Facebook are "pathological liars in moral bankruptcy" – NZ Privacy Commissioner

"We can not trust Facebook, they are morally bankrupted moral liars who allow genocide (Myanmar), facilitate the corruption of democratic institutions abroad," said the commissioner for the protection of life Private New Zealand, John Edwards. posted on Twitter last night, in his most targeted attack on the social network to date.

"[They] authorize live broadcast of suicides, rapes and murders, continue to host and publish video of mosque attack, allow advertisers to target "Jewish haters" and other segments of the market odious, and refuse any responsibility for any content or prejudice. They #DontGiveAZuck, "said Edwards in a follow-up tweet.

In his first post-war interview Friday against Christchurch, NZT, Facebook's general manager, Mark Zuckerberg, has poured cold water even a slight delay for Facebook Live, saying it would "break up" the service often used for two-way communication with birthdays occasions (the Herald stressed that video chat limited to a group of people covers such events, no public broadcast is required).

In an interview with RNZ this morning, Edwards said that this "more effective" argument was "in bad faith" because " [Zuckerberg] can not tell us – or tell us, how many suicides are spread, how many murders, how many sexual assaults.

"I asked Facebook exactly this last week and they just do not have those numbers or will not give them to us."

Asked about his comments on social media, Edwards said the media had asked him to comment and that he had done so. "I do not have a personal diary and I do not make forums," he said. A spokesman for his office said that there was no other commentary on the tone of the Commissioner's remarks.

Edwards also asked Facebook to tell the New Zealand police the names of people sharing the video of the alleged gunman. Facebook refused. The clip was banned by New Zealand's Chief Censor. It is therefore illegal to view or share it at any time since its publication.

"The legal protection they have – the reason they were able to launch a dangerous product and escape liability is the American Communications Decency Act, which states that if you're a platform, a carrier, you're 'Take no responsibility for the content, but I think what we see around the world is a drag on that,' said Edwards.

In May, Facebook quietly changed its terms of service so that its New Zealand users would no longer be subject to the Irish Privacy Act (which was about to comply with the new stringent European regulations). a lighter American legislation. Edwards says his activities in New Zealand should be regulated by law.

"I think it would be very difficult for New Zealand to act [alone]"Edwards said.

"This is a global problem, the events that have been seen in Christchurch could happen anywhere in the world, governments must work together and force platforms to find a solution.

"It may be that regulation – as Australia did last week – is a good interim way to get their attention."

The new Australian law imposes a fine on social media companies of up to 10% of their income and up to three years' imprisonment, if their leaders do not withdraw the material. violent and horrible.

British legislators are about to do the same.

New Zealand: Up to now, the focus has been on gun control over social media control.

"[Facebook] In fact, we had no system to check the events in Christchurch, "said Edwards, who said he met with Facebook last week and said" no "to his question about implementing measures. protection preventing a repetition of the March 15 livestream.

"Perhaps a delay in the live broadcast would be a good thing as a temporary measure until they can fix their artificial intelligence problem. They may simply need to turn it off completely. It's a technology capable of causing a lot of harm "Commissionaire said.

Asked to react to Edwards' comments last night and this morning, a spokesman for Facebook's Australia-New Zealand referred the Herald on a transcript of Zuckerberg's interview on ABC News and the Open Letter from Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, in which she explained in detail the efforts made to delete copies of the shooter's video and suppress hate content.

The process is ongoing, on Friday NZT, Eric Feinberg, a New York-based researcher, told the Herald he had found seven copies of the clip of the alleged armed man on Facebook and five on the Facebook-owned Instagram.

A Facebook spokesman acknowledged the copies, but said they had been deleted the same day. Feinberg told the Herald that he had found more copies on Saturday, today and this morning.

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Facebook's latest report on community standards, covering the period from October 2017 to September 2018, states: "We acted for a total of 15.4 million content between July and September 2018, we found 97% of this content and act proactively.The report also contains measures on the number of times that violating content has been seen on Facebook.We estimate that 0.23% to 0.27% of the content views were content which violated our standards for graphic violence between July and September 2018. In other words, out of 10,000 views of content, an estimate of 23 to 27 contained graphic violence. "

On the terrorist content, he said: "We removed 14.3 million terrorist content during the first three quarters of 2018. 99.5% of this content was hidden and deleted by ourselves, before any user did not let us know. "