The YouTube sensation has been engaged in an online battle over which channel is the most subscribed to, and his followers have taken to posting messages encouraging others to “subscribe to PewDiePie.”
The seemingly incongruous reference to the Swedish vlogger known for his video game commentaries as well as his racist references was instantly recognizable to many of his 86 million followers. “Remember, lads, subscribe to PewDiePie,” the gunman said.
Many shooting games allow players to toggle between close-range and long-range weapons, and the gunman switched from a shotgun to a rifle during the video, reloading as he moved around.Īt one point, the shooter even paused to give a shout-out to one of YouTube’s top personalities, known as PewDiePie, with tens of millions of followers, who has made jokes criticized as anti-Semitic and posted Nazi imagery in his videos. The livestream video was reminiscent of violent first-person shooter video games such as “Counter-Strike” or “Doom” as the gunman went around corners and calmly entered rooms firing at helpless victims. He walked back outside, shot a woman, got back in his car, and drove away. Children’s screams could be heard in the distance as he strode to his car to get another rifle, then returned to the mosque, where at least two dozen people could be seen lying in pools of blood. He then walked outside, shooting at people on a sidewalk. In footage that at times resembled scenes from a first-person shooter video game, the mosque shooter was seen spraying terrified worshippers with bullets, sometimes re-firing at people he had already cut down. With billions of users, Facebook and YouTube are “ungovernable” at this point, said Vaidhyanathan, who called Facebook’s livestreaming service a “profoundly stupid idea.” “We have certain companies that have built systems that have inadvertently served the cause of violent hatred around the world,” Vaidhyanathan said.įacebook and YouTube were designed to share pictures of babies, puppies and other wholesome things, he said, “but they were expanded at such a scale and built with no safeguards such that they were easy to hijack by the worst elements of humanity.” If Facebook wanted to monitor every livestream to prevent disturbing content from making it out in the first place, “they would have to hire millions of people,” something it’s not willing to do, said Vaidhyanathan, who teaches media studies at the University of Virginia. In 2017 it said it would hire 3,000 people to review videos and other posts, on top of the 4,500 people Facebook already tasks with identifying criminal and other questionable material for removal.īut that’s just a drop in the bucket of what is needed to police the social media platform, said Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of “Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy.” The video’s spread underscores the challenge for Facebook even after stepping up efforts to keep inappropriate and violent content off its platform.
“Google is actively inciting violence,” tweeted British journalist Carole Cadwalladr with a screen grab of search results of the video. Some people expressed outrage on Twitter that the videos were still circulating hours after the attack. New Zealand police urged people not to share the footage, and many internet users called for tech companies and news sites to take the material down. One journalist tweeted that several people sent her the video via the Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging app.
#LIVELEAK NEW ZEALAND SHOOTING VIDEO GRAPHIC HOW TO#
The furor highlights once again the speed at which graphic and disturbing content from a tragedy can spread around the world and how Silicon Valley tech giants are still grappling with how to prevent that from happening.īritish tabloid newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The Sun posted screenshots and video snippets on their websites. Twitter, YouTube owner Google and Reddit also were working to remove the footage from their sites. “We will continue working directly with New Zealand Police as their response and investigation continues.” Facebook is “removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we’re aware,” she said.
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