More than a month later, Facebook, Instagram host New Zealand shooting videos – CNET

It’s been over a month since a gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 people and livestreaming the massacre on Facebook. It appears the social network, as well as Facebook-owned Instagram, is still showing videos of the attack, according to a Friday report by Motherboard. 

Some of the videos on the platforms are shorter clips of the original 17-minute footage, the report says. One video on Facebook showing the gunman killing people from a first-person perspective says it potentially contains “violent or graphic content,” but remains on the platform, according to Motherboard. Users can reportedly click to confirm they want to watch the video. 

Facebook and Instagram didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Facebook has struggled to keep footage of the mass shooting off its site. The social network was criticized after its artificial intelligence systems couldn’t automatically detect video of the terrorist attack. Facebook relies heavily on user reports to flag inappropriate content, and says it didn’t get a report during the live broadcast. The first user report came 12 minutes after the livestream ended, wrote Guy Rosen, vice president of product management, in a blog post last month. 

It can also be challenging to remove variations of the footage, according to Motherboard. Some videos reportedly showed a screen recording of the content playing on the gunman’s Facebook page, while another featured a person watching part of the clip on Twitter. The social network told Motherboard that it’s “also using audio technology to try and detect clips of the attack.” After it takes down that content, Facebook adds the variations to a list of content to block automatically. The company is reportedly investing in tech and research that can pinpoint tweaked versions of the videos.