on that. It is young white mostly male anti Semitic/Neo Nazi radicalization. They make ISIS look like amateurs. We should be very worried about social media and the inability to recall the posted content of these murderers.
And the guns. Let’s face it America. Our Achilles heel is the massively available semi assault/assault rifle. Nobody uses that for any legitimate purpose. It is a killing instrument, designed for mass destruction. It should not be part of any legitimate second amendment protection. It is a weapon of war. Enlist in the armed forces if you want to use it. Otherwise, ban it.
2
What are the parameters for deciding when an uploader has violated a new law against spreading terrorist violence or propoganda? One can find graphic videos of violence being committed by every kind of group against every kind of group. Israeli settlers against Palestinians, Palestinians against settlers, protestors bombing abortion providers, antifa attacking non-antifa, neo-nazis attacking their protestors, Islamic extremists hurling homosexuals from rooftops, etc. When is it newsworthy to report and show video from such instances, and when would it be banned? Would I be guilty of a crime for sharing one of these videos in my Facebook feed, in order to make whatever point I was trying to make about Neo Nazi violence, Christian violence, Jewish violence, Palestinian violence, antifa violence, etc? Who decides?
39
@Vanbriggle
"Would I be guilty of a crime for sharing one of these videos in my Facebook feed, in order to make whatever point I was trying to make...?"
It would be a start if individuals realized that by sharing on social media they are entering into the crimes they want to report on to make a point that does not need to be made over and over and over ad infinitum.
Television news stations are guilty of repeating for days the horrible details of mass shootings.Why? Is not one day of it enough?
And never broadcast the names of these criminals!
14
"Would I be guilty of a crime ..."
Ardern is extremely vague about what, if anything, would be criminalized, but this sentence is both evasive and threatening:
"And so, New Zealand will present a call to action in the name of Christchurch, asking both nations and private corporations to make changes ..."
Evasive, because Ardern switches from the first person ("I") to the third person ("New Zealand").
Threatening, because Ardern, speaking as "New Zealand", is asking "nations" to make certain changes. That can only mean statutory or regulatory control by *governments*.
1
Ardern: "... that right does not include the freedom to broadcast mass murder."
Then Ardern would need to ban videos like the one published by the Times showing soldiers shooting civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo:
‘Look, They Are Dying’: Video Appears to Show Massacre by Congolese Soldiers
By Jeffrey Gettleman
Feb. 17, 2017
New York Times
2
The radio waves have broadcast licenses. Why in the Internet? As for violent content, make social media companies responsible for their content, just like newspapers, who are liable for slanderous ads (user created content). Oh, it would cost money to moderate everything? Too freakin’ bad. Keeping Facebook as a free (privacy violating) service isn’t worth even one terrorist publicity campaign.
3
Thank You Prime Minister for your leadership. Your’s is a gentle country and your words reflect both the strength you have displayed and the peace you are yearning for. I am grateful for your example and leadership
5
New Zealand has a tradition of censorship, so the author's op-ed isn't surprising. It won't be a big jump to include anything the ruling party doesn't like in the "terrorism" category.
"Our first move was to pass a law banning the military-style semiautomatic guns the terrorist used."
This statement is half true at best; the ban is for almost all semi-automatic weapons, not just so-called 'military style'.
3
there are plenty of guns, plenty of bullets, and plenty of people... and, sadly, much more than plenty of tragic mass shooting episodes. yet, looking at the broader picture, these horrors almost never happen, and when they do they seem to share many underlying details. for example, they are almost always perpetrated by young men. examining all the similarities of the shooters might point us in the direction of identifying those at risk of this murderous behavior in time to do something about it - before they pick up a gun, hatch a plot, and set out on a murder spree, probably with their own deaths also in mind. in the US, we pretty much all have ridiculously unfettered access to guns, but most do not own any and only a vanishingly small percentage of people go on to mayhem. what's with them and this abberant behavior that cleves so tightly to an established pattern? and most importantly, what should we be doing about it, rathwr than nothing or passive acceptance? yes, guns are an old-fashioned invention, but so are straight jackets and mental hospitals and we have all but eliminated those.
Spoken like a person with a sound mind and rational solutions to new problems unlike our hand ringing leadership. We Americans are still stuck in the 2nd amendment obsession. The exact interpretation of the 2nd amendment itself is disputable. Be as it may the power of the NRA and the deer shooting crowds has literally paralyzed our collective psyche. When will these gun toting crowds embrace beauty, science and art or are we destined to devolve in to frontier mindset and vigilante rabble. The gun confiscation in Tasmania was an example of courage and leadership worth emulating. If there are no shootings there will be no social media videos. So lets attack the source of these shootings by outlawing the guns.
2
We should divide the video postings in two categories. Private groups videos and openly public videos. Anyone posting an openly public video, especially live streaming, should be considered a broadcaster and as a broadcaster, they should have a government issued license to do it and they should adhere to all regulations regarding broadcasting. We already have these regulations for broadcast, cable TV, and radio and for a reason (which we are now learning why), and I see similarities between broadcasting video on the Internet or cable TV or over the air TV. The enforcer of the regulations is the technology company (Facebook, YouTube, etc.) and they have to figure it out. With great powers come great responsibilities.
For private groups, the membership should be by invitation only, and you cannot ask to join using the same platform (you can do it via email, text, etc., like WhatsApp). This is a starting point and it may be enough to prevent a private group to become an open public group. Technology is neither good or bad. Technology amplifies human virtues or vices. It allows good people to do greater things and bad people to do much worse things.
Prime Minister Arden is not a dictator. She can only lead with the support of her legislature that makes the laws and the people who elect her. In America, we have a few leaders who would ban assault weapons and take other steps to make us safer, which the majority of Americans say they want, but we have the Republican Party and the voters in districts and states who elect them to do nothing about gun violence and the NRA and backwoods militias that they are afraid of and bow to.
1
Social media is certainly part of this problem but there is a simple solution. Don't follow the crowd; don't use it; you are not missing out.
From the instant social media platforms suddenly gripped the conscience of nearly everyone with a smartphone, I was wary. Human connections are formed and develop, fundamentally, face to face, not through computer screens.
Although there have been benefits, social media has depersonalized human relationships. It feels real, but it's not. So I've never had a social media account. And I've never felt that I was missing anything truly important.
Just a few years ago, the notion of swearing off Facebook was a fringe idea. Now people are doing it in droves, although motivated mainly by privacy concerns.
Over the next 10 years, there will be a major correction to place social media in its right place - the rubbish bin. Because it's destroying our humanity.
2
All well intentioned steps to curb extremism but the reality still remains until we put away the antiquated practices of formal religions and embrace humanism this will continue. Put down your holy books and embrace rationality and your neighbors.
6
We have seen how that looks like in communist societies. Over 40 million killed in the name of equality. Check France after the French Revolution which abolish religion altogether and created the Reign of Terror. As a result, some European countries have official religions, some subsidize the Catholic Church, some have religious education taught in schools. Religion has many positives for human beings and society. Some terrible things have been done in the name of religion. But some terrible things have been done in the name of science (Eugenics), liberty (many wars), democracy (more wars like Iraq and the whole Arab Spring, to bring democracy to the Middle East and check it out now), and even soccer (Honduras and El Salvador war). We wish there were simple solutions to very complex problems.
agreed... but hate acted out is not only the result of religious fear and tribalism, it is the expression of madness. we do much too little, spend too little, take too little time and care. so, in a way it is neglect.
Surely YouTube’s upload systems can recognize many uploads of the same video clip within a few hours, even if they can’t tell — automatically — what’s in the clip. That sort of event can surely sound an alarm in their operations center.
Surely they can rig up a way for authorized police from any nation to raise a similar alarm upon noticing violent content.
Surely they can respond by by switching to an emergency operating regime. They can delay the release of all newly-uploaded content for a period of time long enough for them to get ahead of a tidal wave of vile rubbish. A few hours’ delay affects free expression not one bit.
All large scale website operators already have skillful security-incident response teams and well-thought-out protocols. They can surely apply them to these incidents.
Or, just as surely, governments will impose their own much more crude restrictions.
Automation cannot solve the problem of vile content. But automation can slow its distribution long enough to make a real difference. At any rate it’s worth a good solid try.
2
Excellent job Ms. PM!!!
You are an example of leadership for the world for years to come. Thank you so much for everything you did for humanity. May peace be everywhere in this world.
8
I'll try again. dissent as to what is being done in NZ.
Jacinda passed laws in a rush without allowing real input from those effected. And for all the hype. There is yet no plan in place to actually receive all those firearms safely and how to fairly make their owners whole.
Much more money will be spent in the "buyback" than hastily estimated because the scope of the confiscation is much broader than "military style". For example, Great Grandad's lever action rimfire from the 1800's would be included. And to be fair to owners. Maybe 10 times as much. This at the same time as nurses and teachers are feeling financial pressure. Illegally owned guns will not be payed for, so there is little incentive for criminals to give up theirs.
2
@Kettle Crest
Just as the firearm confiscation in NZ is much broader than military style weapons, the suppression of speech is much broader than stopping the broadcast of mass murder.
Free speech in NZ is not the same as the US. The manifesto of the terrorist is not allowed to be read in NZ. It is a wall of text of mostly gibberish. Censuring it isn't needed, in fact it may make others think he had something worthwhile to say and strengthen his cause.
On the hunting and shooting forums in NZ there is pressure to avoid talking about the firearms laws and dissent is being deleted. Even sharing information on how the law might be implemented. One has to be "fit and proper" to own a firearm and speaking your mind about politics can have you deemed not so by the police.
2
You seem to have a lot of complaints but no constructive suggestions. Perhaps you don’t see mass shootings as a problem? Or less of a problem than having to give up your grandfather’s gun?
1
The solution needs to significantly broader. Yes, we need regulation of weapons, including those of social media destruction. But even more so, we need to think about how to strengthen moderating factors in society. There are many, and no single solution will be a panacea.
Between a ban on firearms and unfettered access, between shutting down social media and completely unmoderated discussion, we should be able to find a middle way. Yes, there will be slippery slope arguments on many sides, but does that justify the price of no limits?
1
In today's dystopian world, stopping streaming bullets that come at us from anywhere and everywhere has become as seemingly impossible as stopping streaming bits and bytes of social media that enter and poison our environment in a frightening similar fashion. Our society has become hopelessly addicted to both.
How much can we learn from how NZ is immediately attempting to handle unnecessary tragedies such as this shows how far behind we have allowed ourselves to descend.
Vote.
2
It is extremely uplifting to hear Ms Ardern's words, to realize that despite the front page reportage of evils perpetrated by many of the world's leading officials, there are some, exemplified by Ms Arden, who have the wisdom and good will to work towards solving our problems.
7
Why not buffer content? Live streaming might be cool, but requiring that all material is buffered long enough to evaluate the content before being shown would allow all sorts of filters applied. AI is particularly good with visual material, and I assume that one could run a classifier against posts, the poster, and the video to prevent much of this malicious content. Even if applied and worked well, the next problem would be how such individuals would game the system, or how some market entities would not accept this solution or would claim first amendment exemptions.
1
This massacre was a bad but rare event. Ardern is losing her perspective. The fact is that the social media could have provided a clue that this event was becoming a possibility. The guy who committed this act gave lots of warnings that were missed and the strong gun control system missed information that should have made him ineligible to obtain any gun. But Ardern thinks that she can prevent people from killing people if so inclined people are kept silent.
But she does not think very deeply. A future killer might obtain a real military assault rifle in some lawless country that is flooded with them and smuggle one or more in, not even attempting to buy any weapons in New Zealand. The only defense then would be talk on the internet and active counter terrorist intelligence. Restricting domestic formerly legal guns reduces guns in the country and everyday gun violence by average people but it would not stop this kind of killer who travels and crosses many borders pursuing terrorist purposes.
2
One has to entertain the idea that the motivation for these killings is less about strong ideological beliefs and, sadly, more about the shallow pursuit of infamy. FB and other SM incentivize malignant narcissists as with a click of a button they can broadcast themselves to the world. Never underestimate the hunger for fame and status. It’s what drives us all to some extent, most of us can find a balance.
1
Despite the resonance that Ardern draws upon to achieve fame and praise by many in this country, she is reacting to problems with impassive and unfocused gestures that don’t help at all.
People who commit these terrorist acts work upon and plan these things for months and years. Their psychology develops in seldom predictable ways. They become killers without signs that others can conclusively recognize. Preventing them from harming people is better accomplished by uncovering them than by hoping that converting humanity by social manipulations into a non-violent species will eliminate all violence in people.
