Facebook 'silent' on Christchurch terror attack - NZ Commercial Communications Council

Advertisers have stepped up their call for a global boycott of advertising on Facebook.

The Association of New Zealand Advertisers and Commercial Communications Council members are pulling out of the platform to put pressure on it to regulate its livestreaming services after the Christchurch terror attack.

The groups published an open letter on Tuesday calling for Facebook to make immediate change to its livestreaming service.

"While Facebook has provided platitudes and details of its reactive measures it has not implemented strict controls to verify safe content and users or paused live streaming, meaning a repeat of the broadcast of violent acts seen in Christchurch could happen at any time around the world," the letter says.

Fifty people were killed after a gunman opened fire inside the Deans Ave and Linwood Ave Mosques on Friday March 15.

The attack was livestreamed and Facebook has since come under pressure for allowing the video to spread across the platform.

Commercial Communications Council chief executive Paul Head says Facebook has been silent.

"To date, I don't believe that they've acted appropriately in response to a calamity of this scale and nature.

"They seem to be pretending if they do nothing it might go away."

Head said the New Zealand offices of some companies are trying to make their international partners follow suit.

"Both agencies and client believe that this move is totally appropriate and we know that they'll be putting pressure on their global organisations."

Facebook itself admitted it was slow to respond to the video after its artificial intelligence system failed to detect it.

"While (AI's) effectiveness continues to improve, it is never going to be perfect," Facebook said in a statement on Thursday night (NZ time).

"People will continue to be part of the equation, whether it's the people on our team who review content, or people who use our services and report content to us."

Facebook said it took down over a million copies of the video in the wake of the shooting.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met with Microsoft on Monday to discuss the Government's possible regulatory role with social media.

"They had a helpful discussion about options available to Government, technology and social media companies to make our communities safer, and discussed ways in which meaningful change might be achieved in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack," a spokesperson for the Prime Minister told Newshub.

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The video and a manifesto by the gunman have now been classified as "objectionable" by New Zealand's Chief Censor, meaning it is now an offence to share them, as well as to possess them for the purpose of supply or distribution.

A representative for Facebook declined to comment further, pointing Newshub to media releases it had made since the attack.

The spokesperson refuted claims Facebook has been "silent" referring to interviews it has provided with Stuff, NZME, RNZ and Newshub.

Newshub.