Yesterday we were all shocked to learn about the attack in New Zealand. There are currently three suspects for what happened but especially the profile of one has attracted attention: that of Brenton Tarrant, who decided live stream the shooting with a GoPro and even advised viewers to subscribe to the channel of the famous youtuber PewDiePie.
streaming horror
It is believed that Brenton Tarrant conscientiously planned the attack, carried out together with two companions, against two mosques in the town of Christchurch, in New Zealand, which he has left for the moment 49 dead and more than 20 wounded. Tarrant, a 28-year-old white man, decided to carry out this shooting "to ensure the future of his people" but not before posting on the internet a 74 page manifesto full of racist, xenophobic reasoning and in which he shows his clear belief supremacist.
Afterwards, he decided to go to the Al Noor Mosque, dressed in military clothing and wearing a GoPro in which he was broadcasting live part of the massacre. The video, which was previously announced on the forums of 8chan, was shown on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram -you have a screenshot of Brenton Tarrant below these lines-, where it was online and in view of anyone during 17 minutes with the idea of ​​reaching as many people as possible through the internet. The horror broadcast in rigorous direct.
Even in Reddit A thread was opened commenting on its content, without any of the large companies behind these platforms being able to do anything, as denounced by the journalist from Washing Post, Drew Harwel, in a tweet posted a few hours ago:
The New Zealand massacre was livestreamed on Facebook, announced on 8chan, reposted on YouTube, commented on on Reddit, and mirrored around the world before the tech companies could even react.
- Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) March 15th 2019
Worst of all, once the original video was knocked down, they began to look copies of the video, uploaded by multiple users in which it was also possible to see everything that the terrorist had shown and which have taken much longer to be eliminated.
YouTube declined to comment on how long it takes them to hash troubling videos. Here's a screenshot of a video that went up 9 mins ago that shows the full incident. This took me less than 30 seconds to find. pic.twitter.com/Pu4F6x8EZ9
—Ryan Mac (@RMac18) March 15th 2019
It is not the only 2.0 component of this whole story. It turns out that Tarrant also takes advantage of his live broadcast to encourage people to watch a YouTube channel: that of Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, who currently has the record for subscribers on the platform -although T-Series is on his heels right now. PewDiePie has already been accused in the past of promote the antisemism in one of his videos, which led him to lose important advertising contracts with YouTube itself and with Disney.
«Remember guys subscribe to Pewdiepie“Brenton Tarrant says.
The youtuber has not been slow to respond to this reference to his channel, declaring that he feels "absolutely sick" that Tarrant has pronounced his name, rejecting emphatically the terrorist acts that occurred. Even so, it is likely that this mention will end up taking its toll on his reputation, already put into question too many times due to his unfortunate comments and jokes.
A true tragedy that gains even more weight due to the online impact of the event. The Internet helps us and connects us with each other, but it is also a double-edged sword with a tremendous propagation capacity, so powerful that it is difficult to control -let's remember that the video of the massacre was broadcast live for 17 scandalous minutes without being knocked down from any social network. And the worst thing is that it is difficult to know how to solve it.