Basically, Ardern is not able to understand the problem and she’s wasting her energy on efforts that won’t help. But it does not matter because the likelihood of this happening again in her country is remote. She could go the rest of her life convinced that her efforts protected her country as a result.
1
"... and smuggle one or more in ..."
Do you know of any actual examples of an *individual* smuggling weapons to commit a crime with those weapons?
Of course, revolutionaries have done that, or they have raided government arsenals. (e.g. John Brown at Harper's Ferry and Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution)
18 days after 50 people were killed, New Zealand's legislature banned assault weapons by a vote of 119 to 1. Here, hundreds of thousands have been killed over DECADES, and NOTHING is done.
And as toxic and destructive as the NRA is, Gun Owners of America is even WORSE.
This awful situation has deteriorated over more than 50 years because of Republican complicity and Democratic cowardice.
And if, by some miracle, we ever enacted strict gun control, I'm convinced that there would be--at least--pockets of armed resistance. It could become the worst fighting since the Civil War.
Good Lord, how this great country has fallen. Civilizations are like sand on the beach. They wash in...and out. It takes WORK to stay on top. It's not automatic.
Here's one suggestion which so many people ignore: VOTE.
12
@bnyc
You don't seem to realize that pistols could have been used to the same affect in the closed in space the shooter was operating in. Rifles are handy when people are shooting back at you. When your targets are not armed pistols are equally effective and the Virginia Tech shooter proved that beyond all doubt.
3
@bnyc
The public safety issue here is easy access to any and all semiautomatic self-loading firearms with large capacity magazines — not access specifically to so-called assault rifles.
If the victims are nearby, unarmed and not wearing protective body armour, then an assailant armed with semiautomatic handguns, ie pistols, with high-capacity magazines will kill and injure seriously more victims than he will with a semiautomatic rifle, whether or not the last is a military-style assault rifle.
Indeed, lower velocity rounds fired from the shorter barrels of pistols are more likely to ricochet and cartwheel through vital organs, arteries and veins, doing more irreparable internal damage than high velocity rounds that are more likely to pass straight through the human body.
2
@bnyc
Voting is indeed very important. The US has one of the lowest voter participation rates amongst developed countries, and it is in fact surpassed by some developing countries.
We could learn from some other countries, e.g. Australia, where voting is a legal requirement and there is a federal holiday on the day voters go to the polls.
For a country that is supposed to be a beacon of democracy, the US sure doesn’t make it very easy for its citizens to make their voices heard at the polls.
And that being said, for a country roiled by partisanship, there also seems to be a surprising amount of voter apathy.
Get out the vote, folks. Make it count.
3
I so envy New Zealand's strong and common sense leadership. If only...
8
Social media is a means of communication. It doesn't make people hateful or murderous. There is no research proving a connection between media and violent behavior, much as some people believe the connection exists intuitively. Violent people become violent as a combination of their genetics and experience with actual violent behavior. The way to reduce mass shootings, because they cannot be definitively eliminated, is by strict gun control.
5
@alan
Absolutely false. ALL media, and especially social media, spread these violent fantasies that so many latch onto.
Young males seem especially receptive to the murder/suicide ideation. Columbine was a first, and it spawned many copycats who were "infected" by the obsession. Had it not been reported, no copycats would have appeared. No, social media itself doesn't "cause" violent behavior, but it's a very effective medium to spread it once established. Cruise ships don't "start" norovirus either, but it only takes one passenger.
If only murderous rampages such as the one that took so many lives in Christchurch were rightly regarded as being symptomatic of a life threatening virus that's being spread by hate speech over social media world leaders worthy of their responsibilities would be following Jacinda Ardern's example by using all possible means and doing all that's within their power, individually and collectively, to put an end to it.
2
Prime Minister, this was well done, by writing and publishing your clear-cut opinions here.
So, however jaundiced my views may appear, social media companies are "MONEY driven" vehicles.
They are private entities unto themselves.
You can appeal to their moral, high conscious but until and unless pressure is applied in following two forms, this will not be a major priority for them...
- Hold them accountable by threat of shutting down their servers if they do not strictly control spread of hate, violent speech towards other religions, minority groups etc.
Racist behavior is just simply not tolerable anymore.
- A mass movement to stop using social media... a way of bringing these billion dollar behemoths to their knees.
These sites are "there", because people populate them, use them as so-called cyberspace communal centres.
If people can delivereth that power, then they can taketh away it as well.
However may you say it, it is time for action-- not just words any more.
1
News feeds. Facebook says its a platform, not a media service. But newsfeed algorithms are editorial. Doesn't matter whether humans aggregate the stuff. The decision to assemble material is made by software that was written with purpose.
The uploading of violence is bad, but the insertion of violence into newsfeeds is terrible.
Facebooks's newsfeed even shocks Zuckerberg. He knows, but won't say, that a newsfeed is a news digest. It presents a compendium. Facebook shouldn't monopolize this editorial view. It should be open to other digest makers. Let other alorgithms, or old fashioned editors, assemble the material. Let them pitch users on their angle.
People will pay for some, others can be advertising based, some can be nonprofit. Facebook can set up rules, charge them a fee.
Come on, it's necessary. Complain that Facebook should be banned, or users should avoid it, and nothing will change. We need to do things that will.
1
All of this focus on the role of social media is nice, but it’s the news media attention that motivates, and turns these killers into rock stars.
2
Evil do not have the power to break our spirit and render us helpless indefinitely when we are also blessed with people like Jecinda Ardern. God bless, Ms. Prime Minister!
2
This truly is a two-edged sword. We have to censor murder videos, but what about police malpractice videos or videos of domestic violence? There is no easy solution here.
1
Make broadcasting/streaming murder a crime, put those who profit from it away, and shut down the platforms that make money from disseminating live killings.
If the people profiting from "social media" have a conscience they will make the case for this kind of law themselves.
This has little or no relevance to a divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states with 320 million color aka race aka ethnic sectarian national origin socioeconomic educational backgrounds.
Starting with the 1st Amendment limitations on government power regarding the rights granted therein Along with the rights of private entities to act virtually without any such restrictions.
Then there is the 2nd Amendment American ndividual right to keep and bear arms.
Christchurch is not the name that the Maori gave to that town. Nor is New Zealand the name that the Maori gave this land. While the traditional weapons of the Maori proved futile against European bullets and guns.
2
Thank you for being proactive, compassionate and reflective.
Would that we also had a responsible leader over here.
Instead, we have a president who does the gun lobby’s bidding and whose solution to violence is to have even more deadly weapons in circulation. Just as bad, Trump plays to the worst caricatures people have of some groups, particularly Muslims, and who shares and retweets false, inflammatory content.
No one can anticipate every eventuality, but leadership matters a lot.
2
Fewer guns beget fewer deaths by guns. Many countries have stopped mass murders by outlawing military style weapons in civilian hands. Other countries have almost eliminated gun violence by eliminating firearms and ammunition in civilian hands. We could learn from these successes. But the NRA, spineless politicians and gun manufacturers won’t do it. What will it take? I am all in.
3
alas, the cows are probably already out of the barn on guns... but BULLETS are a consumable.
A RARE LEADERSHIP MODEL FOR THIS WORLD. Until the virulent hatred of Muslims is recognized for global cancer that it is, it will continue to spread with destabilizing consequences. Ms Ardern is the first western leader who courageously called out this Muslim hatred without worrying about how she might lose support from her voters.
She showed open solidarity with her Muslims, not only visiting the grieving families but wearing the hijab (banned in public institutions in many western countries). She condemned the killing of Muslims, not the killing of 51 at two NZ mosques, as most world leaders chose to frame it without specifying that the murdered were victims of hate against Muslims.
Thank you for personally taking this lead in fighting global hatred Prime Minister.
2
The line under the title says no one should be able to broadcast mass murder, but that happens on TV all the time.
When the United States and the “coalition of the willing” bounced rubble in Baghdad in the opening hours of the Gulf War, we were witnessing the willful murder of people to include civilians. When Israeli bombs struck Gaza and the video is shown on the news, we were witnessing a war crime where protected places like schools & hospitals are bombed in violation of established international treaties/laws. When US drones in Afghanistan attacked individual targets with Hellfire missiles- targeting people with anti-tank weapons- we were witnessing the murder of innocent civilians killed with no discrimination of legitimate combatants from others.
I understand the concern governments have regarding the protection of citizens from senseless violence perpetrated by people and groups motivated by hatred, but do not throw out the baby with the bath water. Democracy is sometimes messy, free speech is often messy, and tolerance of some level is also a price of having both. I am above all a civil libertarian who believes the free speech/expression rights we all hold are intrinsic to all people and were not granted by any government. No government granted that and no government should be able to abrogate them with such a broad brush, because those rights are one of the few protections the citizenry has to express themselves to those in power.
No censorship.
1
The comments here are censored. No one has a right to live stream murder. Like the New York Times website, social media servers and platforms are privately owned by profitable companies. They can control content just as TV networks can censor broadcasts. You have the right to free speech, not the right to free broadcast.
2
It is a self evident truth that the perpetrators of most mass shootings do it for the publicity.
Going out in a blaze of glory must be made more difficult . Media should censor the name of the shooter and cover the event with minimum detail and a flat affect. Extreme minimum coverage should be considered. Just saying that a shooting has happened, not even saying where, for example. Only the number of people involved, no names, til much later.
Social media can and must figure out away from ever live streaming a horrible rampage like the one in Christchurch, again.
We must sacrifice our need to know , if we ever hope to head off the needless slaughter, that otherwise, is sure to reoccur.
2
That is only one part to the cure in America.
In America, whenever we were faced with a vice, dangerous object the tried and true answer to it was legality, regulation, responsibility and non promotion.
It worked wonders with cig. smoking and drunk driving but has been a miserable failure with gun violence since it has not been employed.
Here in American we obsess on the extremes. On the left regulate, regulate, regulate to the point of banning guns, and ban the NRA as the sole problem, on the right arm everybody to the teeth and eliminate the inner cities.
Knee jerk reactions like above don't work as proven by many yrs. of promoting them.
2
I don't know why anyone would willingly watch a video of people being murdered. I've never sought one out, and I submit that if you have, there's something wrong with that impulse.
2
Ms. Ardern is not only the prime minister of a first world nation, she also happens to be thoughtful and intelligent. How refreshing.
4
Prime Minister Arden, you are a hero and an example of how world leaders should act in the face of gun violence. Your actions have been swift, compassionate, and meaningful steps to lessen the chance of future massacres. Thank you.
4
@Monti Datta
I am appalled that you consider America unable to improve. Consider the civil rights movement. We only decline when good people accept that they can do nothing.
After something horrible happens people feel a need to take action that they think is constructive. But when it comes to mass shootings most people miss the boat. Most of us are born with antisocial urges that are mild or strong. Many of these urges are sexual, which is why there are so many child abusers and other sexual abusers. Some have sadistic urges. Some are obsessed with violence. The strength of these urges determines whether they are acted upon. Some can suppress whoever they are for a lifetime. Many cannot. Those who cannot include mass shooters. And those who think they can suppress the strongest antisocial urges by passing laws regarding social media don’t have a clue.
1
Ardern: "Many people report seeing it autoplay on their social media feeds ..."
That's a straw man. Users need to take responsibility for the content they see using the tools already available.
In particular, Facebook has a web page explaining how to disable autoplay:
"How do I stop videos from playing automatically in my News Feed?"
1
“Users need to take responsibility....”
I am not worried about the responsible users. It’s the irresponsible ones who are the problem. They will continue to search out that kind of content.
Same with guns: no concerns about the responsible gun owners. It’s the irresponsible ones that scare me.
Perhaps there should also be a waiting period for Facebook and Twitter. Any posting should be delayed for 5 days to allow for review of content.
Facebook is at least as dangerous as a loose canon, I.e. a wacko with a gun.
And Facebook is bringing out and breeding a lot of wackos!
1
KBN: "It’s the irresponsible ones who are the problem."
Ardern was referring to certain Facebook users as VICTIMS because they unwittingly had autoplay enabled.
Anyway, Times commenters frequently demonize Trump or Trump supporters, so who is being irresponsible when those comments are posted?
Thankfully we have the Bill of Rights here in the U.S. to prevent pandering politicians from chipping away at individual liberty.
1
Jacinda Ardern took IMMEDIATE action to outlaw and remove the military weapons that facilitated slaughter. The US needs a similar executive action, supported by Congress, to outlaw and remove these same devices in ALL their profane forms. Social media should be used to shame and condemn anyone who supports the presence of these horrifying weapons anywhere in the world.
