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New Zealand Mobile Carriers Block 8chan, 4chan, and LiveLeak
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New Zealand Mobile Carriers Block 8chan, 4chan, and LiveLeak
Following the Friday mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, multiple internet service providers (ISP) in the country have blocked access to websites that distribute gruesome content from the incident.
[...] At least three internet companies operating in New Zealand have made this decision voluntarily and enforce it on a temporary basis against sites that still publish the sensitive materials. Spark NZ, Vodafone NZ, and Vocus NZ agreed to work together to identify and block access at DNS level to such online locations. 8chan and 4chan are currently unavailable to New Zealanders trying to load them through a connection from the three telcos. At the moment, visitors trying to get to these forums through Spark NZ, Vodafone NZ and Vocus NZ see the message "The URL has been blocked for security reasons."
Some users reported that LiveLeak video-sharing platform was also blocked in the region, along with other websites, including file-sharing service Mega. The block is not permanent, though. As soon as the horrific content from the Christchurch incident originating from the terrorists is removed, access to the website is reestablished.
The Dark Night of Censorship falls on New Zealand
Everybody keeps waiting for the dystopia to arrive, well wait no more for it has made an appearance in New Zealand. Zero Hedge reports that New Zealand is dropping the hammer on all discussion about the recent shooting. The list is growing and will almost certainly be larger by the time this story goes live.
Current banned sites seem to be: Dissenter.com (the new service from Gab yet gab.com is still reported as available.... for now), "all" of the "chans" are banned, and Zerohedge itself is now banned.
Subscribers who ask their ISP are reporting being told sites will stay banned until they become "censorship compliant." Sites not banned: Facebook.com, which live streamed the attack, and Twitter.com, which hosted the original link to the shooter's "manifesto." Guess they are "censorship compliant."
Suppression of Christchurch shooting video
After Christchurch, Reddit bans communities infamous for sharing graphic videos of death
In the aftermath of the tragic mosque massacre that claimed 49 lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, tech companies scrambled to purge their platforms of promotional materials that the shooter left behind. As most of the internet is now unfortunately aware, the event was broadcast live on Facebook, making it one of the most horrific incidents of violence to spread through online communities in realtime.
As Twitter users cautioned others from sharing the extraordinarily graphic video, some Reddit users actively sought the video and knew exactly where to look. The infamous subreddit r/watchpeopledie was quarantined (making it unsearchable) in September 2018 but until today remained active for anyone to visit directly. The subreddit has a long history of sharing extremely graphic videos following tragic events and acts of violence, like the 2018 murder of two female tourists in Morocco.
[...] The subreddit remained active until some time late Friday morning Pacific Time, when Reddit banned the controversial community.
How 'hashing' could stop violent videos from spreading
Some experts say tech companies should more broadly adopt a technology they're already using to combat child pornography and copyright violations to more quickly stop the spread of these types of videos.
[...] Facebook (FB) says it took down the livestream "quickly," but hours later, re-uploads of it were still circulating on the site. Twitter suspended the original account in question and is working to remove other versions on the platform. YouTube said it is utilizing "technology and human resources" to remove content that violates their policies.
Technologists say digital hashing, which has existed for more than a decade, could be better used to prevent the re-upload of videos. Hashing wouldn't have been able to catch the original live video of the attacks, but it could stop re-uploaded copies from spreading.
Social media platforms were used like lethal weapons in New Zealand. That must change now.
Editorial judgment, often flawed, is not only possible. It's necessary.
The scale and speed of the digital world obviously complicates that immensely. But saying, in essence, "we can't help it" and "that's not our job" are not acceptable answers.
Friday's massacre should force the major platforms — which are really media companies, though they don't want to admit it — to get serious.
After New Zealand Attacks, Muslim-Americans Call For Action Against Rising Bigotry
"The New Zealand shooter was able to livestream a 17-minute video of his murderous rampage that continues to spread like wildfire online. This is flatly unacceptable. Tech companies must take all steps possible to prevent something like this from happening again," Khera said.
Previously: 49 Dead in Christchurch, New Zealand Terror Attack
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3 Original Submission #4
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 17 2019, @09:45PM (3 children)
About a week ago, muslims killed 40 christians in Nigeria. All involved were brown people.
That didn't even make the news in the USA, for good reason: leftists have low expectations for muslims and brown people. Leftists don't see much guilt, kind of like not seeing the guilt in a wolf that attacks a cow.
Christian whites though... they are always fully culpable. They are guilty even for things done by long-dead people who look vaguely similar.
The fact that thousands upon thousands of Christians are killed for their faith each year by muslims just doesn't matter. It doesn't count. Likewise, when black people shoot each other in the USA it is always the fault of oppression (by whites) or something like that. Brown people and muslims are inherently blameless because, to the leftist, they are incapable of being civilized.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday March 17 2019, @10:11PM
I think you at least have to admit that the NZ shooter's presentation was much better than the other massacre you are talking about. Telegraphed in advance on 8chan, streamed on Facebook Live, full of meme references, including a playlist of meme-y music during the car ride and actual massacre, and an accompanying manifesto that was apparently emailed to the NZ Prime Minister's office several minutes before the shooting started. All of it adds up to an extremely newsworthy event. Referencing [nytimes.com] Pewdiepie [rollingstone.com] was a savvy attention-seeking move that forced Pewdiepie [twitter.com] to denounce the shooting in a tweet (his account has 17 million followers), and is continuing to produce bonus headlines [mirror.co.uk].
Plenty of people are going to ignore killings in Africa, even though Nigeria isn't exactly a hellhole (it's the world's 20th largest economy, ahead of South Africa, and is expected to grow further). But brown people dying in Africa is business as usual. You don't have to be a "leftist" to not care. In the clickbait-driven news culture, do people click on "40 Christians killed in attacks in Nigeria" or even "Female Teen Bombers Kill 40 in Nigeria"?
Christian killers in Africa could try to live stream their own massacres, maybe add a spicy song and dance rape/torture routine, or whatever, but drawing global attention to themselves may not be a good thing for their cause.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 17 2019, @11:13PM
Because they should know better, yes.
Otherwise, their claim of being somehow superior is rubbish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18 2019, @03:39PM
Link please.
What is being repeated around here is this is a direct attack on islam for which there must be retribution paid in blood