SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
New Zealand Mobile Carriers Block 8chan, 4chan, and LiveLeak
Submitted via IRC for chromas
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: 2) by Mykl on Monday March 18 2019, @03:11AM (8 children)
This is what's fascinating about GP's reaction. We hear about gun deaths in the US every day (2,089 dead in the US in 2019 alone so far including 106 children aged 0-11, 60 mass shootings as at 18th March. Source [gunviolencearchive.org]). The problem is that the public have become inured to the constant stream of violence as currently presented. Something like this video helps to make it more 'real' and not just a bunch of numbers on the nightly news.
I agree that a single event should not usually trigger drastic changes to policy, however IMO this particular event may be a catalyst that can help to bring a very large (at least in the US) number of events into focus to help guide policy.
In New Zealand's case, there will almost certainly be changes to laws. While it could be argued that this is an outlier event (I would agree), the changes could potentially stop a number of smaller events from happening, the same way that the gun restrictions in Australia brought in after the Port Arthur Massacre [wikipedia.org] resulted in zero mass shootings for the 23 years since.
(Score: 1) by The Vocal Minority on Monday March 18 2019, @02:39PM (3 children)
This is completely wrong, there have been many mass murders using firearms in Australia in the last 23 years. The most recent, the Osmington shooting, occurred last year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18 2019, @03:43PM (1 child)
Most of those are under 10 people dead. Is it really a massacre?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 18 2019, @04:28PM
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday March 19 2019, @02:53AM
You are right and I am wrong.
Using the definition from the link I provided, a mass shooting occurs when there are at least 4 injured or dead. On that basis there have been more than zero mass shootings in Australia since April 1996. According to parent's link on Wikipedia, there have been 7 mass shootings (the other items on the list are other causes, such as stabbing, arson etc). 3 of those 7 were family violence, while the other 4 were non-family.
The general point I was making still stands though. Australia was experiencing a mass shooting of 5+ deaths every couple of years (non-family) up to Port Arthur. Since then it's been one every 6 or so years (non-family), with a maximum number of 3 people killed in those non-family mass shootings in the last 23 years. The frequency is way down and the body count is too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 18 2019, @03:02PM (1 child)
Remind us again what the definition of a mass shooting is? Funny how people blather on about "mass shootings" while ignoring what words mean.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Monday March 18 2019, @06:39PM
The phrase "mass shooting" mean exactly what it says. Something with mass was shot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18 2019, @05:40PM (1 child)
let me explain something to you you stupid bitch. America is not fucking australia and the uk. we will kill all of you if you try to take our guns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 19 2019, @12:38AM
Excuse me, your post is unclear, and the spittle obscures a lot. Are you Australian, or a Bloody Pom? And why do you not like America having intercourse with you?