A group representing French Muslims is suing Facebook and YouTube, for allowing the streaming of footage from the shootings in Christchurch on their platforms.
The devastating March 15th shootings at two mosques in New Zealand, which killed 50, were live-streamed on Facebook and then copied and shared across social media.
In a report by the BBC, Facebook said that it was “examining the complaint” while YouTube did not offer a response to the case, reiterating instead its guidelines on the sharing of graphic content.
The formal legal complaint against Facebook and YouTube was launched by the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), BBC further reported.
The legal filings state that it was suing the French branches of the two tech giants for “broadcasting a message with violent content abetting terrorism, or of a nature likely to seriously violate human dignity and liable to be seen by a minor.”
Anwar Ghani, the spokesman for the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand, told Reuters that it supported the move. “They have failed big-time, this was a person who was looking for an audience and … you [Facebook] were the platform he chose to advertise himself and his heinous crime.”
A Facebook spokesperson told the BBC: “Acts of terror and hate speech have no place on Facebook, and our thoughts are with the families of the victims and the entire community affected by this tragedy. We have taken many steps to remove this video from our platform, we are cooperating with the authorities and our teams remain fully mobilized.
As earlier reported by The Sauce, the firm detailed how it had removed the video within minutes of hearing from the New Zealand police, adding that it had removed approximately 300,000 copies that had been posted afterward. It said that it was supporting the New Zealand police, and acknowledged that it needed to react faster to this kind of content.
