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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: 1) by khallow on Monday March 18 2019, @05:41PM (8 children)
So what? Business has been that mercenary for millennia. It's nothing new.
It's a known problem which we already know how to deal effectively with it. When they can't "suck me dry" because they're getting boycotted, they'll change their ways or go out of business.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 20 2019, @01:28AM (7 children)
"I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store." [wikipedia.org]
You think it can't happen again? It only needs a bit of "diversification" from the current giant corporations, like branching from "public transport" into "catering" into "actually, you know, integrated food business", into "flying taxis and drones, like the "Amazon of transportation" [phys.org]... all with a predatory attitude [businessinsider.com] of driving out the competition by any means (even illegal [wikipedia.org], ask forgiveness, not permission [vox.com])
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 20 2019, @01:36PM (6 children)
Pay attention to how it happened in the first place -isolated environments with the whole society constructed by the business in the first place. And even back then, people had the option to just leave. What's ignored here is that even with the company store games (and the terrible health and safety environment of the mine), the coal mine was a great option as compared to what else was available back then for those miners.
And it only requires a little competition to never happen. Sorry, it's like hating on Muslims because some day they just might be homicidal or something.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 20 2019, @11:03PM (5 children)
If shit can happen, it will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 21 2019, @04:31AM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 21 2019, @04:39AM (3 children)
Just a matter of time.
Because that state it's a "stable equilibrium point" (even if a local one) - once the system evolves in this state, it requires non-zero energy to extract it from there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 21 2019, @01:28PM (2 children)
That is an unfounded assertion. And in practice, it's just not hard to introduce competition, meaning this is not a stable equilibrium point. The "company store" phenomena happened because the company owned everything. That works when it's a coal mine which owns all the property in the first place and can keep out competitors. It has never worked anywhere else.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 21 2019, @02:44PM (1 child)
If Uber is going to succeed (slim chances given they aren't profitable after 8-9 year, they burnt around $80B already), their practices will guarantee the entire world is an "isolated place around a mine" (predatory pricing, lying to regulators, drive the competition into the ground, etc)
However, if Apple (or any other supra-national 800-pound gorilla of a corporation) would choose to "diversify aggressively Uber-style", with $245B cash at hand and a more focused "diversification", their chance of success is higher.
(we are at a point where there are corporations with revenues larger than effing big countries - e.g. Apple reported $256B revenue 2018, compared with $205B GDP for NZ. The gross Apple profit for 2018 - $101.839B - is higher than the GDP of at least 120 countries [wikipedia.org]. There will be a time when corporations will "buy whole countries" - making "company stores" of them)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 21 2019, @05:45PM
In addition to existing competitors like Lyft and taxi companies, they don't have the ability to block entry to the market. There's a huge difference between market dominance and a monopoly position. In the former, because other competitors exist and new ones could enter the market at any time, Uber is forced to price their product considerably lower than if they were the only game in town.
Assuming that cash is not an accounting fiction, we still have the problem that Apple doesn't magically know what they're doing. That cash can be squandered spectacularly instead - which incidentally is a common outcome of businesses diversifying in that way. And even if Apple buys out all the competition, more competition can then enter the market, devaluing Apple's market position.
While I speak of these in abstract terms, this routinely happens. In fact, the whole reason Uber grew so huge is because travelers rapidly shifted from existing cartel services to Uber. They can do that trick again, should Uber try to exploit them.
Not much point to buying a country, if you can't keep it. The inhabitants can just install a new government, if they don't like the old one. And sorry, New Zealand is not a big country.