"Read the letter New Zealand telecom executives sent to Facebook, Google & Twitter," 19 March 2019

Executives at three major internet service providers in New Zealand have written a letter to the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter, asking them to take more responsibility over the content on their platforms... "You may be aware that on the afternoon of Friday 15 March, three of New Zealand's largest broadband providers, Vodafone NZ, Spark and 2degrees, took the unprecedented step to jointly identify and suspend access to web sites that were hosting video footage taken by the gunman related to the horrific terrorism incident in Christchurch. As key industry players, we believed this extraordinary step was the right thing to do in such extreme and tragic circumstances... Although we recognize the speed with which social network companies sought to remove Friday's video once they were made aware of it, this was still a response to material that was rapidly spreading globally and should never have been made available online... We call on Facebook, Twitter and Google, whose platforms carry so much content, to be a part of an urgent discussion at an industry and New Zealand Government level on an enduring solution to this issue... Social media companies and hosting platforms that enable the sharing of user generated content with the public have a legal duty of care to protect their users and wider society by preventing the uploading and sharing of content such as this video... Now is the time for this conversation to be had, and we call on all of you to join us at the table and be part of the solution.