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Students light candles to mourn victims during a mourning ceremony near the attack site in Christchurch.

French Muslim group sues Facebook and YouTube over New Zealand shooting video

Facebook France told AFP by e-mail that it would study the suit, adding that “acts of terror and hatred speech have no place on Facebook”.

A FRENCH MUSLIM group said it was suing Facebook and YouTube for allowing a live broadcast of the massacre at a New Zealand mosque, reviving the debate over how social media amplifies such attacks.

The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) was taking the legal action against the French branches of the two tech giants for “broadcasting a message with violent content abetting terrorism, or of a nature likely to seriously violate human dignity and liable to be seen by a minor,” according to the complaint filed with prosecutors, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

In France, such acts can be punished by three years’ imprisonment and a fine of €75,000.

A white supremacist who killed 50 people in attacks on two mosques in Christchurch on 15 March, live-streamed one of the attacks on Facebook, from where it was uploaded to other video sites, including YouTube.

Facebook France told AFP by e-mail that it would study the suit, adding that “acts of terror and hatred speech have no place on Facebook, and our thoughts go out to the victim’s families and the entire community affected by this tragedy.

“We have taken many measures to make this video disappear from our platform, we are cooperating with authorities and our teams remain totally mobilised,” it added.

France New Zealand Mosque Shooting New Zealand Ambassador to France Jane Coombs, left, shakes hand with Paris Mosque rector Dalil Boubakeur, during a ceremony in tribute to the victims killed. AP / PA Images AP / PA Images / PA Images

17 minutes

The livestream lasting 17 minutes was shared extensively on a variety of internet platforms and uploaded again nearly as fast as it could be taken down.

The CFCM, which represents several million Muslims in France, said it took Facebook 29 minutes from the start of the live broadcast to take the video down.

Facebook said it acted “quickly” to clamp down on the offensive images, and that it removed 1.5 million videos of the shooting in the first 24 hours after it happened, with much of this blocked by software at the moment of upload.

Major internet platforms have pledged to crack down on the sharing of violent images and other inappropriate content through automated systems and human monitoring, but critics say this was not working.

Internet platforms have cooperated to develop technology that filters child pornography, but have found it much more difficult to join forces to block violent content.

“AI systems are based on ‘training data’, which means you need many thousands of examples of content in order to train a system that can detect certain types of text, imagery or video,” Guy Rose, vice-president of Facebook said last week.

“This approach has worked very well for areas such as nudity, terrorist propaganda and also graphic violence where there is a large number of examples we can use to train our systems.

“However, this particular video did not trigger our automatic detection systems. To achieve that we will need to provide our systems with large volumes of data of this specific kind of content, something which is difficult as these events are thankfully rare,” Rosen said.

‘Going viral’

“This was a tragedy that was almost designed for the purpose of going viral,” Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer told the Washington Post.

“We’ve made progress, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of work ahead of us, and this incident has shown that, especially in the case of more viral videos like this one, there’s more work to be done,” he added.

In New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has called for a global response to the dangers of social media, a 44-year-old man has been charged with sharing the livestream video shot by the accused gunman, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, during his killing spree.

In the United States, a congressional panel last week called on top executives from Facebook and YouTube, as well as Microsoft and Twitter, to explain the online proliferation of the video.

The House Committee on Homeland Security said it was “critically important” to filter the kind of violent images seen in the video.

- © AFP, 2019

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    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Larry Doherty
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 2:44 PM

    One line states: “Now, the US is free to develop weapons systems that were previously banned.” and the very next line states: “The US is planning a test flight of such a weapon in coming weeks.”

    Rather than being “years away”, it looks like the USA was out of the treaty long ago and developing new weapons all along. Typical lying USA approach to everything.

    157
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    Mute Dominic Leleu
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 8:08 PM

    @Larry Doherty: do you really think any of them followed the rules ?

    12
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    Mute Derek
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 2:10 PM

    The double standards are hilarious, they pulled out of the Iran deal and for 2 years of complying to the deal under more economic sanctions Iran begins further enrichment again and the US throw a hissy fit.

    146
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    Mute George Vladisavljevic
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 3:02 PM

    Amazing how a nation of some 330 million is dictating to the rest of the planets 8 billion people what to do as well as who they are allowed to deal with.

