Tech CEO Tweets Link To New Zealand Mass Shooting Video After Twitter Vows To Remove Depictions Of Massacre
A day after online platforms Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube came under heavy criticism for failing to quickly remove a horrifying video of Friday’s mass shooting in New Zealand, a video recorded and live streamed by the accused killer himself, as ABC News reported, the CEO of a U.S. internet company posted a new link to the horrifying video on Twitter.
While Inquisitr will not link to the video or the tweet that provides the new URL for the sickening footage, it was posted to Twitter by Rob Monster, the CEO of Epik.com, a domain registry that made headlines last October when it accepted the registration for Gab.com, an online discussion platform widely used by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other types of right-wing extremists.
Gab.com was kicked off the popular domain hosting site GoDaddy, after Robert Bowers — accused of a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, synagogue that killed 11 — was discovered to have posted numerous anti-Semitic messages on the forum, according to Domain Name Wire, an industry news site.
In an Epik.com blog post, Monster said that he was accepting the Gab.com domain because “De-Platforming is digital censorship. Blacklisting is digital shunning.” Monster added that he would “look forward to partnering with a young, and once brash, CEO who is courageously doing something that looks useful,” referring to Gab.com founder Andrew Torba.
Man who identified himself as Brenton Tarrant, 28, of Australia filmed self just before live streaming mass shooting at mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand pic.twitter.com/UowqUymsD2
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) March 15, 2019
On his LinkedIn page, Monster describes himself as a “Christian, Husband, Dad, Entrepreneur, Author, TEDx Speaker, Philanthropist.”
In a tweet on Friday, the Twitter Safety account said that the platform was “continuously monitoring and removing any content that depicts the tragedy, and will continue to do so in line with the Twitter Rules.” Twitter also asked users to report any content that breaks the platform’s rules.
But Monster’s tweet linking to the video of the New Zealand massacre, in which 28-year-old Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant is alleged to have killed 50 people, according to The Washington Post, was still accessible on Twitter, and the link appeared to remain active for about five hours after it was originally posted, according to researcher Jay McKenzie, posting on his own Twitter feed.
Monster’s tweet has since been removed, and replaced by Twitter with a link to the platform’s “enforcement options.”
Tarrant, described by The Washington Post as an “avowed neo-Nazi,” made a court appearance on Saturday, as seen in the photo at the top of this page in which Tarrant’s face has been blurred as the result of court order, where he was charged with a single murder count. But authorities in New Zealand said that more charges were pending when Tarrant made his next court appearance sometime in April.
Police also said on Saturday that Tarrant appeared to have acted as a “lone gunman” in the attacks, according to Radio New Zealand.
