Pressure is building on Facebook and other social media platforms to
stop hosting extremist propaganda including terrorist events, after
Friday’s deadly attacks on two mosques in New Zealand were
live-streamed.
Australia’s prime minister has urged the Group of 20 nations to use a
meeting in June to discuss a crackdown, while New Zealand media
reported the nation’s biggest banks have pulled their advertising from
Facebook and Google.
“We cannot simply sit back and
accept that these platforms just exist
and what is said is not the responsibility of the place where they are
published,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told parliament on
Tuesday. “They are the publisher, not just the postman. There cannot be
a case of all profit, no responsibility.”
Facebook said it had been working directly with New Zealand
police and across the technology industry to “help counter hate speech
and the threat of terrorism”.
The lone shooter accused of killing 50 people in the New Zealand city
of Christchurch live-streamed the murders, with the video continuing to
be widely available on a range of platforms hours after the attack. The
suspect, an Australian, uploaded his hate-filled manifesto online
shortly before launching his assault.
Offensive content
It’s the latest example of social media companies struggling to keep
offensive content from sites that generate billions of dollars in
revenue from advertisers — a problem that’s seen Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg grilled by the US Congress.
The shooting video was viewed fewer than 200 times during its live
broadcast, and no users reported the video during that time, Facebook
vice-president and deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby said. It was
reported to the company 29 minutes after the video started and viewed
4,000 times before being removed, he said.
The Group of 20 nations should discuss the issue at its Osaka summit
in June, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in an open
letter to this year’s host, Japan counterpart Shinzo Abe. The group
should work to ensure technology firms implement appropriate filtering
and remove terrorist-linked content, and show transparency in meeting
those requirements, he said.
“It is unacceptable to treat the internet as an ungoverned space,”
Morrison said. “It is imperative that the global community works
together to ensure that technology firms meet their moral obligation to
protect the communities which they serve and from which they profit.”
Ardern’s government will look at the role social media played and
what steps it can take, including on the international stage. Previously
she vowed to seek talks with Facebook, which said it blocked the upload
of 1.2-million video clips and removed another 300,000 within 24 hours.
The New Zealand business community is becoming increasingly vocal
that the social-media companies should be rebuked by restricting their
bottom line.
The Association of New Zealand Advertisers is encouraging advertisers
to recognise they have a choice where their advertising dollars are
spent and to carefully consider where ads appear.
“We challenge Facebook and other platform owners to immediately take
steps to effectively moderate hate content before another tragedy can be
streamed online,” the association said.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s three biggest broadband providers called on
Facebook, Twitter and Google to join an urgent discussion at an industry
and government level to find a solution to the live-streaming and
hosting of video footage such as that produced in Christchurch.
“The discussion must start somewhere,” the CEOs of the companies said
in an open letter on their websites Tuesday. “Social media companies
and hosting platforms that enable the sharing of user-generated content
with the public have a legal duty of care to protect their users and
wider society by preventing the uploading and sharing of content such as
this video.”
Artificial intelligence techniques could be deployed and, for the
most serious types of content, more onerous requirements should apply
including taking down the material within a specified period, proactive
measures and fines for failure to do so, they said.
“Now is the time for this conversation to be had, and we call on all
of you to join us at the table and be part of the solution.”
- Bloomberg
No comments:
Post a Comment