Facebook moves to curb ‘live’ function after Christchurch massacre

Jacinda Ardern’s powerful initiative to eliminate violent extremist content on social media has suffered a blow with the US refusing to sign.

The United States has refused to join an international bid to stamp out violent extremism online, an initiative spearheaded by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

Seventeen countries, the European Commission, and eight major tech companies have signed up to the so-called “Christchurch Call”.

But the White House said “the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement” citing free speech concerns. It did, however, stress that Washington backed the initiative’s aims.

The initiative is named after the New Zealand city where a far-right gunman massacred 51 people at two mosques in March while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook.

The White House said in a statement that the private sector should regulate its content, but also stressed the need to protect free speech.

“We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press,” it said.

“We encourage technology companies to enforce their terms of service and community standards that forbid the use of their platforms for terrorist purposes.”

Ms Ardern joined forces with Mr Macron to co-chair a summit in Paris with an aim to co-ordinate international efforts to stop social media being used to organise and promote terrorism — an initiative dubbed “the Christchurch Call”.

Facebook vowed to place restrictions on its popular Live feature. It said there would be a “one-strike policy” banning those who violate new Facebook Live rules.

In a statement, Facebook said that anyone sharing “violating content” — like a statement from a terrorist group without context — would be blocked from using Facebook Live for a set period, possibly up to a month.

The tech giant has promised to extend the new restrictions to other areas of its business in the coming weeks, including to advertisers.

Facebook has also pledged money towards new research partnerships that would automatically detect banned content, after some users bypassed existing detection systems by uploading edited versions of the Christchurch attacks, which allowed the video to stay online longer and reach a bigger audience.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the Facebook move was a “good first step”.

“Our goal is to minimise risk of abuse on Live while enabling people to use Live in a positive way every day,” the statement said.

Eventually 1.5m copies of the video had to be removed by Facebook.

Speaking from Paris, Ms Ardern said it was a “good first step”.

She said she herself inadvertently saw the Christchurch attacker’s video when it played automatically in her Facebook feed.

“There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook has taken additional steps today ... and look forward to a long-term collaboration to make social media safer,” she said in a statement.

Twitter, Google, Microsoft and several other companies are also taking part, along with the leaders of Britain, France, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia, Jordan and the European Union.

Officials at Facebook said they support the idea of the Christchurch appeal, but that details need to be worked out that are acceptable for all parties. Free-speech advocates and some in the tech industry bristle at new restrictions and argue that violent extremism is a societal problem that the tech world can’t solve.

Ms Ardern and Mr Macron both insist that it must involve joint efforts between governments and tech giants. France has been hit by repeated Islamic extremist attacks by groups who recruited and shared violent images on social networks.

Facebook promised to place restrictions on its Live function.

Police officers carrying automatic rifles guard the area near Al Noor mosque where dozens of the victims were killed.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the meetings, Ms Ardern said, “There will be of course those who will be pushing to make sure that they maintain the commercial sensitivity. We don’t need to know their trade secrets, but we do need to know what the impacts might be on our societies around algorithm use.” She stressed the importance of tackling “coded language” that extremists use to avoid detection.

Before the Christchurch attack, she said, governments took a “traditional approach to terrorism that would not necessarily have picked up the form of terrorism that New Zealand experienced on the 15th of March, and that was white supremacy.”

Meanwhile, Ms Ardern told reporters extremist groups use code words online to radicalise new recruits, hooking them with innocent terms with the intent on eventually brainwashing them, Newshub reported.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris during a previous visit.

Governments and social media companies keep databases of the terms being used, which include RAHOWA: an acronym for “Radical Holy War”, Gazillion: a holocaust denial term implying the number killed was made up, women might be called “femoids” or Female Humanoid Organisms — because they’re considered sub-human.

“It’s coded for a reason to try and avoid those kinds of interventions,” Ardern said.

The meeting in Paris will run in parallel to an initiative launched by Mr Macron called “Tech for Good” which will bring together 80 tech chiefs to discuss how to harness technologies for the common good.

The heads of Wikipedia, Uber, Twitter and Google will attend, but not Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who held private one-to-one talks with Macron last week.

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