After reading some of the comments, it seems there's a misunderstanding. The PM is not advocating that uploading videos be banned; rather, that live-streaming should be banned. Yes, it means that one couldn't live-stream one's wedding, or taking some foolish but comical dare, but what would really be lost? Only the immediacy of the event; they could still be posted, but only after being moderated.
As for such moderation, the NYT doesn't immediately publish comments, either; they're checked against certain criteria before appearing here. The scale for Facebook and YouTube is far greater, but if the wedding videos are available in a few hours rather than instantly, it really doesn't matter; especially, when balanced against the mass-murders that might be prevented.
1
Sorry, Jacinda, you can try to blame the Christchurch massacre on social media all you like but the inescapable fact is that the alleged killer couldn't have done what he did without easy unrestricted access in New Zealand to semiautomatic weapons and large capacity magazines.
Since the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996 showed what could happen, successive NZ governments starting with the NZ labour government headed up by NZ Prime minister Helen Clarke had had twenty-three years to fix NZ's lax gun laws. You refused to do so, bowing instead to the power of your gun lobby, your hunters, farmers and sporting shooters.
After Port Arthur in 1996, Australian PM John Howard proposed to NZ PM Helen Clarke that the Kiwis followed our lead here in Oz. Clarke declined to follow suit. As have successive NZ leaders ever since, despite the entreaties of the NZ police – until now.
Because of NZ's lax gun laws, Christchurch was always gonna happen eventually. Not because of social media. But because of a failure of political will by NZ politicans for almost a quarter of a century.
2
Can we amend the Constitution to allow non-citizens to become President?
1
Instead of asking tech companies to police the internet, why isn't the first step asking media outlets to stop plastering the names and faces of these guys on 24-hour TV?
Tech companies are filled with computer scientists who are better at finding the perfect algorithms to drop ads in front of users without becoming intrusive. Journalists, anchors, and editors who work at outfits purported to serve the public interest deal with these issues all the time. Isn't it a more obvious first-step to tackle the news media's obsession with tragedy rather than asking Zuckerberg and Dorsey to become arbiters of the entire internet??
News outlets must cease to publish the names and profiles of these mass killers. There needs to be a blackout of information after a mass shooting. We need healthcare for everyone in the US so unstable people could get the help they need before passing to act. We need very tight gun owner restrictions. Bravo to NZ for showing us the way.
Ms Ardern ,
We already have laws controlling guns here and while it will render their votes invalid in next week's Australian federal election it seems like quite a few Aussies may still be planning to write you in as First Choice on their ballot papers.
3
Thank you for this column, I had no idea that had happened. Shame on Facebook!
good luck trying to stop the internet the second someone starts posting something horrendous. nothing was broadcast during the sri lankan massacre but it was even more horrendous than the one in nz. jacinda restricting guns, which shouldve been done long ago, may help reduce the impact of terrorism, but her virtue-signalling headscarf move was as effective as the "thoughts and prayers" that invariably flow after these trajedies. jacinda will not serve another term.
2
We need more people like her governing
2
'But we didn’t just want grief; we wanted action.'
I wish that we, like Prime Minister Ardern, could say, and do, the same. We lost 40,000 people in our country to guns last year.
I want action - do you?
3
Excellent article. My continued condolences to your entire country. The fact you were able to swiftly to ban assault weapons while here in the US, mass murders have become routine, school shootings in particular, shows the differences in our respective societies: one sick, the other socially responsible.
Your plan to convene a group to urge social media companies to pull down violent, lurid, and self-aggrandizing propaganda for hate groups is smart. I hope something gets done. I really hope Mark Zuckerburg shows up.
Creating mechanisms to contain publication and sharing of hate crimes isn't "censorship" any more than banning the posting of child pornography or committing acts of social incitement (yelling fire in a crowded theater).
Every society has the right to form consensus on what is acceptable or unacceptable when it comes to promoting death or exploitation of children. One hopes social media companies whose platforms serve as both publishers and distributors of violent content will join you in your efforts.
1
Ardern: "Our aim may not be simple, but it is clearly focused: to end terrorist and violent extremist content online."
That wording suggests that "non-violent extremist content" would be acceptable. So what counts as "extremist content"?
Some political theorists, including Plato and Hobbes, advocated totalitarianism as the ideal form of government. Do their views count as "extremist"?
Indeed, the philosopher Karl Popper wrote a two-volume work criticizing a whole range of political theorists. Would Popper be OK, but not his targets?
See: "The Open Society and Its Enemies" by Karl Popper (1945).
Ms. Ardern suggests that private corporations might have the ability or be able to change their platforms in such a way as to "prevent the posting of terrorist content online, to ensure its efficient and fast removal, and to prevent the use of live-streaming as a tool for broadcasting terrorist attacks."
How would one prevent terrorist content? When a member of the KKK uses their personal twitter account to designate the next rally, that's perfectly indistinguishable from a Red Cross member designating their next blood drive. It's also hard to discuss censoring terrorism without infringing upon religious groups, something Facebook has flirted with doing to ample negative publicity.
According to Ms. Ardern, Facebook removed 1.5 million versions of the shooting in 24 hours. That's 416 copies per second. Sounds pretty fast to me. How can they make that faster? What would change if it were faster? What about it was inefficient and how would we propose to make it more so?
Live streams are filled with people shooting and murdering other people. Videos games are becoming more and more realistic. Would the investment of private companies really be worth a reduction (at best) in violent live streams?
Outlawing weapons makes sense to me - asking private companies police the internet for footage you find objectionable is irrational. I didn't want to see Notre Dame burning but it's my responsibility to close my browser, not Facebook's responsibility to block the stream.
18
What social media could do is create filters for certain content, and users could could turn specific filters on to block themselves from content they don’t want to see. This is very similar to the use of parental controls on internet content. And we protect the first amendment—no censorship. I want to see hate speech of all stripes to understand underlying resentments and conflicts in our society. Some people don’t. We can make our own decision, not leave it up to Mark Zuckerberg.
3
"How would one prevent terrorist content?"
Ardern's OpEd is incoherent, because it also advocates "end[ing] terrorist and violent extremist content online."
The phrase "violent extremist content" narrows the range of content Ardern would control. The problem is that Ardern appears to be OK with "non-violent extremist content". And that leads to the question: What qualifies as "extremist content"?
Further, it is possible to advocate violence without being explicit by using code-words, metaphors, hypotheticals, etc.
1
@Matthew Wiegert How can it be faster? By better algorithms. They are already in use everywhere. They are just not focused on protection of society because their main purpose is selling us things. They will not be 100% effective, of course. Human oversight is needed. But the current lip service paid by Facebook, especially, to protection is laughable in contrast to effort and time they spend selling us - we are their commodity - and selling us things.
17
I have felt from the beginning that social media is incompatible with democracy and instead is a powerful tool for autocrats.
I never signed up for Facebook or Twitter.
I fear history has proven me right already.
We should pull the plug on social media while we still can.
1
Social media, the internet, needs reform? No one should be able to broadcast mass murder? What should and should not be allowed to be expressed in speech, writing, by visuals on modern and always increasing in sophistication communications systems in society?
I think I'm finally getting some clarity, some order of magnitude of the problems the human race faces with increased communications systems, methodology which is inextricable from INCREASED MEMORY of not just the individual but the entire human race, and what gains prominence in not only the individual's but the human race's consciousness, the collective consciousness of the human race.
Increased communications systems mean everything can now be recorded, and fame, which is to say collective attention, can be addressed increasingly to anyone and anything, and anyone and anything can be remembered in its life trajectory, yet at the same time the powers that be have given every person the capacity to be remembered for anything they have the power to elevate themselves and have all their actions remembered and with the push of a button can erase the lives of millions without actually killing people, just condemning them to category of not worthy of remembrance, a waste basket of what's not essential to human history.
We can certainly understand why so many people are keen for fame in any way possible because all can be recorded and the powers that be do decide willy nilly what should be remembered of humanity.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is a model for other leaders. Just the fact that some leaders are getting together to for this call to action is a step in the right direction. There are too many guns and too many cuckoos with guns on this planet. Gun control and social media control go hand in hand when it comes to preventing the next massacre. Unfortunately, if barely anything gets done, or if only a few countries are willing to protect their citizens from mass shootings, we will not be able to save our children from the next monster who will enter a school or a mosque with weapons to kill. Our own government ( mostly the Republicans) has been complacent and complicit of the NRA and tied to the hip to the Second Amendment who to my mind should be revoked or at least reworded. We are not in 1776 any more, there is no reason why so many guns should be allowed on the streets. Until we show some spine to prevent mass shootings, rogue countries will continue to provide guns and promote terrorism.
11
While the idea is a good one, in general a voluntary prohibition like this will not stop the heinous posting of terrorist videos, as social media companies will claim they powerless to stop it. But make it illegal for social media companies to allow terrorist videos to appear and they will find a way to do it. It’s as simple as that.
7
While we debate, posture and anguish about the experience level, gender or age of a candidate here in the U.S., here is one 39-year-old woman with a clear sense decency and morality, and a strong sense of action.
30
"... the experience level, gender or age of a candidate here in the U.S., ..."
Comparing the US and New Zealand is ridiculous on a variety of grounds, including population, history, economy, and legal system.
2
Hard to imagine real time videos of mass shootings provoking copycat repeats in countries like Japan or United Kingdom. Why? Because it’s very difficult to obtain guns there. No gun stores, no gun shows, very few armed cops, no gun magazines, no gun lobbies, not much in the way of gun culture, not much illegal black market gun trade.
Social media can only be made an accessory when the murder weapons are within easy reach.
213
@Xoxarle As a Brit, I see availability of arms being an issue for sure. But attitude towards rights, use and ownership in US is also different to the UK. This will harder for you to address than simply reducing firearm availability.
23
@iain mackenzie Agreed. Americans just don't get it, not yet. Maybe in the future they will, but it will take a generation or two to change long held attitudes. It's very sad.
44
@Xoxarle -- There are other ways to kill. Other places have other traditions of killing. This is a very narrow view of the copycat effect.
5
Good ideas from a leader of the caliber of which America can scarcely even remember once having.
Preventing "the posting of terrorist content online," ensuring its "efficient and fast removal" and stopping "live-streaming as a tool for broadcasting terrorist attacks," while important goals sorely lacking, nonetheless amounts to barely the tip of the iceberg of the horrors and wreckage modern civilization is suffering by its mindless addiction to the massive scourge of social media, engineered to systematically con and fleece society in order to line the pockets of greedy billionaires.
138
As an American and now New Zealand citizen, I'd like to thank Ms. Ardern for her efforts on behalf of New Zealand citizens as well as people around the world. I'm grateful that my three young children are growing up in a country with a compassionate and strong leader. You make me hopeful for their future, and hope can be hard to come by these days.
Arohanui from Mt Maunganui
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@Reader
Australia already pioneered the 'call to action' she and Macron say they are spearheading weeks ago now. Facebook executives will go to jail in Australia if real life violence is broadcast again.
Be aware, your dear Jacinda is posturing.
To be clear, I like her. But do note, this has already been done elsewhere. I am beginning to see her as using the 'opportunity' of this horrible massacre to lift her own profile internationally. And that is gauche.
This summit and this piece, actually makes me not trust her.
6
@Reader
I wanted to move to New Zealand with my family last week . Under great leadership Decisive proactive action was taken. Value of lives was more important than capitalism, and this constant irritating slogan that people are coming for our guns, New Zealand didn’t waste time but put forth real meaningful legislative action.
Our children will be forever emotionally destroyed by these murderous actions. No place is safe, we have no one to blame but our own stupidity. Not all of us want a safe secure life for each other because if we did a shooting wouldn’t happen ever Week.
God bless New Zealand for being leaders when America refuses to address the murderous emotionally disturbed individuals unleashed in this country.
We all just want to be safe.
33
Then i wonder why so many migrants risk their lives to come to the U. S.
4
It is totally sensible to keep attacker propaganda off the net, and to place limits on the distribution of military style weapons to individuals.
But there is another factor which has been ignored. The media needs to examine the effect of their own reporting.
There can be no question that the attackers are seeking some form of "fame" or "recognition". This is true even for a suicidal attacker, who wants to leave a legacy behind - the knowledge that his name will "live forever".
The press should refrain from telling the world all about the attackers upbringing and personal life. Nor should the pain and suffering of the victims and their families be reported in specific ways. This type of coverage motivates the attackers.
The argument that the public has constitutional "right to know" this information, is no more valid that the notion that individuals have a constitutional "right to carry" any sort of weapons they want to.
It's easy to attack somebody else's industry - gun manufacturing, for example; while denying that your own industry should also be held to responsible standards.
