New Zealand’s privacy commissioner is holding no punches in his criticism of Facebook in the wake of the deadly mosque shootings in Christchurch, part of which was live-streamed by the gunman on the social media platform.
Calling the tech giant “morally bankrupt pathological liars,” John Edwards said on Twitter on Sunday night that Facebook “cannot be trusted.”
Facebook also facilitates “foreign undermining of democratic institutions,” and allows the live streaming “of suicides, rapes, and murders,” Edwards
Edwards remarks, in response to Zuckerberg’s were shared widely on Twitter before the commissioner chose to take them down. He explained on Monday that he’d deleted his tweets “because of the volume of toxic and misinformed traffic they prompted.”
In that interview, Edwards said Facebook’s live-streaming technology had the potential of “causing great harm,” and urged the company to put a time delay on its live-streams or even “turn it off altogether” until it has airtight technology in place that can prevent the dissemination of content like the one shared by the gunman behind the Christchurch attacks.
The company said it removed about 1.5 million videos of the mass shooting in the first 24 hours after the massacre, but 300,000 were successfully uploaded.
Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was working to improve its ability to “identify live-stream terror events” but stopped short of committing to any significant changes of the platform’s live-stream technology.
Edwards slammed Zuckerberg’s comments as being “disingenuous” because “he can’t tell us or won’t tell us, how many suicides are live-streamed, how many murders, how many sexual assaults.”
“I’ve asked Facebook exactly that last week and they simply don’t have those figures or won’t give them to us,” Edwards told Radio New Zealand.
A total of 50 people were killed and dozens more injured in the twin attacks on the mosque and the nearby Linwood Islamic Center.
