Christchurch terror attack: 'More than protest' needed on social media - Jacinda Ardern

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she's not interested in protesting about social media platforms actions in the wake of the Christchurch terror attack, rather making "meaningful change".

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are currently under fire after an alleged gunman livestreamed his attack on two Christchurch mosques.

Fifty people were killed in the attack, and the video has been shared and removed across social media more than a million times since.

Advertisers are currently pulling out of the Facebook, but Ardern told The AM Show she's not interested in protesting right now, rather making meaningful change.

"I'm taking a little bit of time, not much time, to think about what that should look like, what that could look like.

"There are some obvious situations here, [for example] the pace and speed at which the video was made available, was removed or should be removed and how we ensure it stays off and isn't made available, that's one part of the issue.

"But actually rather than just a protest on behalf of New Zealand by the Labour Party, this is a global problem and I do think we should reach a little higher than that."

She didn't say whether the Labour Party would pull advertising from the site over the issues.

Ardern met with Microsoft president Brad Smith about social media on Monday, but for Microsoft that mostly focused on corporate website Linkedin.

She said the conversations she had with Smith were broad.

"I had a very general conversation around our perspective on what expectations we can have around social media companies essentially holding up and upholding what are their own community standards.

"That's what we're asking, these are actually fairly black and white issues when you think about it, the availability of violent and extremist online content in any form.

"It's not an issue here in this realm of free speech, I think people would agree that some of the content we're talking about are the kinds of content that just shouldn't be available."

Newshub.

Contact Newshub with your story tips:
news@newshub.co.nz