I've noticed that in NYC the press does not cover Bridge Jumpers at all - the only mention is of "police activity" on a bridge - absolutely no video coverage or details are provided. I assume this is because the NYPD asks the media not to do so. It's time for the American People to ask the media to re-examine how they cover school shootings, and church attacks.
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@Peter Zenger
Insightful analysis. There are ways to think that lead to informed solutions. This response is such an analysis.
Limited regulation: regulate "right to carry" and hope that media are self aware enough to back off the sensationalizing of anti-social behavior.
It's not too much to ask of either side of any debate.
Thoughtful gun owners and responsible media moguls could make small adjustments in their positions and make a reasonable contribution to public welfare.
11
@Peter Zengand
You seem to take it forgranted that school shootings will continue to occur instead of expressing a concern that they be brought to an end with relevant gun legislation and a reexamination of the norms that glorify violence in the U.S.?
4
@Peter Zenger // Some good points here. Another point about media reporting -- Why report shootings at all anymore? They are not news, that is, something new or different. They are now as common, mundane and ubiquitous as taking out the garbage. And I have yet to see my weekly trips to the curb posted or reported anywhere.
9
There is no surprise here. And it's not just live streaming that is the issue. The internet supplies precisely what is so motivatingly attractive to many of these perpetrators of mass atrocities: publicity, fame, and the power to control the day's news. A way to be "somebody", a celebrity, as it were.
Though significant, it is not just the easy availability of guns or the scarcity of mental health resources that is the problem. Rather, it is the serious drug of internet fame that hugely magnifies the motivation of these people. There are not suddenly more people willing to die for a "cause", more violently deranged people, or more easy access to guns out there. It is that now any such person can guarantee he or she or their cause will get more than their 15 minutes of fame by shooting up a place. With the internet, every individual now has the ability to command world attention instantaneously and dominate everybody's "news" sources for days. This is a power not previously available and an irresistible lure for those so inclined.
For Americans, as hard as it is to fight for appropriate restrictions on guns or get taxpayers to fund much-needed mental health support, we are kidding ourselves if we think they are the biggest part of the problem. Fame is an incredibly intoxicating drug for many, if not most, people, and all it takes is one out of ten million to give in to its lure in a truly violent manner to create ongoing lethal chaos.
118
@Steve Fankuchen
I would add that we all bear some responsibility, inasmuch as every time we click on a story about a mass shooting, we are encouraging that website to give the shooter even more coverage and, thus, more motivation to others. There's a reason that in the world of media, the slogan, "if it bleeds, it leads" is so true.
15
@Steve Fankuchen "The internet supplies precisely what is so motivatingly attractive to many of these perpetrators of mass atrocities: publicity, fame, and the power to control the day's news. A way to be "somebody", a celebrity, as it were. Fame is an incredibly intoxicating drug for many, if not most, people."
Really? And why precisely should it be that the world leaders of today should be famous and dominate the news? What is it about Ardern or Trump or Obama or Putin or Macron or really any of the leaders of today that they should be famous over other people? If you want to say a large part of the problem is desire for fame, let's start with the fact that the human race has never really decided with any clarity on what is a worthwhile accomplishment and what people should be remembered. Any number of people get attention today who really don't accomplish much of anything. And then we also have the problem of even supposing we do get a clear picture of what people should be prominent, get to be famous, remembered, what about the millions upon millions we condemn to not be remembered? Why is it anyway some people get to be remembered over millions upon millions of others? Who gets to decide whose life and history gets to be saved, remembered, and whose gets erased? Is not to prevent people from being remembered a living death and one all the more rubbed into face when the people making the decisions are themselves not much different, nothing really to be admired?
So true. Displaying the number of “like/dislike” and “views” on social media platforms is putting undue pressure on minds of insecure people and drives them to do crazy things... especially teenagers and celebrities are easily caught up on this “popularity contest”.
6
Social media are first, and foremost, businesses.
As such, they should be regulated and taxed to the fullest extent necessary. They should be held accountable to prevent being a conduit for criminal activity of any kind and face prosecution and/or hefty fines when they fail to do so.
4
In 1992 I was over the top excited to be able to text message a friend from my Mac to his Windows machine. I was so very excited about the emergence of the internet. All the possibilities to be better able to share and communicate. We all knew this was a game changer. And it took soooo long for the world at large to embrace it. And then we did. And for quite some time, before the emergence of social media platforms, the internet made good on our hope for this game changing communications tool. I believe the world can and will live without these social media platforms and that at some point in the not too distant future they will be relegated to the dust bins of history.
9
Every article you print on mass murder is taken by some people as a celebration and leads to more occurances of mass murder.
Publishing stories on the 20th anniversary of Columbine was a huge mistake that led to two more murders.
You need to take these stories off the front page.
There are ways to shame people to change their behavior and we need to find them. The people of this country were persuaded to stop smoking by a government program and it worked. Now the benefits of exercise are pushed on the people and it works. Trump got elected by many free stories even those that were determential to his character. It worked for him.
People are led by the media all the time yet we cannot get them to cease mass shootings. I think we can. We need to look hard at our actions and see them through the eyes of people much different from us. We need to stop contributing to the problem.
8
The internet is now a tool of war between the superpowers. (Oh sorry, the United States and that former superpower that just doesn't quit.) So there's as much chance of de-weaponizing the internet as there is of conventional disarmament. When the social media companies come under enough pressure from Western governments, unfriendly jurisdictions will make them attractive offers to relocate their servers. Don't underestimate the immoral greed and transnational opportunism of Z. and his cohorts. I believe that when a nuclear was comes, some of the missiles will targeting to destroy media data centers, but I don't know on which side.
3
Internet, specifically social media, needs 'reform' by the likes of the world leaders of today?
You can get a sense of what reform, what thought, what can be said on social media, what the atmosphere, ceiling of internet will be by simply looking at, observing world leaders, listening to what world leaders say, taking them as models of human behavior and thought, 'what we all should aspire to'. In every case, from Russia and China to France and New Zealand they are entirely convention, control, managed, business suited, bourgeois, predictable,--in fact a computer program can pour out what they have to offer as creative solutions to the problems of humanity.
They constantly talk about combatting extremism, but what isn't extreme to such conventional and predictable people? What actual culture, arts, sciences, novel conversation do they offer other than routine and guarded bourgeois dinner table conversation? There is no new model of humanity they represent other than being the guardians of predictable material success, economic growth, which means all a citizen has to aspire to, the limit of human becoming once these people get firm control on society, communications, is to become as they themselves, fundamentally materialists, humans ripe for being replaced by machine, for if Kasparov can be beaten by a chess machine what does a Macron or Putin or Trump or Ardern have to say or decide that cannot be accomplished by machine?
They are face of machine over humanity.
2
@Daniel12
Exactly. I've often thought that the toadies in congress could easily be replaced by a laptop and a program written by an 8th grader. The restaurants in DC would suffer terribly though because the lobbyist's role would (hopefully) be ended. Our "representatives" are nothing more than ATM's after all.
1
This is a very delicate issue, involving possible risk of unwantonly barring free expression. The scope is also questionable. Where to draw the line? I remember riding in a train with my young child and sitting next to a man who would not stop viewing violent content on his laptop, despite my pleas (I had a seat reservation for the family area of the train, he did not). Local laws prevented me from doing anything. Not even the conductor would intervene. I resorted to attempting to shame him in public (it worked). This story just illustrates how complicated this issue is. Humans glorify violence.
13
"(I had a seat reservation for the family area of the train, he did not)."
How did you find that out?
"Not even the conductor would intervene."
That sounds like a problem with the train service failing to accommodate some of its customers. What train service was that and in what country?
@northern exposure "Humans glorify violence." Well, some do , that's for sure. It's quite disturbing on the television stations how violent and gruesome the shows have gotten, and both ads for them and the shows themselves starting quite early, not relegated to the later hours. I remember being a kid and the tv was a kind of safe place with Julia Child cooking, Flipper the dolphin, Lassie, and Room 222. Love American Style was the raciest while the crime shows were about solving the crime not showing off the studios makeup department with blood and guts or competing for the most horrific story. I hate to think of the effect of all of this on kids and adults alike.
2
@RGD
I explained to the fellow that he was in the family section and asked whether he had a reservation for that section (he did not).
It was an ICE train with Deutsche Bahn (Germany). I don't know why the conductor was unwilling to help, whether it was the conductor being uninformed or uncaring or because as a matter of company policy that rendered him unable to enforce a change in behavior. It did surprise me that the conductor was unwilling to intercede, merely by asking the fellow to sit elsewhere or turn off the content.
But that is the world we live in.
1
Yesterday I spoke on FaceTime to my grandchildren in the US. It was the 9th birthday of my twin grandsons. We talked about school and sports, but the whole time of that conversation I kept wondering how many times they’ve been through lockdown/active shooter drills at school and whether it haunts their dreams- ditto for their younger sisters.
Despite valiant efforts by some, nationwide sensible gun control in America still seems a long way off (if ever) and in the meantime can you blame this grandmother if she wishes they’d move to a saner place like New Zealand, Canada or France?
31
I was cruising the TV channels before heading to work on August 26, 2015 hopping between the local TV news on WDBJ and national news on CNN. But for an interesting clip on CNN, I would have watched the live murder of Alison Parker and Adam Ward (rest their souls) as they were doing a live interview at Smith Mountain Lake. Since then, the station has put into place procedures to minimize the chances that anything remotely like that will ever happen again.
The ability of the human brain to retain a streaming image for a lifetime is a blessing and a curse. From that can come our compassion and empathy drawn from the memory of an experience, or the awful feeling of a tape played over and over like the one as a distant witness to April 16, 2007, I shudder to think if there had been a live streaming of the Virginia Tech massacre.
I know I would be in a very different place today if it were not for a few seemingly innocuous pushes on a keypad changing my viewscape of the world.
10
I'm reading a lot of "I wish we had someone like her in charge here in America"
The reality is this
Tens of millions - perhaps even hundreds of millions - of people in America want to own guns and see any steps to curtail gun ownership as unconstitutional.
No president can change that
6
@Luciano
Only about 30% of people in the US own guns. 69% want strong or moderate restrictions on firearms (Reuters/Ipsos poll, Feb 2019) 87% want a ban on mentally ill people owning a gun. 84% want expanded background checks. 80% want sales tracked with a US database. 69% want to ban assault weapons. Those are the facts. No president can change the facts, no matter how much they want to.
58
@Luciano: Tens of millions want to own guns? Really?
Hmmm....funny the data, as ascribed by Sandra, proves otherwise don't it? Yours is the usual reaction of Belief trumping Reason; which is a basic flaw in the human animal.
But let's get real here for a second can we? For me it's not a question of threatening the 2nd Amendment. For me it comes down to an increasingly glaring fact of capability. And it revolves around that ubiquitous device I'll bet is either in your, or near to, hand; the smart phone.
The smartphone is a device arguably more powerful; and potentially just as deadly, as your 2nd amendment weapon. But every single one of those devices, all of them these days, comes with the capability to recognize its owner either via facial recognition, fingerprints or passwords in order to use it.
This same methodology needs to be mandated for all weapons; especially civilian ones. It keeps your precious 2nd intact while establishing proper controls and allowances for the owners of the "device." Yes I get that it doesn't deal with the underlying problem, but it's a good place to start.
If such security controls can be routinely applied to a hand-held device like a smart phone then it can, and should, be equally applied to such a device as a weapon designed to kill other human beings. Seems fair to do it, don't it?
John~
American Net'Zen
1
@Sandra Hunter Given these statistics it would seem that the will of the people is being contravened. Why, because of the many millions of dollars that the NRA has lobbed in the direction of our more conservative politicians. Shame!
1
Thank you, Madame Prime Minister, for your courage and leadership.
If only the so called leaders of this country would act as responsibly as you and your government did. I doubt very much that Trump and his like will be showing up in Paris. No instead of taking action the so called leaders in this country are allowing our children to be victims of violence and permitting our children to sacrifice their lives in the hopes that the number of deaths will be reduced.
It is appalling that many saw the attacks live and took the time to download them. Did no one think to alert the authorities? Was no one paying attention at the social media companies to see what their products were facilitating? What kind of human beings did nothing to stop this insanity?
Time and time again, companies and politicians here do nothing to protect the public and talk of freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. An individual’s rights stop when he or she infringes on the rights of another person.
Enough of endangering the lives of the many to protect the rights of so few!
Enough of corporations and their political friends putting profits above the welfare of human beings!
Enough thoughts and prayers!
It is well past the time to take action to protect our citizens!
