Shooting in New Zealand: why Facebook could not prevent the attacker from spreading his attack continuously

"We do not check what people say before they say it and, frankly, I do not think society should want us to do it. Freedom means that you do not need to ask permission beforehand, and by default you can say what you want. "

This is Mark Zuckerberg, around September 2017. At the time, Facebook's CEO described his company's response to Russia's attempt to manipulate the last presidential election.

I guess he still keeps talking about it today, after an armed man used Facebook to broadcast live his mbadacre of dozens of people in New Zealand. Although I asked Facebook PR to make sure of that.

But regardless of how Facebook – and Twitter, and YouTube, and Reddit, as well as other platforms that have helped to disseminate images and videos of the mbad shooting of Christchurch, which the authorities have described as 39, Terrorist Attack – Respond to Criticism Regarding Their Roles Today, The Key One thing to remember about platforms is that they did exactly what they were designed for: allowing humans to share what they they want, when they want it, with as many people as they want.

I do not want to be easy on this: of course, Facebook does not want killers to broadcast their crimes live around the world. But the company has built a tool that allows them to do just that. And it relies on a fundamentally built platform to allow people to say what they want, without asking permission first.

As I wrote in 2017, the structure of this platform is the key to Facebook's huge success as a company – users provide the content, and Facebook's software spreads it around the world, instantly, with the less friction possible:

Facebook only operates as a giant, with a business figure exceeding one billion people because it allows users and advertisers to download what they want on its platform, without any human intervention. And the fact that Facebook does not review comments, advertisements or (almost) everything that is before it appears is also what gives it great legal protection, especially in the US: s & # 39; there is something unpleasant or illegal on Facebook, it is not because Facebook has put it there – someone has put it on Facebook.

This configuration is not unique to Facebook. All mainstream consumer platforms from Silicon Valley in the last ten years work the same way: YouTube and Twitter do not approve your comments or videos before downloading them, and Airbnb does not control you not before. you rent a space in your house.

As Zuckerberg pointed out in 2017, the group wants to remove the objectionable content after increasing its content, and the company says it has removed the shooter's account shortly after the live broadcast. The company also announced that it would spend billions of dollars to combine software and human beings to fight future abuses.

Last week, Zuckerberg announced his intention to divert Facebook 's attention from a public news feed to the benefit of more personal and encrypted communication. But by the end of Facebook's planned pivot, it would still allow the New Zealand shooter to do exactly what he did yesterday.

It's possible that the change of Facebook will reduce the virality of footage shot or other horrible things, but that would not stop these things from getting on the platform. It is also possible that Facebook has much more difficulty in controlling it, because the company plans to provide a complete encryption of messages that people transmit.

But for Zuckerberg – and again, because Facebook is built this way – Facebook will monitor abuses committed on its platform once this has happened, in the same way that the police will react to a crime as soon as it's over. she will know it.

Here is an excerpt from Zuckerberg's essay that I quoted at the beginning of this story:

Now, I will not stay here and tell you that we are going to catch all the bad stuff in our system. We do not check what people say before they say it and, frankly, I do not think our society should want us to do it. Freedom means that you do not have to ask permission first, and that by default you can say whatever you want. If you break the norms of our community or the law, you will suffer the consequences later.

It is difficult to imagine the consequences that Facebook can impose on a person who killed dozens of people on Friday. And it's hard to imagine that it will not happen again.