Reviews for the blocks will take place every six months.

Officials maintain that this won’t lead to arbitrary censorship. There’s a “high threshold” and “parliamentary oversight” before blocking takes place, Inman said. Communications minister Paul Fletcher likewise said blocks didn’t represent a “universal solution.” This is specifically meant to combat material that’s illegal in its own right — in this case, a video of horrible violence effectively crafted to spur further terrorist attacks.

Even so, it’s unlikely to completely satisfy critics. There are concerns this could lead to Australia blocking sites for content that exists in gray areas. And of course, there are questions over whether or not the government should block sites in the first place. Opponents have typically argued that any action should focus on the people uploading the video, not the hosts, and that those most vulnerable to extremist material won’t be deterred by blocks like this.

Walmart confirmed the move in a statement to Vice, saying it was “out of respect” for the victims of the El Paso and Dayton shootings, and that this “does not reflect” a change in the actual game catalog. You can still buy Call of Duty, you just won’t see it advertised.

At the same time, ESPN2 delayed its August 11th airing of the Xgames’ Apex Legends EXP Invitational for similar reasons. Kotaku sources understood that the competition would now air on October 6th, October 15th and October 27th.

While both moves were made out of sensitivity, they could still be problematic by giving credence to the unsupported claim that video games cause violence. Multiple studies have shown that these titles don’t lead to violent behavior, and that proponents of restricting violent game sales have historically used it to distract from questions about gun control and gun culture. Walmart is still selling guns, although CEO Doug McMillon hinted at openness to change with promises of “thoughtful and deliberate” responses to issues raised by gun violence. The video game and movie display changes may just be the start of a larger strategy shift.

He said he held off saying more in March since he “didn’t want to give the terrorist more attention” or to “make it about me.” Even so, he didn’t want “hateful acts” to overwhelm the “amazing things” done in his name.

The internet celebrity also acknowledged that two diss songs attacking T-Series, his rival for the most number of YouTube subscribers, had offended others. He said they were “not meant to be taken seriously” and that he wanted to stop the “negative rhetoric.”

PewDiePie’s request echoes an all-too-familiar pattern on the internet: he’s trying to contain a relatively innocent meme co-opted for other, sometimes malicious purposes. And like in those cases, there’s not much the originator can do to officially stop it. However, PewDiePie has the luxury of a massive audience for his thoughts. He may stand a better chance than others in trying to disassociate himself from hateful acts.

One variation had been around since the time of the attack. All of the videos Feinberg found were sitting on Arabic-language pages.

Facebook has removed one of the videos as of this writing, and reiterated its plans to improve its filtering technology. It’s using audio recognition to spot clips that might otherwise evade filters, and it’s researching tech that could identify edited versions of clips.

At the moment, though, the findings illustrate the challenges of completely removing terrorist material. It’s difficult to account for every possible variation of a video, especially if posters are deliberately evading filters. That, in turn, raises questions about laws that would punish companies for failing to remove extremist material. Would Facebook be held responsible if authorities found videos that slipped through the cracks? While it’s doubtful internet giants would face significant punishment for mistakes, the laws may set a bar that current technology can’t clear.

Platform hosts would also have to notify Australia if they discover their service is streaming violent content taking place within the country. If they don’t, they could face fines up to $168,000 AUD for an individual and $840,000 AUD for a company. The new legislation would ultimately be similar to those requiring companies to notify law enforcement if someone is using their service to access child porn.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison wasn’t shy about the motivations: he argued that social media sites have a “responsibility to take every possible action” to ensure they aren’t serving as vehicles for terrorist agendas. He hoped that Australia would serve as a “model approach” for G20 countries to follow.

The measure wouldn’t prevent news outlets from reporting on events, according to Communications Minister Mitch Fifield.

If the bill becomes law, it would pressure Facebook, Twitter and other sites to do whatever they can to pull videos of violent crime. However, there are questions about the viability of the law. Facebook and YouTube struggled to remove every instance of the Christchurch shooter’s video even with heavy automation at work, and it didn’t take much for people to edit these videos in a way that would thwart AI filters. It’s not clear if the proposed law would consider those reasonable efforts. They might be off the hook, but they could also face stiff penalties simply for missing a single copy of a video.

In the wake of the livestream, a version of the video surfaced on YouTube every second over the weekend. It was also shared to Reddit forums such as “r/watchpeopledie” and “r/Gore,” both of which have since been banned. And Facebook itself scrambled to pull down 1.5 million videos of the incident in the first 24 hours.

Meanwhile, New Zealand ISPs including Vodafone, Spark and Vocus were forced to block access at the DNS level to websites that didn’t respond to takedown requests. Together they cut off controversial messageboards such as 4chan and 8chan (where the shooter was a member and, according to Facebook he shared a link to a copy of the video hosted on a file-sharing site). Worse still, mainstream media like The Daily Mail and Sky News Australia ran excerpts from the shooter’s Facebook livestream, forcing Sky New Zealand to pull the latter off air.