23
Thank you, Prime Minister, for your courage and leadership. Embarrassingly, our U.S. President will likely be unwilling to join this cause, and more embarrassingly is likely unable to grasp its importance and his duty to act. Be patient with us, please - we will come along in a saner time, hopefully within 2 years.
31
@Cottager
It would be illegal for our president to do what she has done in her country. New Zealand doesn't have a Constitution or a Bill of Rights.
Radio and television have been doing time delay since their inception, there is no reason that social media shouldn't have the same sort of rules and pay a staff to enforce them. These companies make billions on my information, they have to take some responsibility for their users. It's high time that the makers of products that are used in terrorism (guns and media) had regulations, but they actively lobby in the US to keep any regulations at bay. Ms. Ardern has shown us what true courage and leadership looks like by generating this discussion.
42
@thewriterstuff
She wants to copy China's model of total media control. Is that what courage and leadership looks like? How is it courage? The perpetrator is in jail. He acted alone. He doesn't represent an invading army.
Just think of the world as it was 20 years ago. It took hours for people to be aware of such happenings, and the world was not the worse for it. The problem lies in allowing Facebook a monopoly in social media, where it cleverly muddles up the right to privacy of an individual with its rank irresponsibility as a Corporate. Zuckerberg promises greater supervision over content, recruits a few hundred, when tens of thousands are needed, generates billions in profits, and gets away with nebulous promises.
19
@xerxes j parakh
I agree. FACEBOOK needs to be broken up. I think all monopolies should be.
While I have deep respect for Ms. Ardern, I would like to examine her aim to “fix the proliferation of violent content online”. Imagine the following scenario: A police officer commits a brutal assault on a member of a minority group, and bystanders captures it on video (as often happens). They are unable to upload it to the internet, however, because the technology Ms. Ardern is calling for has been perfected. The result is that society remains unaware of the systemic injustice being committed against minorities, and while the internet is sanitized of violence, the violence in the real world continues unabated.
In many cases, people who upload graphic depictions of real-world violence are not trying to glorify the crimes. While the depictions are disturbing, they raise awareness of a problem, and stimulate action, in a way that a written report would not. But I would argue that even when a person or group intends to glorify their evil by uploading a video, it backfires against them. There is nothing that has motivated societies to fight terror groups more than the graphic videos of atrocities coming from those groups.
While I do not for a minute doubt the sincerity of Ms. Ardern, I fear that her call to develop technology to censor online depictions of real-world violence will be championed by autocrats who want nothing more than for their societies to remain blissfully unaware of the horrors being committed by their regimes.
11
@JB Ms. Ardern wrote about terrorists streaming their own acts of terrors, not victims or bystanders or whoever else reporting it, and mentioned how random proliferation and autoplay of content affects many people in negative way - I am stressing "random proliferation and autoplay" here as changing that doesn't have to mean that one will not be able to see what happened.
9
@JB
I watched the live video of the sniper Mark Essex shooting and killing people in New Orleans way back in 1973. I also watched him being gunned down on the roof of Howard Johnson's on live TV. Ms. Ardern seem to think such videos have more social impact than they really do.
@JB
You extrapolate from banning terrorism online to broadcasting human rights violations. We certainly need to consider the best way to inform people of the latter and live streaming may not be the best way because of the spin that can be put on its broadcast, ( e.g. Charlottesville). Jacinda Ardern is specifically targeting the glorification of terrorism about which you express indifference. I believe she is fully justified in moving to interdict a terrorist tool used indiscriminately on social media. As for freedom of expression, we need to be able to distinguish between "freedom" and "license". The abuse of free speech cannot be jusitified.It seems to be an everyday occurrence in U.S. political discourse/
Banning military-style semiautomatic guns is a good first step. One the U.S. needs to take. And let's not get hung up on arguments about weapon capabilities. The point is not simply capability. It's the murderous fantasy. Banning military-style semiautomatic guns puts a dampener on the fantasy, even if other guns can still kill, even if non-military-style semiautomatic weapons are still available on the market. They are just not killer-cool. And that's a crucial distinction.
As for social media, yes, we can insist that major social media platforms be sufficiently responsible to shoulder the cost of rapid response to posting flagged by the public, without expecting them to moderate all content as it is posted. The latter is an invitation to censorship by algorithm that is likely to curtail a great deal of legitimate dissenting discourse. But the Internet will never be "safe space." Driving, for example, racist hate speech from any social media platform will not prevent it from simply moving elsewhere.
The real battle is not on the extremes but further back into mainstream culture. If we want to tamp down the extremes and the consequences of the extremes, we need to reestablish general consensus about what is acceptable public discourse. If we want to control the dogs, we need to stop the dog whistling, making it, once again, too politically costly for any politician or party to engage in. To reduce mass killings, we need to vote fear and hate-mongering out of public life.
19
Technological advances (including social media) come with negative implications and consequences far beyond what was envisaged when they were originally conceived, and the regulatory framework has yet to keep up.
It also doesn’t help when numerous US legislators tasked with advancing legislation have shown a woeful lack of understanding of how these technologies work.
8
Ms. Ardern: I applaud you.
There are so many words I could use but when they are washed away on the tide, you will still be a brave and bold hero.
33
Prime Minister Ardern has declared she will never utter the gunman's name. He wanted fame through this atrocity and neither our PM, nor our people will let him have it. His manifesto is banned. He was not a New Zealander and although he bought his guns here and killed here, we have chosen to erase his name. Instead we are focusing in the changes we need to make and the good that people have done. In a bizarre way this tragedy has backfired on him as he is "forgotten" and we are even more united than before.
50
@Laura I totally agree. The media has to share some of the blame for motivating someone sick and desperate enough to commit mass murder knowing they will receive huge news coverage.
2
@Laura
Maybe in your isolated island nation you can convince yourselves that he is "forgotten" and deprived of the "notoriety" you think he seeks but not in the rest of the world where it isn't illegal to have copy of his manifesto and video. Millions of people have it. You, and the prime minister, can't make it go away by banning all reference to it and making the utterance of his name a universal taboo. His deed is done. Nothing has backfired on him, but it may backfire on New Zealand.
1
An admirable example of leadership, something we are sorely lacking in this country.
21
Jacinda
You take action! And make things happen--quickly!
The Paris meeting is a great idea.
I know your efforts will help lead the way to convince at least some countries to regulate social media (and that includes breaking up monopolies) require gun control, and to keep pushing for meaningful dialogue between people of different ethnic groups, faiths, and beliefs.
You're my heroine!
13
I of course meant "Ardern" not "Arden." Must have had "Eve" on my mind from watching lots of Turner Classic Movies in an attempt to stay sane.
5
Mark Zuckerberg owns almost 60% of Facebook. Facebook owns and controls both Instagram and WhatsApp which combined has a global membership of around 3 billion people. With social media today there is no choice, there’s just the illusion of choice. For a system that has demonstrably changed societies over the years (think Arab spring or #Metoo or recent American elections) for one person to have such control is deeply concerning. The algorithms that are designed to attract and keep our attention also reinforce our own narrow world view by showing us more extreme examples of our own biases so each time we take that extra click we go further down our own rabbit hole. Facebook shapes society because when we read something reinforced over and over we really start to believe, to ‘know’.
Social media has to be reigned in just as other large monopolies have been by various governments over time. This time a global approach is required. Ardern and Macron are perfect to lead such a push. Clearly this is bigger than live-streams of horrific mass-murder, this summit needs to globally put checks and balances into all aspects of Social Media without limiting free speech which we all value so dearly in the West.
34
Frankly, the solution is quite simple. Any live broadcast could use a time-delay. An employee of the social-media company must view the content before it goes live. The standards can be set by corporate policy or regulations.
We have precedence in radio and television broadcasting.
28
@PS
In the first two years of Facebook Live, users cast 3.5 billion live streams. That averages out to about 5 million per day, and has likely grown since. Human moderation simply does not scale to that kind of volume. It's a very different ball game than radio or TV, where there are a finite and manageable number of potential broadcasters. Anyone with an internet connection can stream to Facebook; not so with TV or radio.
Certainly, Facebook and other big tech companies need to do more. But the problem is certainly not simple, and will not be solved with human moderation. There is an argument to be made that live streaming technologies should be forbidden until the models that detect and remove illicit content reach some very high threshold of accuracy. Perhaps that kind of rigor would force so much investment in that area that it would get done, like the data deletion capabilities that were quickly enabled when the GDPR rules mandated it.
15
@PS Corporate? i.e., profit motive?
@PS
Whatever the technology is that is used to fight harmful content it has to be preceded by governmental policy so that there is uniformity across the industry. It also should not be specific to a mode such as streaming video or you risk a game of whack-a-mole in which the bad guys just jump to some other mechanism to spew their garbage. No doubt social media will be replaced by something else in 20 years anyway and we don't want to fight this battle all over again. In any event, the technology is the easy part; the much harder part is how we reconcile freedom of expression with stopping harmful content. It is a very slippery slope.
1
Jacinda Ardern has, by example, shown that 'The Great Man in History' expression needs updating. She does us all proud. It's comforting to know there are leaders like New Zealand's P.M., who tackle the hard stuff head-on and who can distinguish between the importance of freedom of speech and the gross and obscene abuse of that right.
Censoring live broadcasts without impinging the greater good of free expression is surely possible through a combination of hardware and software design with distribution restrictions enforced by national and international law. There are already engineering protocols in place enabling live streaming - channeling and monitoring those transmissions will require additional effort and cost for certain - but will restrict access to a global audience. We should think of these aberrant broadcasts as we do viruses and plagues - isolate and eradicate.
26
Censorship does prevent freedom of speech. It limits speech to acceptable speech, which is not by any standard, free.
2
There is no surprise here. And it's not just live streaming that is the issue. The internet supplies precisely what is so motivatingly attractive to many of these perpetrators of mass atrocities: publicity, fame, and the power to control the day's news. A way to be "somebody", a celebrity, as it were.
Though significant, it is not just the easy availability of guns or the scarcity of mental health resources that is the problem. Rather, it is the serious drug of internet fame that hugely magnifies the motivation of these people. There are not suddenly more people willing to die for a "cause", more violently deranged people, or more easy access to guns out there. It is that now any such person can guarantee he or she or their cause will get more than their 15 minutes of fame by shooting up a place. With the internet, every individual now has the ability to command world attention instantaneously and dominate everybody's "news" sources for days. This is a power not previously available and an irresistible lure for those so inclined.
For Americans, as hard as it is to fight for appropriate restrictions on guns or get taxpayers to fund much-needed mental health support, we are kidding ourselves if we think they are the biggest part of the problem. Fame is an incredibly intoxicating drug for many, if not most, people, and all it takes is one out of ten million to give in to its lure in a truly violent manner to create ongoing lethal chaos.
13
@Steve Fankuchen - "Fame is an incredibly intoxicating drug for many, if not most, people, and all it takes is one out of ten million to give in to its lure in a truly violent manner to create ongoing lethal chaos."
I completely agree. I have long been saying that we should not spend days covering every aspect of a shooter, their background, blood type, favorite song, etc. like the press does but rather focus on the victims/heroes and what they did in life.
3
@Steve Fankuchen
I would add that we all bear some responsibility, inasmuch as every time we click on a story about a mass shooting, we are encouraging that website to give the shooter even more coverage and, thus, more motivation to others seeking fame through violence. There's a reason that in the world of media, the slogan, "if it bleeds, it leads" is so true.
4
@Steve Fankuchen
These killers are not mentally ill; they're socially ill self-involved horror shows.
1
Television and print media executives need to be part of that Paris discussion too. Whatever hateful motive the killers have when they plan their attacks, at some point they can see in their mind's eye their name and face in every newspaper and on every TV screen in America, if not in the world, for days on end. They can see what their family, friends, co-workers, schoolmates, and co-religionists will be quoted saying about them by reporters seeking every detail about their lives. Social media are only one and the newest platform to create celebrity for mass murderers. I would like to see the mainstream news agencies of America, and the civilized world, agree on principles of coverage of these atrocities and those individuals who commit them. At the very least, no photos of the killer and I would prefer not to know his name. If he leaves a statement about his motive, no direct quotes from it, only a synopsis. His words should not live beyond him. Television and print media need to acknowledge their own culpability in perpetuating mass murders and take responsible action.
22
@abigail49 Either we have a transparent and public system of criminal justice, or we might as well go back to secret Star Chambers where guilt and innocence is determined outside of the public eye. I certainly agree there should be no glorification of perpetrators of any violent crime, whether they commit mass terrorism or "everyday" murder. But, to say we should not even know a perpetrator's name is both absurd and dangerous. If someone is to be held accountable for their offenses, we need to know who they are and to see they are found guilty for their offenses after a fair and just trial. The only thing worse than a serious problem is a serious overreaction to the problem.
