Earlier today, the New Zealand Herald published a letter from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg about how the company will respond to the deadly terror attack in Christchurch two weeks ago. In the letter, she outlines three steps the company will take, including limiting live video.
She described the attack as “an act of pure evil” and that the company is “determined to review what happened” and is working with the country’s authorities. Following the attack, Facebook says it has removed 1.5 million videos from the attack worldwide, while 1.2 million videos were blocked “at upload.” Sandberg’s letter says that while Facebook moved quickly to remove the video and the attacker’s account, the company could have done more and outlined three steps it will take going forward.
The first step is that Facebook is “exploring restrictions on who can upload live videos based on factors like previous rule violations” and that the company is putting more resources into systems to be able to identify its violent videos, even if they are edited by users. It noted that it has found more than 900 variations of the attack video.
The second step is to take more serious steps “to eliminate hate on our platforms.” Last week, Facebook announced that it was banning white nationalist and divisive content from the site and would redirect people who search for such content to resources that help people leave hate groups. Sandberg says the company has since removed a number of hate groups.
The latest step Sandberg outlined is that the company is providing support to “four local well-being and mental health organizations” in New Zealand, and she reiterated that the company is ready to work with a commission that plans to examine how websites and social media platforms played any role in the attack.
Sandberg’s letter doesn’t provide details about what “investigating restrictions” on live video means, though it does seem to mention some caveats — such as whether a person has previously violated the site’s community standards. Earlier this month, the shooter filmed his attacks on two mosques and uploaded them to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram with the intention of going viral. While the video of the attack was initially viewed by fewer than 200 people, the tech companies were quick to stop the videos from spreading further. Facebook has previously had problems with people broadcasting violent videos, such as in 2017 when a Cleveland man uploaded a video of a murder to his profile, where it remained for several hours.
