Facebook live-streamed mass murder. Zuckerburg and Erdogan both profited from it. Capitalism, xenophobia, communal politics in a deadly mix
More than four days
have passed since the world’s weakest man launched an assault that took the
lives of 50 people at prayer in Christchurch. He did
it with a camera stuck to his head, live-streaming it on Facebook, the world’s
most powerful media company. It was taken down after police sounded the alarm.
But already it had spread through Twitter – where links to the video sit
untroubled still despite repeated reports. Already it had spread across
Google’s YouTube platform, where the most ghoulish appetites on the planet are
daily sated for profit.
Peace as a punctuation mark in eternal war
Turkish president says anyone who comes to Gallipoli with anti-Muslim sentiments would be sent back in coffins
But it was Facebook that
broadcast it live. And for all that the world’s first genuinely megalithic
media company might protest that it worked hard to scrub out this
tech-dystopian freak show, the video continues to be shared on the platform
today. More than four days
on, then, the $64bn question (that’s how much Mr Zuckerberg is reportedly
worth) is this: what do you have to say for yourself, Mark? Seems you’re busy,
and instead have dispatched an underling to do the thoughts-and-prayers and
“committed to countering hate speech and the threat of terrorism online”.
Sitting here in New
Zealand, that’s nowhere near good enough.
You’ve been silent,
just as you were when you snubbed representatives of nine countries seeking
answers on Facebook’s hazardous impact on democracy. They empty-chaired you. I
hope, Mark, that you’re called to answer to the impending inquiry into what
happened in Christchurch, to account for Facebook’s role as a propaganda
conduit and distribution mechanism for terrorism in New Zealand...
Erdoğan made the
comments in Turkey’s north-western Çanakkale province, which is home to the
historic battlefields, on the anniversary of a first world war Turkish naval
victory. He criticised New Zealand and
Australia for sending troops to Turkey in the first world war Gallipoli
campaign, claiming their motive was anti-Islam-oriented. He called on New
Zealand to amend its laws to ensure that the attacker is severely punished.
Ignoring widespread
criticism, Erdoğan again showed excerpts of a video taken by the attacker who
killed 50 people in mosques in New Zealand, to denounce what he called rising
hatred and prejudice against Islam. “What business did you
have here? We had no issues with you, why did you come all the way over here?”
Erdoğan said. “The only reason: we’re Muslim, and they’re Christian.” Erdoğan told
supporters: “If New Zealand fails to hold the attacker accountable, one way or
another we will hold him to account.”
The New Zealand police
commissioner, Mike Bush, told reporters in Christchurch earlier that he was
aware of comments made by Erdoğan blaming New Zealand for the anti-Muslim
attack and was “alert” to the risk of reprisals. “We are taking care to
be alert to all kinds of conversations and that will inform our deployment,”
Bush said. “What I can say at the
moment most positively is there was only one attacker. The investigation focus
is to work out if anyone else was involved in supporting or in any other way
and we are still conducting that part of the investigation.”
Since the weekend, the
Turkish leader has
been using clips of the Christchurch attack to denounce Islamophobia
during campaign rallies, as he tries to stoke nationalist and religious
sentiments ahead of 31 March local elections. The video, which was
blurred but had clear sounds of automatic gunfire, has been shown to thousands
of people at the rallies and aired live on Turkish television, despite efforts
by New Zealand to halt its spread. The video prompted
widespread condemnation. Facebook said it
removed 1.5m versions of the video in the first 24 hours after the
attack. Turkey’s main
opposition party has also criticised Erdoğan for showing the clip “for the sake
of [winning] three or five votes” at the elections...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/20/erdogans-gallipoli-threat-over-christchurch-attack-condemned
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