1
@Chris This is not about what the criminal justice system does but about what the news media do. Certainly, the police should make the full name, age, address of the accused public at the time of arrest, arraignment and indictment and of course he will be given a public trial where his name will be used in court. I would prefer to not have names like Dylan Roof etched in my memory because of repeated use by the news media.
Aggregating several responses I made to others' comments.
in reply to JRL:
JRL, why do you expect Facebook, Twitter, and Google to do anything other than what it takes to maximize their profits? They are publicly traded corporations, no different from tobacco, oil, or firearms companies.
The only way any company responds is with economic pressure. What that means is that you, me, and a billion other people have to Just Say No and boycott these outfits, making it clear why we are doing that.
in reply to JRL in reply to me:
JRL, thanks for engaging ! Yes, I agree they should be stringently regulated, but I believe two things will make that ineffective. First is that to truly control the internet it would take a degree of international cooperation that never has existed and, given the different objectives and different values of countries, would not occur. Second, it presumes the "good guys" are smarter than the "bad guys", something which there is no evidence to support. In addition, I think it likely the "bad guys" tend to be more motivated than the "good guys." Thus the "bad guys" would likely figure a way around any software constraints actually put into effect by laws.
in reply to cherrylog754:
Amen, Cherrylog754 !
Silicon Valley's most significant contribution in recent years has been to convince masses of people that its trillion dollar, self-serving mantra, "Disruption Equals Progress", made sense, an advertising slogan which produced a President Trump.
9
She is a true leader, and puts to shame 99%+ of politicians in DC with her clarity of thought, direct communication, and indomitable will. It’s my wish that more nations reach the point where they develop and elect leaders of her quality.
129
First, I'd like to congratulate the author, the NZ PM Jacinda Ardern, for her fine leadership and example. I'd also like to acknowledge that her country responded in kind. Uncommon decency and grace was the common experience in NZ.
Second, I'd like to point out that the social media spread was far more than just the one video.
For one example, the attacker played music in his video during the attack. It is now impossible to find a You Tube copy of that music without such hateful comments that the comments sections had to be taken down.
Similar hateful crazy-talk sprang up in many places. It is in no way limited to playing copies of the video of the attack. Little or none of that comes from NZ, which felt this directly. It is instead coming from the hate filled margins of places all around the world.
The "proliferation of violent content online" is just the spear tip of the incitement and hate driven by this event. Taking down and keeping down actual video of mass murder events is only the very first part of the problem.
I'm not sure now how to address all of this. I am sure that the issue discussed in this article is only the start of the problem, not the full extent of it. We need to start of course, but we also need to see and recognize the whole of the problem.
16
Can she be our President?
Articulate, thoughtful and on point.
90
Really, anyone who thinks Prime Minister Arden could solve America’s gun crisis is delusional. There are many millions of gun owners who think their individual right to bear arms supersedes our societal right to life and liberty. There’s really no hope of reform here, not even cosmetic measures. We’ve endured many mass shootings here and the only net effect is more guns in circulation and a repeal of gun control laws already in place. The rest of the world thinks we are insane and they are correct.
143
@Xoxarle
Your logic is flawed. My right to self defense has no bearing whatsoever to your "right to life and liberty".
2
All it takes is courage to prevent this abuse from taking place on social media. The kind that PM Ardern continues to display following the gruesome attacks in her country.
Of course, additional manpower would be required in order for FB and others to thwart illegal use of their platform by anarchists and violence-prone user base.
But Quite simply, it can be done one of two ways:
1) Hire more staff to monitor video content as it’s being uploaded. Flag videos (for delayed upload) by ‘users peddling hate speech and violent content’ esp. those who are routinely reported by other users for such violations.
2) Use AI systems or algorithms to filter out live feeds involving certain ‘violent’ sounds and certain graphic imagery involving guns and gore.
To be fair, FB’s already using some of these techniques but their approach lacks the wherewithal and the immediacy that this issue demands.
More bodies, more resources and maybe even rolling back the ‘FB live’ feature until an efficient mechanism is in place to prevent misuse in ‘real time.’
Anything less than that and the sad tragedies of Christchurch, Pittsburgh and Colombo would continue to play out with horrific accuracy in various corners of the globe.
6
Christchurch wasn't caused by social media. The fact that the massacre was recorded and broadcast did not cause the killings. It's bizarre and confusing to see someone making this connection. Clearly social media has become a convenient scapegoat for just about everything.
In today's world, shooting and uploading video is cheap. No amount of regulation is going to prevent what happened in NZ from happening elsewhere.
The unpopular, unsayable truth is that massacres like this are always going to be possible in free, open societies. This is the price we pay for our freedom: a group of fanatics can kill other people. We can trade away some of our freedom for more security but let's think very hard before we go down that road.
5
@ted
retired AMA attorney F/70
Sick minds often loaded with testosterone pick up assault rifles and then add months to years of planning to be assured of infamy -- by their broadcast.
There are upfront blocking technologies and they need to be used. Now.
If Z chooses to not do so, then the world and his ad revenue people will challenge his hubris and force him to do so. Or he'll get five different sets of rules across the world - ALL of which will be mandatory and require different controls. Now there's a puzzle for FB's engineers and top Risk Managers and General Counsel. Comply with ALL or be forced out of big markets.
7
@ted "Christchurch wasn't caused by social media."
I dont think she is saying it was caused by social media. But it had a part to play. The perpetrator had a world-wide audience and this has to have some impact on his behaviour.
11
@ted -- "The fact that the massacre was recorded and broadcast did not cause the killings."
I'm not sure that is true. The killer did it because he wanted to broadcast it. He saw it as an event, in which his well planned broadcast was a key part. He may well not have done it if he could show himself to the world while doing it.
It matters far more than the cause of it anyway. It matters for the incitement to do it again, to inspire copycat behavior and other hate filled behavior. It had a powerful impact on some of the worst people among us, as we see it on line in social media. This is far more than just shocking, it is dangerous.
20
No one needs social media.
We had a perfectly good world when email was the primary internet connection.
25
@Feldman
Unfortunately, many millions of working people need social media in order to make a living in this "gig economy," where a decent, well paying job with benefits is almost impossible to find for most people entering the workforce today.
Let's not dispose of the "global village market square" that the Internet has become for hard-working tradespeople and entrepreneurs today.
1
Prime Minster Ardern, thank you for your actions. I did not watch the live-stream and I refuse to look at any of the reposts. That Facebook let this go on for nearly 17 minutes is unacceptable. Since then I have gone on Facebook and Messenger only to respond to friends that I no longer wish to participate on those platforms.
19
@William Fang
You have made a great decision and I admire you for taking this step!
2
To control violent video what are the technical capabilities that are needed? How many video frames are needed to detect a weapon using AI? Can social media sites sceen all video being uploaded? Can they at least screen uploads from unvetted users? Surely they know which users have been trustworthy and which tend towards anarchy. How close are social media sites to making those judgements? They need to start developing these abilities. Yes they may exclude some innocent users on occasion but the algos will learn and improve with guidance. Social media must start now. When in doubt, leave it out.
8
@mzmecz
retired federal attorney F/70
Bloomberg TV recently interviewed a man who was described by journalists who cover tech as "the expert" in using existing technologies or adapting them for use for companies like FB. He said any company not using this blocking technology was choosing to maintain its "disruptive" format -- even if that included broadcasting 41 people being slaughtered by one man-child with one assault rifle AND one camera.
I was stunned. I have never engaged with social media and use only heavily protected email to communicate with clients. Friends by phone.
I'm guessing mzmecz that you'd choose blocking to cleaning up too?
1
The technology already exists to control the Internet, and China uses it with precision. Unfortunately, once governments get involved under the banner of public safety or social harmony, other things are likely to be controlled. Very few people like violence or hate speech, but can we please keep governments out of it?
8
@Holcat Govt is the only entity that can address the abuses of too much. We must have some decorum and respect when things run wild.
While I wildly applaud free speech but the rights of free speech ends where my physical body begin. If your actions enters the space of my body, your free speech has overreach.
Some would argue that "egging: someone is protected free speech. I disagree, it is a physical assault and I meet physical assault with measured violent response intent solely on making sure that the assault is permanently stopped.
I love peace and lively but respectful dialogue. Showing bloody murders on Facebook is not dialogue, it is torture for the minds of all who see it. I don't use Facebook, block Facebook crawlers on my web traffic as it is a heinous creation in its present form.
Yes, I salute and concur fully with PM Ardern.
12
@Holcat Zuckerberg is no Thomas Edison yet electricity is treated as a public utility. Internet services are utilities just as much as gas and electric companies are utilities. So lets start treating internets as such. We can control them. That will take government intervention. Look. Professions are controlled by government. The healthiness of our food is controlled successfully by the government. The military is run remarkably well by the government. The internet can and should be controlled by the government in the same ways. Government will do a fine job. Its well past due.
13
@Holcat
The Chinese Government does not want anyone within mainland China to read the NYT. Yet here I am.
There are ways around government blocking - even with a government with the power and ruthlessness of the CCP,
Don't underestimate the size of the task.
5
Jacinda Ardern's words and thoughts were outstanding.
They are so much better than Trump's: "Our thoughts and prayers are with you". She is taking steps to prevent another attack. We can and should learn from New Zealand's response to this terrible incident.
164
@Steven B
Actually, when Trump says nothing more than, "Our thoughts and prayers are with you", that is a good day.
The bad days, are those on which he feels the need to elaborate - usually by attacking some person or group that has done no harm.
Now here is an example of what real leadership looks like. New Zealand has the best head of state in the world today.
258
"Our first move was to pass a law banning the military-style semiautomatic guns the terrorist used. That was the tangible weapon......to end terrorist and violent extremist content online. This can succeed only if we collaborate."
Both ideas are correct and make sense.
"We need to ensure that an attack like this never happens again in our country or anywhere else."
Indeed, but in spite of the excellent suggestions which should be implemented, if anyone things that this will end such attacks, then they are incorrect and misguided.
It is like a traffic jam; do what you will to solve it, it just moves someplace and one still ends up stuck in traffic.
Weapons and technology help execute such terror, but until the root causes of the terror are identified and solved, then other means to attack and to publicize it will be developed.
Alas, I am not sure that one can always solve all these problems.
Ms. Arden though is certainly to be praised for her reactions to the attacks.
9
@Joshua Schwartz The human condition is such that hatred, whether by willful design (e.g., Assad, Hitler, Stalin) or by reason of mental deficiency (e.g., Trump), always will be present. There never will be a simple, one-size-fits-all solution to hatred. However, we can mitigate the ability of those who preach & practice hate by passing laws that limit weapons of mass death and regulating new technologies that allow hatred to spread. So yes, these problems ultimately may be unsolvable (in the sense that we never can eradicate them), but that does not mean we should stop trying our best to minimize their effect.
America needs a leader like Jacinda Ardern. The most powerful nation in the world can't ever seem to demonstrate political courage to take concrete actions to stem the horrific gun violence inflicted on innocent people. Unabated use of social media for streaming hateful speech and violent acts has no place in a civilized society. It's time for Facebook, Twitter, and Google to step up and provide technology solutions that will put an end to this latest aberration of free speech.
48
@JRL
JRL, why do you expect Facebook, Twitter, and Google to do anything other than what it takes to maximize their profits? They are publicly traded corporations, no different from tobacco, oil, or firearms companies.
The only way any company responds is with economic pressure. What that means is that you, me, and a billion other people have to Just Say No and boycott these outfits, making it clear why we are doing that.
7
@Steve Fankuchen
I don't use Facebook or Twitter. Regardless, these companies have to be regulated.
11
@JRL
JRL, thanks for engaging !
Yes, I agree they should be stringently regulated, but I believe two things will make that ineffective.
First is that to truly control the internet it would take a degree of international cooperation that never has existed and, given the different objectives and different values of countries, would not occur.
Second, it presumes the "good guys" are smarter than the "bad guys", something which there is no evidence to support. In addition, I think it likely the "bad guys" tend to be more motivated than the "good guys." Thus the "bad guys" would likely figure a way around any software constraints actually put into effect by laws.
3
The underlying message of this opinion seems to be that there is no realistic hope of stopping mass murders so instead let's least prevent them from being broadcast on social media. How sad.
7
@Jay Orchard - How sad indeed! You come off as a casual reader with a heavy underlying emphasis on casual. The guts of the PM's message was this:
"Our first move was to pass a law banning the military-style semiautomatic guns the terrorist used. That was the tangible weapon. But the terrorist’s other weapon was live-streaming the attack on social media to spread his hateful vision and inspire fear."
