New Zealand Attacks Aftermath Forces ISPs to Block Websites That Feature Graphic Footage

• Three major New Zealand ISPs are blocking access to 4chan, 8chan, and LiveLeak.
• People insist on searching for the graphic material of the recent mass shooting attack, and others are persistently offering it.
• Facebook has laid out the timeline of the attack broadcasting and footage propagation.

Following the mass shooting at the Christchurch mosque on the 15th of March, there has been a massive effort by social media platforms to contain the dissemination of the relevant footage. No matter how hard the efforts are, it seems that people are determined to post this explicit material on any platform they can. This has led three major ISPs (Vodafone, Spark, Vocus) in New Zealand to block access to various websites that demonstrated a characteristic inability to filter the user uploads and timely remove them upon reporting. The websites that are now blocked in the country, for this reason, are 4chan, 8chan, and LiveLeak.

Representatives from the ISPs have clarified that the blocks imposed on these platforms are temporary, and once the graphic material has been completely removed, the access to the sites will be restored. A Vodafone spokesperson has stated the following:

“Where material is identified the site is temporarily blocked and the site is notified, requesting they remove the material. A number of sites are blocked and then unblocked in this way. We apologize to legitimate internet users who may have been inconvenienced by this, however, under the extreme circumstances we believed it was the responsible thing for the industry to do.”

The three websites that were blocked are known for being extra-lenient in allowing explicit content, so users know that they can upload content there which would be instantly flagged and removed from platforms like YouTube. That said, it is unlikely that they will change their policy now, and those who still want to access them can continue to do so by using mirror sites, proxies, and VPNs.

In the meantime, Facebook has published an insightful post about how the propagation of the material developed over time after the live streaming of the shooting on its platform. The key numbers that depict the incident as it unfolded are the following:

• The live broadcasting was viewed by 200 people, none of which reported it at that time.
• Until its removal, the video reached 4,000 views.
• The first report came in 12 minutes after the end of the live broadcast.
• Before Facebook had received the first report, a user had already uploaded the footage on 8chan.
• Facebook hashed the video, so re-posts could be readily identified and removed.
• Screen recordings are hard to auto-detect, so Facebook is currently looking to employ audio-based detection.
• During the first 24 hours that followed the attack, about 1.5 million videos were removed from the platform.

Do you think that ISP blocks and Facebook content filtering are enough to tackle the re-posting of explicit content? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, and don’t forget to visit our socials on Facebook and Twitter for more news stories like this one.