See the recovery efforts in Gaza as ceasefire appears to hold 'Is everything I'm trying to do pointless? ': Syrians helpless in face of 'sham' election Brother of journalist detained in Myanmar says family is hopeful Report: US companies may have benefited from forced labor of Uyghurs Residents stand near stalls along a road amidst debris while strong winds batter Balasore district in Odisha state on May 26, 2021 as Cyclone Yaas barrels towards India's eastern coast in the Bay of Bengal. (Photo by Dibyangshu SARKAR / AFP) (Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images) France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame speak as they walk in the grounds of The Presidential Palace in Kigali on May 27, 2021, after their press conference and prior to their official luncheon. - French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Rwanda on May 27, 2021, for a highly symbolic visit aimed at moving on from three decades of diplomatic tensions over France's role in the 1994 genocide in the country. Macron is the first French leader since 2010 to visit the East African nation, which has long accused France of complicity in the killing of some 800,000 mostly Tutsi Rwandans. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images) Relative of detained Iranian-Americans fears they will not survive (CNN) — The unprecedented attacks on two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, in which at least 49 people died and 20 were seriously injured, have left a peaceful nation reeling. But this is not the first time the coastal city of around 400,000 people on New Zealand’s South Island has been swept by tragedy. Between 2010 and 2011, the country’s third most populous city was plagued by a series of earthquakes. The worst happened in February 2011, when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake ripped through Christchurch in the middle of the day – toppling buildings onto buses, buckling streets and damaging cathedrals. While New Zealand is accustomed to earthquakes, few have been as devastating as that tremor, which killed 185 people, injured 6,000 and damaged 170,000 buildings. The bulk of the deaths occurred when a six-story office block, the CTV Building, collapsed during the quake. According to official figures, 115 people were killed in the CTV Building, 18 people died in the PGC office building, eight people died on buses and 28 people died elsewhere in central Christchurch, while 12 victims were in suburban locations. Another four deaths were found to be directly associated with the incident. The victims came from numerous countries across globe and included a group of students learning English in the CTV Building. ’Running on jelly’ Witness Gavin Blowman told CNN at the time that he ran to the street when the earthquake struck. “It felt like I was running on jelly,” he said. “We saw a giant rock tumble to the ground from a cliff – a rock that had been there for millennia. It fell on the RSA (veterans’ association) building – it was terrifying.” Laura Campbell told CNN she was at work when the earthquake struck. She described seeing “windows blowing out, bricks falling down, people screaming, the whole nine yards.” The earthquake caused soft sand and silt to liquefy, which led to ruptured water and sewer pipes, shattered roads and wrecked buildings. It caused cliffs to collapse and dislodged boulders. The widespread damage cost the country an estimated NZ$20 billion ($13.7 billion) according to New Zealand’s government, and the city’s retail, hospitality and accommodation sectors were hit the hardest. As of January 2019, the country’s earthquake commission is still dealing with 2,233 claims from the quake. According to the city council, the tremors “had an immediate effect on Christchurch City’s population, with an estimated 20,000 leaving the city in the first two years.” Lifetime of healing The psychological toll of the earthquake quickly became apparent. In 2012, a study by the Canterbury District Health Board and the Mental Health Foundation found that more that 80% involved in the study said their lives had changed “significantly” since the event. More than two-thirds of people asked said they were “grieving for lost Christchurch.” Another study found that heart attacks spiked a year after the earthquakes. According to Reuters, the residents of the most-damaged areas were 22% more likely to be admitted to hospitals for heart attacks than their neighbors in the least-damaged areas. “Our study suggests it’s not just the shaking people experience, but the long-term impacts on their lives, if they lose their homes,” one of the study’s authors, Vicky Cameron, told Reuters.<doc-sep>So far, only suspected shooter Brenton Tarrant has been charged with murder for the attack on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, according to New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush. Bush said at a press conference Sunday that others had been arrested but that police did not believe they were involved in the attack. “I will not be saying anything conclusive until we are absolutely convinced as to how many people were involved, but we hope to be able to give that advice over the next few days,” Bush added. Two other people were apprehended, Bush said, and police seized a firearm from them. The woman was released without charge, while the other man was charged with firearms offenses. One additional man was also arrested in the aftermath of the shooting, but police said they don't believe he was involved in the attack either. Bush said the man was helping get children to safety but that he armed himself, "which is not the right approach."