So NZ has banned semiautomatic weapons, and this in the space of a mere week or two. Would that the US achieve a fraction as much. And now the PM is working with other world leaders to shut down self-broadcast on-line of terrorist atrocities.
I'd say that demonstrably this is a modicum more than you or the Trumpeter are doing.
Thank you for being an ethical and pro-active leader.
These are dark times in the U.S. with students figuring out on their own that the only way to stop an active shooter on campus (or in a place of worship) is to sacrifice themselves and do the job that the state is unable to do. In fact the biggest deterrent to potential shooters in the States will probably be the idea that people are now willing to run towards them instead of away.
I work at a university and it is unbearable to think that students I teach are forming plans of action- deciding what they would do when it happens to them.
67
Censorship no matter how well intentioned is always a dangerous business. To us the real time streaming for a murder is an obvious example of what should be banned. But there might be a time when it is appropriate but prohibited.
I prefer a first amended analysis. While the internet is arguably a private space, it has now become the new market place of ideas, the new public forum and it should be treated as such.
In my opinion the key to stemming this tide is filing the Internet and our newspapers and the rest with clear statements that violence will not be tolerated no matter what the excuse. Politically motivate violence willl not be tolerated and neither will relgious motivated violence. If violence occurs, the perpetrators will not be lauded or disclosed their pictures will appear once if necessary to find them and that’s it. There is far too much celebrity associated with such killings and often too much “explaining” that often tips into excusing.
This is not easy stuff either to discuss or to control. But It must be discussed.
6
This is the powerful statement we have been waiting for on guns. Wow, imagine: a politician with a moral compass, an understanding of right and wrong, and the will to make a difference. Thank you!
53
@Jan MS and imagine if you will, a leader who does not hand out lies daily and who's followers do not have a moral blind spot for them.
1
NO STATE CONTROL IS NEEDED.
Television stations have used a live broadcasting delay for decades in order to prevent inappropriate material from being accidentally broadcast to the public. Social Media corporations simply need to implement a delay mechanism.
All social media corporations need to do is implement a 15 minute delay on the upload of all "live streaming" materials. All livestreams should be automatically funnelled to a panel of monitors and AI Programs who are able to stop any stream that specifically shows a rape or killing or an attempted mass killing (other than those where the police are involved). This would give them time to stop the livestream of criminal actions and prevent the proliferation of videos of criminals in action.
No government action is needed.
14
@Elizabeth Moore
With millions of people using these platforms, it would be logistically impossible to do what you suggest.
3
@Elizabeth Moore - the essential difficulty is 1. developing an AI that can reliably detect offensive video content, which is easier said than done, and 2. being able to do the content filtering cheaply enough that social media companies don't lose money from hosting video.
1
@Elizabeth Moore If you are right, then, hopefully this will be the decision our leaders will reach in Paris. The decision has not been made. They are meeting to discuss. She is a mother and mature, moral leader.
1
What would be lost if people couldn't own guns?
1) Hunting? Yes. But, hunting isn't really a necessity anymore, is it? If putting and end to hunting meant putting an end to mass-murders wouldn't that be worth it?
2) The ability to stop an out of control government? I think Waco, TX answered that question. There is simply no way that some militia, no matter how well armed they are, could stop the entirety of the United States military from preventing some kind of coup d'etat.
3) Fear. A whole lot of fear would be lost if no one could own a weapon capable of ending so many innocent lives in a few fleeting moments.
All political positions, and indeed their impact on society, must be weighted. The greater good being the ultimate measuring stick. And, as far as I can see, the negatives of a weaponized society far outweigh any positives the alternative can possible offer.
59
@Chicago Guy
1. Not much hunting is done in Chicago. Get out of the city a bit... its a quite different world.
2. Look up "the battle of Athens" that happened right here in Tennessee (McMinn County).
3. Fear is often born of ignorance. Learn about firearms, even consider shooting one.
Bottom line... much would be lost.
2
@Chicago Guy
Liberty, potentially all of it.
2
While strictly speaking the First Amendment refers to government restrictions on speech, policies for the media providers and platforms would probably want to more or less parallel the guidelines about what can and can’t be stopped.
Perhaps a legal case could be made that posting such video can be considered in itself an incitement to violence, which can be restricted, even if it is not an incitement to a particular act of violence at a particular time and place.
(This is where some of the difficulties in going after some of the targeting of groups and individuals come from—an open and obvious hint for someone to cause harm isn’t considered a specific enough threat. Same thing)
2
@Di
Just like the war on the 2nd Amendment, if we want to effect a ban, we can find a way.
@Di
Why are civilized people discussing the issue of live streaming mass murder? When did the ghoulish fascination for watching innocent people being shot at random by a violent unbalanced individual start? If the small innocent kindergarten victims of an insane young man in Sandy Hook were filmed by him with a Go-Pro, would their deaths have been live streamed? Other than the method used to murder random victims, what is the difference from the audiences who gathered to watch public lynchings? How far down this road do we want to go? When did watching a mass murder morph into free speech? Why is social media allowed to broadcast hate speech with no regard to the effect it has on young people, not to mention the general population? If Hitler were alive today, would his crazed speeches be broadcast live on every TV Channel? Even at a historical distance, his rallies are frightening. The images of people being herded together and trucked off to death camps are terrible. What does it mean to say "Never again"? Mass murder of innocents is happening again in our schools and places of worship, and the deaths are being recorded for public consumption. Pictures of the perpetrators are broadcast, giving murderers a celebrity status. Mark Zuckerburg is a billionaire with the power to show images of murder victims, despite some lame tech pretense at censoring these images. Subject social media to the same regulations and restrictions as apply to the print media.
Violence. Pete Buttigieg's approach to Trump's bullying suggests a powerful method we as a nation of residents here could employ en mass. Lets begin at the top. Can't we all, or a large majority of us, once and for all beat Trump at his own game. I suggest foregoing Twitter for a week. Starting Tuesday, to give ourselves a moment to reorganize, just don't use Twitter. Delete the app. Take away Trumps audience. For seven days. Either he mends his ways and begins to treat people and our institutions respectfully, or we extend the black out for a month. It will be obvious whether or not to do so. Silence him. He can communicate the old fashioned way to his subordinates through either face to face communication or via government sanctioned email. If he wants to behave badly on a twitter like platform, he, multi-billionaire that he is, can hire the necessary personnel and start his own twitter-like affair. If you're short a million or so, borrow it from your son-in-law.
Facebook. Uh-huh. That's right. Either Facebook and the like absolutely refuse to broadcast violence and hate or we subject that strange monopoly of a business to its own blackout. Until it reforms. Or until the federal government reigns it in.
Thank you Pete. You are definitely the leader with spine and intelligence we so badly need now. Thanks for your excellent example.
If you like my suggestion, take me up on it, and pass this comment along.
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@Vince Luschas "Take away Trumps audience. For seven days. Either he mends his ways and begins to treat people and our institutions respectfully, or we extend the black out for a month."
Are you for real? If you don't want to read Trump, then don't read him. That's what I and most other thinking people do. It's that simple. Don't you have the self-control to do that? Why would Trump care about your personal boycott, and what makes you think that Facebook or Twitter are going start banning people because you lack the control to stop reading them?
@mpound My comment has nothing to do with one man tilting at windmills as you know. I write plainly. Its a matter of who gets a megaphone and who doesn't and about which standards are determining who gets handed a megaphone. Facebook and Twitter are no different in my opinion than The New York Times or The Washington Post. Advertising and data drives profits for Facebook & Twitter. Consumers wield more power than Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, or Evan Clark Williams. To change corporate policy, blackouts are a way to go. Strikes work. Coal miners. Auto workers. Teachers. Strikes work.
How can so many people want to watch such a terrible tragedy? When pain and suffering are a form of entertainment, something is very wrong with society.
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The murderer cited Donald Trump and other right-wing influencers as his inspiration. Not surprising. Go to any Trump rally and likely 95 percent would say they supported what the murderer did. It’s no longer news that the right owns these atrocities. It’s tragically to be expected now.
Once again Jacinda Ardern demonstrates thoughtful, responsible leadership with a nuanced approach to what will require much effort and many minds to solve. Thank you for beginning this process. Society is only hurt by media that allows, even encourages, voyeurism into violence and tragedy at the expense of the innocent. Certainly the minds and acumen of those who designed these platform can create effective delay mechanisms programmed into social media insofar as video publication goes which would allow for algorithms or IA to speedily assess and prevent distribution, with human eyes acting as back up to review those rejected videos to rectify errors if need be. With how much these companies make in profits, they can afford the associated expense - they owe it to society.
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"... create effective delay mechanisms programmed into social media insofar as video publication goes ..."
Radio and television broadcasters have long used delayed broadcasts of live events. And there are NO technical impediments to doing the same for live internet broadcasts.
Delay exceptions could be made for vetted and reliable broadcasters.
id rather decide for myself what to see, thank you very much.
for all of the pitfalls of the bureaucracy of the FCC, this is why we have it. This is why you need a license to broadcast radio and television. The radio spectrum is an immensely powerful tool and it can't be just dropped into anyone's hands. The power of the internet is analogous to this.
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Thank you Jacinda for helping us to explore such a critical issue. I am sorry it has taken such an extreme and horrific episode to bring lour eaders together at this time and I wish you every success.
I agree when you say 'This is not about undermining or limiting freedom of speech." and you rightly acknowledge the beneficial use of social media. There is a spectrum of appropriateness of use of social media and terrorism and hate speech lie at the dark, extreme end of it..
Should we limit freedom of expression online? Unfortunately, some people still believe we have the right to do or say whatever we want and should never be impeded because they believe that they have the "rights". They do not, however, seems to be awate of their associated responsibilities.
Dont we teach our children that we must all consider our responsibilities as members of any family or community? and that if we are not prepared or able to do that, then, yes, our rights will be curtailed until we are sufficiently mature to make responsible and socially healthy choices.
I pray that you and our leaders take this opportunity in Paris on Wednesday not just to tackle terrorism online but, more generally, start to challenge the status quo: to raise everyone's awareness of our responsibilities and to guide and support us all towards making social media a safe, respectful and healthy medium for global communication.
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Social media is a double edged sword. A piece of metal with a sharp edge can be used as a surgeon's scalpel or a weapon to attack. The challenge is to find the balance using judgement at a personal, societal and community level by driving change. Leaders focusing on methods to curb the social media only helps to shield sharp edges. With connectivity & materialism here to stay, it is not impossible to shield all edges with governance.
Prevention is possible when individuals and societies learn to rise above various dividers and see each other in positive light. It is easier said than done and has remained a challenge for hundreds of years. Integration of societies must be focus of any leadership. Modern leaders don't embark on the integration road because it is long, the results are slow to materialise and does not help electoral realities that politicians must face with.
However, I have seen efforts to integrate bear success in populations where simple initiatives leave a lasting effect in generations of people. New Zealand is a fantastic place to initiate such efforts. The way ordinary New Zealanders reacted to Christchurch is a simple and telling evidence of how humane they are as a society. Very rarely such empathy and pain is displayed in a world where adverse events are becoming a routine.
The PM reflected her society well. Perhaps sharing some such experiences in a letter may convince her to take a longer road to prevention with a potential for lasting results.
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Ms. Ardern stated that New Zealand reformed its gun laws. The U.S. could make a good start on preventing future massacres here by doing the same.
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@Martha Shelley - Any legislator who suggests the same will be "primaried" out of running by an NRA-financed opponent.
@Martha Shelley ... nice idea but you probably need to start by voting for a government that does not instill fear in its citizens.
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I too, inadvertently, saw the video of the massacre in New Zealand on Twitter, last week.
Once alerted, Twitter took that video down--but I’m sure the user, who has multiple accounts, has posted it again.
It is time we took a hard look at Social Media, what they can allow, and from whom. There is no reason, socially, to allow a tech company to permit their users to post anything they like; we might, for instance, make a law requiring a tech company to have a human review prior to making a video public. When the founders protected free speech, it was not possible to disseminate violence and hate speech to millions of people simultaneously--printing was timely and expensive. Free speech was far more contained, and limited by a person’s vocal volume, and the time it took to print a flyer.
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@Susan a very good step would be to no longer have anonymous accounts on social media
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It's so obvious that publicity encourages this. I am grateful to Prime Minister Ardern for making this clear. Unfortunately, too few people are willing to get together and solve problems if it means paying attention to the real world instead of their conveniences and entertainments.
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Ms. Anderson purports to understand the “real world” better than the rest of us. I respect smart people with humility. They are the wise ones.