As usual, Facebook has been transparent in its response. But it’s facing a chorus of condemnation from lawmakers worldwide, who’ve grown tired of its meek attempts at self-regulation. Germany has already set penalties for social media sites that fail to swiftly remove harmful content and the UK is following suit. Though Facebook is pumping more money and manpower into its moderation systems, this latest failure will only result in more scrutiny of its reviews process.

The speed at which the videos were uploaded forced YouTube to take unprecedented measures. Under standard protocol, YouTube’s software flags troublesome content, which human moderators then review. But because the system was inundated, it let the AI software both flag and remove content it suspected to be problematic. As Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, told The Washington Post, the trade-off was that non-problematic content got swept up and deleted, too.

When that wasn’t enough, YouTube also disabled the option to search for “recent uploads.” Both that search feature and the use of human moderators are still currently blocked. As an added challenge, many of the videos were altered in ways that made it hard for YouTube’s AI to recognize them. And while YouTube tries to direct users to authoritative news sources during crises, for hours after the attack, footage could be found simply by searching “New Zealand.”

YouTube has been working to improve its system to flag problematic content for years. In 2017, Google announced it would hire 10,000 YouTube content moderators. At that time, its AI could help take down 70 percent of violent, extremist content within eight hours of upload. But as we saw after the Parkland shooting last year, even the company’s human moderation still needs work. Unfortunately, this is ongoing issue, as mass shootings and extremist content continue to spread around the globe. For the time being, neither Facebook, YouTube, Twitter nor Reddit can offer a true solution.

Our hearts are broken over today’s terrible tragedy in New Zealand. Please know we are working vigilantly to remove any violent footage.

— YouTube (@YouTube) March 15, 2019

The shooter wore a head-mounted camera to livestream the attack, and in his social posts and manifesto suggested that he wanted to stoke tensions that supported his anti-immigrant agenda. There’s been a concern that spreading the video is giving the attacker the exposure he wanted in addition to traumatizing viewers.

While the removal rate suggests that Facebook is having some success pulling the video, it also shows how difficult it can be to contain the spread of material like this. About 300,000 copies made it to the site before they were taken down, after all. The company’s existing mix of automated and human moderation can only do so much when it’s relatively easy to upload a video or make edits that can bypass content filters. Facebook and other internet firms may end up reviewing their methods to see if they can speed up video removals and make it harder to spread footage like this in the first place.

Facebook has confirmed that local law enforcement “alerted it to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced.” It said it had removed the unverified video along with the shooter’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. “We’re also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we’re aware,” said Mia Garlick, a Facebook spokesperson in New Zealand. “We will continue working directly with New Zealand Police as their response and investigation continues.” In a tweet, YouTube said: “Please know we are working vigilantly to remove any violent footage.”

Despite taking swift action, stopping the spread of unverified content may prove to be a tough challenge for Facebook and YouTube. By their very nature the two platforms are geared to spread viral content, putting moderators on the backfoot once something gets shared.

A 28-year-old man has been charged with murder and will appear in court on Saturday morning, police confirmed. Three other suspects, two men and one woman, have also been taken into custody, according to the police. Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the alleged gunman, who has Australian citizenship, as an “extremist, right-wing” terrorist. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden also labeled it a “terrorist attack.”

The alleged gunman identified himself online ahead of the shooting on a now-removed Twitter account, according to the Guardian. His tweets included numerous photos of machine gun magazines and a link to an alleged manifesto for his actions, which was also shared on 8chan, a highly-controversial messageboard platform. New Zealand Police have not confirmed if Tarrant is the man charged with murder.

The suspect’s social media activity and subsequent livestream of the attack suggest he wanted to draw attention to himself and his actions. His manifesto mentions Fortnite and Spyro the Dragon and conservative pundit Candace Owens, according to The Verge, indicating that he was trying to form a narrative around the shooting. Video games have incorrectly been linked to violence in the wake of mass shootings in the past.

The gunman can also be heard saying “remember, lads, subscribe to Pewdiepie,” near the start of the 17-minute clip of the attack, a reference to the popular YouTube creator Felix Kjellberg, who has drawn criticism for making anti-semitic comments in the past.

Kjellberg has taken to Twitter to condemn the shootings. “Just heard news of the devastating reports from New Zealand Christchurch. 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,” he said in a tweet.

Kjiellberg’s YouTube channel has the most subscribers at 89 million, but is currently facing competition from the T-Series channel. PewDiePie’s most devout fans have been carrying out stunts, including hacking printers and the Wall Street Journal website, to help him retain the top spot.