<doc-sep>This is a tragedy that doesn’t deserve a snappy lede, but it is one that needs to be highlighted because tech companies should be held to account. Earlier today there was a horrendous mass mosque shooting in New Zealand that killed 49 people — and because this is 2019, social media was used by the apparent murderers to plan, announce, broadcast and virally resonate what they did. Some of that — such as the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the perpetrator — have been deleted. Yet nearly 12 hours later, you can still find multiple copies of the shooting videos on YouTube and Twitter, with some being used to promote other things. YouTube issued a statement several hours ago condemning the snuff videos, adding that it is removing them as soon as they are made aware: “Our hearts go out to the victims of this terrible tragedy. Shocking, violent and graphic content has no place on our platforms, and is removed as soon as we become aware of it,” said a spokesperson in an email to TechCrunch. “As with any major tragedy, we will work cooperatively with the authorities.” The turnaround time of “as soon as we become aware” isn’t quite as fast as you might think. Randomly browsing on the most basic of searches in YouTube at around 9am Eastern, we found a number of copies of the shooting incident — the same ones posted as live streams on Facebook — and reported all of them. As of writing, three of the first four we clicked on are still up. One of them is even used to promote other videos — gaming-related as it happens. To be clear, the YouTube links we clicked on are re-uploads of the primary source video from the event, not any allegedly legitimate “news” coverage that’s been uploaded in response to it, much of it coming from chancers who are essentially just hoping to make a little click-money from people browsing for more information. Those don’t only include no-name video posters. The likes of the Daily Mail sickeningly used clips of the video in the name of news. On Twitter, it was just as easy to find embedded video clips, by way of the New Zealand hashtag plus a keyword or two. These included clips of the shooting, plus several taken by motorists of the police chase for the perpetrators, which present their own casual eeriness and off-color comments from the recorders. Twitter also issued a statement that mirrored YouTube’s. “We are deeply saddened by the shootings in Christchurch today,” a spokesperson said in an email to us. “Twitter has rigorous processes and a dedicated team in place for managing exigent and emergency situations such as this. We also cooperate with law enforcement to facilitate their investigations as required.” Like YouTube, Twitter is also monitoring the platform and has both human and computer-based screenings to field reports. But the situation highlights how — despite the stated commitments from companies that work in social media to track malicious or harmful content on their platforms, and despite all of the tracking algorithms and teams of humans that they have built to help — social media services continue to fail the public when it comes to keeping their platforms from getting exploited for horrendous ends. Meanwhile, the lead comment on the Reddit thread about the news states, “New Zealand Police has requested the Footage not be shared on social media. Please do not post the Videos. If you see the Videos, bring it to the moderators attention.” After browsing the first couple pages of comments, this approach appears to be working. A Reddit spokesperson sent us the following statement: “We are actively monitoring the situation in Christchurch, New Zealand. Any content containing links to the video stream are being removed in accordance with our site-wide policy.” It’s also worth noting that after a shooter apparently encouraged viewers of his live stream to “subscribe to PewDiePie,” the YouTube star (who has attracted controversy for anti-Semitic messages in the past) tweeted, “I feel absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person. My heart and thoughts go out to the victims, families and everyone affected by this tragedy.”<doc-sep>
When Isaac Christian saw the news Friday that a gunman had entered two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, he frantically began sending text messages. In July 2018, Christian was among the 28 students and four chaperones who traveled from Parkland, Florida, to the University of Canterbury in Christchurch — a visit that was intended to help the students cope with the aftermath of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “It’s kind of like the same feelings as when our school shooting happened. It felt so surreal,” Christian, 17, a junior at Stoneman Douglas, said of the latest massacre. One friend wrote to Christian that she had been locked down in a library. Christian said that message brought him back to his own memory of hiding in a classroom to survive the Stoneman Douglas shootings that killed 17 people. “It’s the same way I felt because I was stuck in a room and didn’t know what was going on … it messes with my mind because it’s so hard to process that something that happened in my home and my city happened there,” Christian said. Florida students Isaac Christian, left, and Einav Cohen at the Weta Workshop movie effects studio in Wellington, New Zealand, on on July 27, 2018. Nick Perry / AP file In Christchurch, one suspect was in custody after allegedly opening fire inside one mosque before driving to another, approximately three miles away, and opening fire inside the second mosque. Officials said 50 people were killed. More than 8,200 miles away, in Parkland, students were recalling their own trauma, as well as the time they visited Christchurch, a city many described as peaceful and idyllic. Sandi Davis, a sociology teacher at Stoneman Douglas, helped to organize the trip to New Zealand last year. Davis said the trip was planned as both a way to help the students cope with the tragedy they experienced and also as a way for them to learn how to sustain the anti-gun violence movement they had begun in the Parkland shooting’s aftermath. In particular, the Florida students met with members of New Zealand’s Student Volunteer Army, which was formed in 2011 after earthquakes devastated Christchurch, killing 185 people. The organization’s work continues to this day. “It was enlightening to be with a community who could understand what it's like to go thorough something of such a large scale that affects the community, instead of a handful of people,” Davis said. As the death toll from the mosque shootings continued to rise overnight, the Parkland students watched helplessly. “It's heartbreaking, because you know how they're feeling. It brings up a lot of feelings from the day,” Davis said. “My first thought was our kids and how it would impact our kids, and my second thought was our friends in New Zealand.”