    America first, and what about the rest?

    99
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    Mute Jack Simpson
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 2:12 PM

    This is nothing new for the US. They have a habit of pulling out of agreements. They pulled out of the ABM treaty with Russia in the 00s.

    79
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    Mute Bruce Van der Gutschmitzer
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 3:19 PM

    @Jack Simpson: shame Donald’s aul lad didn’t pull out

    81
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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 7:41 PM

    @Jack Simpson: the US’ history is breaking treaties and agreements. Even at the very start of their history, making treaties with the native Americans knowing full well they’d plan to break them. It’s part of their culture and who they are.

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    Mute Stephen Coveney
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    Aug 4th 2019, 7:08 AM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: while putin and russia are saints… my god cant people realise both countries are sneaky. Fact is though the media can be a check against corruption in the US while russia will just jail them

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    Mute lyndon
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 1:51 PM

    Watch “The Great Hack” on Netflix. The place is goosed.

    45
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    Mute Larry Doherty
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 3:06 PM

    USA – the World’s bully along with its belligerent child, Israel. While not a supporter of extreme Islamics, their description of the USA as “the Great Satan” is hard to contest.

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    Mute Mark Gough
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 3:54 PM

    About time we showed the US that we will not support their bullying. Britain seems to be content with being their lap dog but there are plenty of ways to show Russia we can be friends

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 4:23 PM

    @Mark Gough: yeah cos Russia is the lesser of two evils.

    17
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    Mute paul
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 6:26 PM

    @Mark Gough: Britain is the US lapdog ? Britain is independent and steps in when required. Yeah sure they have got it wrong at times, but they try to do their moral duty, unlike some who prefer to remain neutral, not get involved, let someone else take the burden.

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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 7:47 PM

    @paul: ‘when required’. Exactly! That was his point!

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    Mute paul
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 7:54 PM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: whats up mate ? Don’t worry yourself

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    Mute Tony Harris
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 10:08 PM

    @paul: Steos in when required! WMD???????? Lapdog.

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    Mute Micheál
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 10:38 PM

    @paul:
    A sneaking regarder of British imperialism?

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    Mute paul
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    Aug 3rd 2019, 12:49 AM

    @Micheál: British imperialism ? Get a grip , it’s 2019

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    Mute paul
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    Aug 3rd 2019, 12:50 AM

    @Tony Harris: keep your hair on tony

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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Aug 3rd 2019, 5:39 PM

    @paul: the projection is strong in this one.

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    Mute Stephen Coveney
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    Aug 4th 2019, 7:04 AM

    @Mark Gough: no one wants to be friends with russia. If they cant even let opposition politicians run in mayoral elections without poisoning them id prefer if they stayed away

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    Mute Colm Walsh
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 4:53 PM

    Us talking shite as per usual

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    Mute Mark walsh
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    Aug 2nd 2019, 7:07 PM

    Ah lads at least we are a natural country

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Aug 4th 2019, 1:39 PM

    But Russia destroyed all of its arsenal according to that treaty than the US and Trump just wants out of that deal in order to make these weapons himself and to sell them onto other countries. Trump doesn’t want peace he wants to make and sell weapons around the world and use Nato as a way to sell weapons to NATO countries. Trump is unbelievable…

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    Mute The decline of Manchester United
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    Aug 3rd 2019, 10:05 PM

    Russia is the most dangerous threat to Western democracy. We should boycott all their goods, oh wait….

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Aug 4th 2019, 1:46 PM

    @The decline of Manchester United: No it isn’t thats the spin put on by those who are threatening Russia, making out Russia is a threat is cold war bull in order to sell weapons to NATO countries who try to provoke Russia by playing their war games just beside their border. The US removed 72 legitimate governments since the end of WW2 due to business interests, the CIA trained and helped put into power Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, and with the UK helped put in Pinochet so that the US could get their hands onto their copper ore as well as helped the rise of Isil. So who is the greatest threat to the world but the US especially now as Trump has started the US MILLITARY research into Biological weapons as I guess that he will sell that knowing him as he uses Russia as a threat to sell weapons to NATO countries…

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