Social Media’s First‑Try at Weeding Out the Ugly
On October 9th, the biggest social media names hatched a plan to yank a gruesome livestream from the internet. It was the first big test of their removal skills since Christchurch’s horrific 2019 massacre sent the whole “sharpen your content filters” train into high gear.
The German Incident
In Germany, the shooter – who’d decided to binge‑watch his own blood‑spilling saga on Amazon’s gaming spin‑off Twitch – narrowly missed smashing the door to a synagogue on Yom Tishrei. The resulting video, about 36 minutes long, looked eerily similar to the 2019 video that killed 51 people in Christchurch.
How the Video Spread
- After the initial live stream, the footage was shared by a handful of anti‑Semitic fans and a whole swathe of whiners .
- Twitter, 4chan, and a host of troll‑centric forums started digging up the clip and redistributing it in all sorts of shenanigans.
- Some white‑supremacist chats on Telegram were also snapping up the bad stuff.
The “Hashing” Brigade
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism – a squad that counts Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter among its ranks – teamed up to take down the video. They’re using a technique called hashing to turn videos into coded fingerprints so they can automatically spot and remove them.
“We’re in close contact and committed to disrupting violent extremist content online,” the group said.
Platform Responses
- Twitch announced that only five people watched the live stream, but it snowballed to about 2,200 viewers before the video was pulled half an hour later.
- It also said the suspect’s account had tried streaming once more – hinting that other sites were passing it around while the main shop kept it open.
- Facebook kept mum on gauge numbers. Twitter simply pointed to the Forum’s statement.
- Google and Telegram didn’t weigh in.
“Christchurch Call” and the Wider Picture
The tech giants have backed New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s “Christchurch Call,” a pledge to set up ethical standards that shut down extremist content before it can flood the platform.
They’re also sharpening their own hate‑speech rules and promising to share content‑flagging data with the wider community. The plan grew from years of patchy enforcement that let violent content jump from fringe forums to mainstream sites in full force.
Historical Reminders
- Back in 2018, a Pittsburgh shooter posted a hateful manifesto on Gab, blaming a refugee‑helping nonprofit for “my people” suffering.
- In 2019, 8chan became the launchpad for mass‑shooters, including the El Paso gunman who released a four‑page manifesto on the site.
What’s the Bottom Line?
Oren Segal, leading the Center on Extremism at the Anti‑Defamation League, made it clear that no single firm can stop the internet’s vicious imagery. “Names keep changing – from 8chan to Twitch to Telegram – but the threat stays the same and it’s a challenge for all of us.”
In the end, the ride is over to social media’s first big front‑line confrontation with extremist content. Whether the lesson sticks is still up in the air, but at least the world now knows the old chestnut doesn’t just sit in some corner of the web – it’s screeching across platforms, demanding a bigger, faster, smarter response.
