The terrorist in Christchurch killed 50 people at two mosques on Friday, livestreaming part of the attack on Facebook. On Saturday night, Facebook announced that it had removed 1.5 million copies of the video, with 1.2 million blocked at the moment they were uploaded. Decisions about the limits of free speech would shift to companies whose priorities are driven by shareholders. But the viral spread of the Christchurch shooting video shows the limits of the content moderation machine in the face of technologies that have been designed to be attention traps. It must be a priority to redesign technology to respect the common good, instead of ignoring it.

Source: New York Times March 19, 2019 00:11 UTC