The more I reflect, and read, and grieve over the massacre in Christchurch, the more I recognize that this goes far beyond guns. Like the complex world we currently live in, this tragedy has layers. On layers, on layers…

This is a racist problem. This is the reaction to an unfounded phobia. This is a horrific loss for the Muslim community. A horrific loss of human life. This is the weaponization of social media. It’s the lack of haste, responsibility, and prioritization among online tech companies to make this ecosystem of posts and shares a space safe. This is the meddling of far-right elected officials. This is an outcome of intolerable hatred propagated by politicians. This is about people putting up emotional walls to things that seem different or perhaps don’t fully understand. This is about the danger of actual nationalist walls. This is about fear. It’s about power. This is the disappearance of humanity and humility. The empathy towards one another moving further and further apart… 

This. Is. So. Fucked. Up. 

The grim ecosystem of online propaganda fueling white supremacy is raging. And entirely unacceptable. Tech companies like Facebook are failing to “move fast” towards a safer, stricter form of content surveillance. The New Zealand police should not be the ones informing one of the most powerful and technologically savvy companies in the world that a 17min (!) live stream video of a white supremacist’s massacre exists on their platform. To the best and brightest working on AI and drafting policy terms, let’s figure this out. And let’s figure it out now. Yes, it will be hard and difficult to design an unbiased review system. And yes, with more policing, there will be more disgruntled users with their accounts frozen and “under review”, which yes, will screw with your bottom line and number of active users. But better to have hate speech and footage of murders immediately under questioning than spreading like wildfire out there in the world. We have enough of that without the internet.

Far-right politicians from Alaska to Australia embrace these ideas of white supremacy, further promoting fear and reaping the benefits. America has an idiotic president who fails to admit the ideological damage and intolerable hate he’s spreading with vengeance across the globe. These are our elected officials! How the hell has it come to this? 

Positive point — at least this is coming out to the surface, people are now talking about it, as opposed to just letting it happen unknowingly. Things will change. Things will have to change.

We must stand together to condemn hatred and intolerance. It is unacceptable to be complacent. And it is impossible to do it alone.