Attacks on two Christchurch mosques left at least 49 dead Friday, with one gunman - identified as an Australian extremist - apparently livestreaming the assault that triggered the lockdown of the New Zealand city. Videos of the mosque shooting, which police asked the public not to share, appeared almost as quickly as they were removed.Īll of that is part of the companies' sophisticated strategy, some social media experts say, to get free labor while keeping people engaged. New Zealand shooting: 49 confirmed dead, 20 injured in Christchurch mosques shooting. Police are aware there is extremely distressing footage relating to the incident in Christchurch circulating online. The Christchurch Mosque shooting has left 40 dead and over 20 injured, according to a report by the New Zealand Prime Minister early Friday morning.

Police have confirmed to RNZ they are aware of the footage - but the source and the content of the video are unconfirmed. Video footage widely circulated on social media, apparently taken by a gunman and posted online live as the attack unfolded, showed him driving to one mosque, entering it and shooting randomly at people inside. Those users often make a personal mission of hunting down and reporting troubling content, like the New Zealand video. The videos are distressing and appear to be of the shooting in a mosque. What's clear is that plenty of offensive content slips through the tech companies' defenses, leaving lots for users, like Meeker, to report. Police in New Zealand didn't answer questions about how many instances of the video local authorities have reported to the companies. YouTube said Friday it removed thousands of videos related to the shooting in 24 hours, but didn't respond to question about how many user reports it received. Facebook said Saturday it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack in the first 24 hours and more than 1.2 million were blocked at upload. A Facebook spokesman confirmed to the The New York Times that the video was in fact in violation, but couldn’t explain why notifications to the contrary had gone out to some users. Facebook and Twitter declined to say how many user reports it received about the shooting video.

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