Continuing on from heavy social media censorship surrounding information
on the Christchurch mosque attacks, the New Zealand government has
blocked multiple websites for having footage of the attack on them, and
has jailed at least one person, without bail, for sharing the video.
The one person jailed so far was a man who shared the original
live-stream of the attack. New Zealand police, however, say that all
citizens who share any video of the attack face 10 years in prison. They
also warned against sharing the attacker’s manifesto, or other “objectionable and restricted material.”
New Zealand’s Internet providers have confirmed that they effectively
have to, under penalty of fines, block all international websites that
have links to the manifesto or the video itself. ISPs argue that these
are “extreme circumstances,” and that blocking such websites is “the
right thing to do.”
Despite all efforts, the video appears not to have been vanished totally
from human history, however. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used parts of the video at weekend rallies warning about rising Islamophobia, and quoted the manifesto, which threatened Turkey specifically.
Facebook bragged of removing 1.5 million videos related to Christchurch
just within the first 24 hours after the attack. This included 1.2
million videos that were blocked at upload, and were never available to
anybody.
It is unclear if New Zealand intends to make this a permanent ban. It is
hard to imagine other major public incidents of this source, for which
video did and does exist, being successfully scrubbed from the Internet
in any permanent way.
This is New Zealand??
… Maybe Knapp should never ever go to NZ after that anti-censorship article.
It is only a matter of time before every national government, including the US federal government, attempts total Internet censorship. The Internet is just too subversive, and stimulates too much rebellion against the powers that be, to allow it any degree of freedom at all.
… Now how to avoid joining them…
That video should be put on White House servers and on PM Bibi servers for all to view and download. It would be a smart move and help both in their reelection.
And the point is?
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. – George Orwell
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. – Justice Louis Brandeis
they think that banning some video is going to cut down or end this kind of violence? is that their thinking?
FB and Google et. al. have become new centers of censorship in the world. no need for governments to do the censoring when the so called social platforms, which are really a good part of The Commons in the world right now, are so compliant and censorious and reactionary
A question on govt accounting: is the $86b intel budget included in the $750 defense budget, or additional? Anyone know?