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The amount of state control you would need over the internet - incuding its infrastructure - to implement what the PM is suggesting, makes this a non-starter in my book.
It really is quite easy to publish information online.
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@Emily China does it effectively. For good or bad.... but it succeeds.
This is a very nice article in principle, but no tangible solutions are offered. This is no coincidence. It is extremely difficult, bordering on impossible, to achieve what is laid out here with modern technology (which includes the "artificial intelligence", or advanced pattern recognition, that these tech companies love to exaggerate).
So, unless there is some unforeseen technological revolution, or a change to human nature, the only way to prevent videos like this from spreading is to get people off of social media, which we all know is unlikely to happen.
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@Christopher Loonam I think there are no "tangible solutions offered" at the moment because that is what they are meeting in Paris to try and work out. Your attitude seems to be it's impossible so don't even bother trying. That's a cop out. As many have pointed out our gutsy PM is a different kind of leader and with these other leaders and tech types they may well find a way.
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Wishing you all the luck and success in the world. Your positive attitude, in spite of the horrors to be overcome, is so heartening.
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@Christopher Loonam I not convinced that the social media companies are doing their best to moderate extreme behavior online. My guess is that they will not wish to interrupt the flow of profits to their shareholders as a first priority. [anything for a click]
This may well be one of the priority issues to be discussed in Paris next week.
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In this very newspaper today, Nick Clegg tried to explain why FaceBook should not be split up. It's his job to do so, being head of global communications, or some such thing, and being paid oodles for doing it. So here you have a ex-politician basically spouting "leave Facebook alone," because he's paid to do so. And there is the big problem: Everyone knows how to stop this: You just stop allowing it. Problem is, though, there's money in it; a lot of money. It might be mercenary money, but that doesn't matter to them, and it won't until governments do their jobs, by stepping in to regulate such corporations that got so big without much thought or insight to the cause and effect they might have on society. Well, they have had an effect, and now they want to absolve themselves of any accountability for creating it, or responsibility for fixing it. But that's what politicians like Clegg do, pass the buck.
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@James Devlin "Breaking up" or "regulating" corporations for making money or for doing exactly what their mission statement tells them to do is a terrible slippery slope. If Facebook can be broken up for simply being a social media platform that billions use and that makes money for that, then Starbucks can be broken up for selling their coffee in places other than coffeehouses, Amazon and Walmart can be broken up for operating supermarkets, and Tesla can be broken up for stepping outside automobile manufacture and getting into aerospace.
No. Interfering with corporate "missions" is not the answer. What IS the answer is that Social Media corporations must take responsibility for the bald fact that there are elements of humanity that are, frankly, not worth the salt in their bodies, and that are looking for a platform where they can display their derangement, their low sink of debauchery for all to see. When one operates "a public square," as it were, one must accept that all sorts of so-called "people" can come into that square, both the high-minded and the perverse.
They must find a way to eliminate the perverse, the debased, the murderous, the insane. One way to do this is to de-platform them by eliminating their "pages." Another way is to monitor whatever it is they live stream to ensure that it is not criminal. A delay mechanism will help greatly with this and STOP them from getting their 15 minutes of fame.
Why can't we find someone like PM Ardern here in America? Someone with guts and leadership to take on the gun lobby and put it in its place? Someone who knows that free speech is not limitless, nor are gun "rights."
She seems to know, like none of our pols here, that a primary role of government is to insure domestic tranquility and enable everyone to pursue happiness without having to look over their shoulder in fear of being shot. Such a simple lesson from down under.
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@PaulB67
Unlike the US, New Zealand doesn’t have a large arms manufacturing industry that finances anti-gun-safety lobbyists and legislators.
Time to revise those US campaign finance regulations.
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I do not want her kind “here in America”.
No head of government should advocate blanket censorship under the ruse of protecting the citizen from harm. It is also disturbing to see the head of a western government covering her head in any house of worship. As a private citizen that is her individual right, but a sitting Prime Minister or President should never wear a Yarmulke, Shawl, Niqab, Hijab or other covering symbolizing supplication to any faith. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion and any sitting officer of a government should never submit to such things-period.
As to laws regarding firearms, her response seems to follow the popular opinion of most of her fellow citizens. I am not familiar with the laws of New Zealand enough to make an informed comment regarding citizen rights and firearms.
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@PaulB67 those people have run for office but because of our flawed electoral system have lost.
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Here’s the solution: leave Facebook as it is, but require a license to post anything that can be read by or propagated to an unrestricted audience of more than 100 people, total. News media don’t let random people write articles; Facebook shouldn’t, either.
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@MikeG not sure I can agree entirely but its a good starting point for a discussion. (I am guessing there would be some resistance from the social media companies??)
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Already several commentators have suggested that we need some way to identify a person who uploads video to the internet so we can punish those who upload violent content.
That may be a good idea, but it’s the OPPOSITE of advocating for more privacy on the internet, for which the NYT has been on a recent crusade recently.
Privacy is usually a good thing, but sometimes it’s not. Mr. Warzel in another column suggested using a VPN to protect your privacy. Great idea... Until you find out terrorist sympathizers are using VPN so they can’t get caught uploading violent videos.
It’s a tricky issue and I don’t know what the balance is. But I know there must be a balance. I just wish the NYT knew this too.
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I empathize with Prime Minister Ardern, and th the tragic loses incurred in New Zealand, but as a 76 year old, I can see no positive outcome from companies like Facebook.
Facebook if nothing else has demonstrated they themselves have little control over content. These episodes have been going on for years with hardly any progress.
As far back as I can remember our neighborhoods were our social network, we didn't have cell phones, Instagram, Twitter, we had family, friends, and our neighborhoods with the kids playing in the streets.
I see no benefit of today's social networks, they do more harm than good.
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@cherrylog754
Re: "I see no benefit of today's social networks, they do more harm than good." "More harm than good" suggests no NET benefit. I would go further: even ignoring the enormous harm "social networks" do, they also do no significant good. We really do not need them--at all. If you think you need them, your thinking is clouded. I've never had a Facebook or a Twitter subscription, despite intense pressure from numerous pathetically deluded friends and relatives, and I never will have one. If you yourself have these, I want you to cancel them now--immediately. Thank you.
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@cherrylog754
Amen, Cherrylog754 !
Silicon Valley's most significant contribution in recent years has been to convince masses of people that its trillion dollar, self-serving mantra, "Disruption Equals Progress", made sense, an advertising slogan which produced a President Trump.
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@cherrylog754 Dear Cherrylog754 and all others who think that there is no positive value in social media, as a person older than Cherry, I do find that there could be great use for a regulated social media just as there are great uses for TV and radios.
Because some of us are not imbued with all the advances possible, please do not toss the baby out with the wash water. Properly managed and regulated, accurate and safe societal knowledge can be shared practically instantaneously around the world. No nation need any longer to be isolated from great knowledge. I abhor FB, not for its being but for its guidance, which is mostly none, just greed.
Technology and mainly computers are great tools! Like great medicine, they can be abused. Social media could be greatly helpful in breaking down ignorance, racism and bad health but, as they are being exploited, they do the opposite. Creating ideology wars is profitable business if you are a seller. We must take the profitability (fiscal & mental) out of apparatus if it wrongfully threatens the public. A prime reason for govt is to protect the public from physical harm and wrongful mental anguish. Beyond keeping it honest and doing no harm, technology and free speech should be tolerated.
Demand better but not extinction.
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Ms. Ardern, you are a true World Leader (unlike our president). Thank you for being a beacon of light in these dark days.
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@Joyce
Yes, why can't America have nice things too. Bless you Ms Arden and Happy Mother's Day. We need more mothers in office.
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If the intent of terrorists is to spread their message through acts of violence, doesn't that make those who help spread the messages accomplices to terrorism?
If uploading these videos becomes a serious, punishable crime, then maybe we'll see a stop to it.
Perhaps that will require dual-level authentication -- for example, you will have to enter a code sent to the verified mobile phone associated with the social media account -- in order to upload any video content to social media.
Will that make it a little less convenient to use social media? Sure. But if a little less convenience is what's required to assure accountability and, in turn, more responsibility on our social media platforms, it's well worth the extra 20 or 30 seconds.
We may complain about the extra levels of security at airports following 9/11, but nobody can deny it's kept the world's airplanes safer. The same principle applies here.
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Thanks to Jacinda Ardern for this essay. It's a very important response to Friday's shameful essay by Charlie Warzel, ("Save the Recordings...") which posited the beastly idea that there would be some great societal benefit in having these tapes available at a click.
Aside from Ms. Ardern's point about denying the murderer his moment of "fame" there is another. Decency demands respect for the dead and wounded and sympathy for their loved ones. It's the very least we can do.
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@laurence
Thank you. We have moved way beyond the respect shown to the families of their children shot as they sat in little desks in a Sandy Hook kindergarten classroom.
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As heartbreaking--and as common--as these mass murders are in the United States, I think there's a deeper reality for us in the United States to confront: that on some level, the American people embrace violence, and these shootings (as egregious as they are), are part of what people take to understand as the American experience. From the founding of the American republic there has been deep violence and it has come to define our way of life. We're defined by guns in our 2nd Amendment. That won't go away. I wish it would--but I see no way America can get out of this without undoing what America is.
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@Monti Datta
Two former chief justices of the supreme court have declared that the current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is a scam. We did not have mass shootings, school shootings etc until recent decades.
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@Monti Datta
You are right. I remember first learning this as a 14 year old in Austin 11/22/1963 whrn, at a time the PA system clicked on at our school, we had all though it was the announcement that it was the time we were all to be let out, to go downtown to Congress Avenue to see President Kennedy. Instead, it was announced we were not being let out, and we soon found out what had happened earlier in Dallas. The just a few years later, there was his brother, Robert, and Martin Luther King. The mass shooting at the University of Texas by Charles Whitman further taught me how many of us had become insane over violence. And all of this was in my early life. I has gotten worse, not better, and part of the reason is it has truly been part of America from the beginning, but also, the whole world. In the 60's many of us gained an expectation it was time for humanity to evolve, or it would destroy itself. I still hope we will evolve.
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@Monti Datta
The current contortion of the 2nd Amendment is a fraudulent use of the right of citizens to own muskets for defense against Indians and a possible return of a British force. Nothing justifies private militias at a time when we have trained police, sheriffs, National Guard units and a standing military. If you think a militia could prevail against the above list, I have a bridge in Brooklyn. Militias are the bottom of the barrel in a civilized society. And, they represent a danger to public order and safety.
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The social media platforms have the URLs of all of the uploaders and downloaders who participated in spreading this horror.. A good first step would be permanent banishment of all who took part.
Getting rid of the bad apples will go a long way in restoring social harmony on social media.
All of these companies will be just fine with a few percentage points loss of these abusers.
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Exposure to violent ideas undoubtedly has a detrimental effect on society with real costs. In much the same way we tax tobacco to assist in ameliorating the cost to society at large the same could and should be done for the disseminators of violence.
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Uploading a video of something violent to the Internet isn't an ideal use of the internet. The major social media providers clearly worked to take-down these videos against massive upload volumes. The social sites are as imperfect as any human, machine or a machine built by humans.
But let's not ignore that Ms. Ardern is calling for state-mandated corporate censorship. This is somewhere between opportunistic and inappropriate.
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@SS There are limits to "free speech" when lives are at stake. New Zealand's Prime Minister should be commended for taking a stand in reforming gun and social media regulations. But your country only seems to want to mandate prayers and platitudes. Again, which is one of the two responses is opportunistic and innapropriate?
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@SS
Ms. Adern is not calling for censorship, she's calling for state and corporate discussion of the need to confront a new kind of terrorism. It's true that there is danger that such a call and such a discussion could conceivably lead to an erosion of legitimate free speech, but to not make the call and not hold the discussion would be cowardly and immoral. The courts have debated the question of "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" since 1919, and they, including the Supreme Court, have often got it wrong, sometimes wrongly choosing censorship. But that doesn't mean they were wrong to discuss the question. Now while technology and social media are galloping so far ahead of our understanding of how they work, there is more reason than ever before to discuss the question. As culture and technology evolve, so also we must discuss and develop our understanding of Freedom of Speech.
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@Krysta
Thanks for your response here...it is accurate and a strong analysis. Maybe prayers help people after the event. They surely don't help those shot dead. Maybe when people pray for the victims, it erases from their memory what has just happened.
Well, that isn't good enough any more. Things have changed and I have now reached a place where I question our free speech in the US. But, I also question even more strongly the fact that these giant social medial companies are really not doing enough to stop these messages and videos. They should commit some big dollars to stop this now.
It could certainly have happened more quickly to take this stuff offline.
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