White Nationalist Terrorist Kills 49

[Jamiet99uk]

A racist, fascist white nationalist opened fire in New Zealand today, murdering 49 people in one of the worst terrorist atrocities ever committed in that country.

A horrifying reminder of the dangers of fascism and extreme nationalism. We must be vigilant.

[Fluminator]

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/christc ... ctims-fund

I know people rip on prayer for these things, but seeing as it happened in a house of prayer, I think all the victims would appreciate it as they believe in its power.

[Jamiet99uk]

Prayer is false and irrelevant but if people want to contribute to actual efforts to help, that's great.

[flash2015]

Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux recently toured Australia and NZ touting their "Great Replacement"/White Supremacy" story.

They whine A LOT about their "freedom of speech", about protesters trying to shut them down. But you can see why protesters feel this way. As we have learnt from history, when you give these divisive arguments air and make them acceptable people act on them...as we have tragically seen in NZ.

[orathaic]

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences, if protesters wish to boycott venues who host certain kinds of speech, and venues decide to cancel events, no-one's freedom of speech has been violated.

The venue is entitled to their speech, which includes taking a stance, whether in responce to a boycott threat, or because they actually disagree...

Apart from the fact that traditionally freedom from the threat of state violence is what freedom of speech meant.

[MajorMitchell]

First I would express my respect for the victims who have died, my condolences to to their families, friends and communities and similar empathy towards the injured and others affected.
It has been reported that the alleged mass murderer is an Australian citizen and I should make it clear that this atrocity does not represent those values and principles​ that define the nation of which I am a citizen.

I will wait before making a post on the other issues related to this horrific tragedy such as the dangers of hate speech, innefective gun control laws, the need for major global social platforms such as Facebook to step up and do a much more effective job in preventing the misuse of their services by extremists who preach hatred and violence etc.

What does show the world what values and principles that the peoples of both Australia and New Zealand embrace is our response.

[MajorMitchell]

I'm most impressed with New Zealand Prime Minister Jascinta Ardern, just watched her speech in the New Zealand Parliament. Amongst the several excellent statements made, one I would bring to reader's attention.
Ms. Ardern said that she will not name the alleged murderer. He wants notoriety, attention, wants his name to be known around the world. I know his name, but inspired by Ms. Ardern, I intend to do the same.
Let us remember the names of the victims, not the name of their callous executioner.
I extend that proposition to the WebDiplomacy community. Let's make a point of never naming this alleged murderer in the Forum. It might seem a trivial thing, but I make the request. Not for my benefit. It's to make a point, we will respect, honour and remember the victims, we will comfort their families & friends. So if we do it, we do it for them.
And we will deny the terrorist recognition, notoriety.

[Octavious]

Being Australian I just assumed he was called Bruce.

In all honesty I think this is more about politics than anything else. The Kiwi PM is saying a line that appeals to her supporters. Whether it has any impact on the crime itself I doubt. In terms of notoriety, I'd say being singled out by the PM as making such an impact he can't be named would make him more notorious than otherwise. One direct impact of Bruce being actively not named is that we're still talking about him.

[flash2015]

Being Australian I just assumed he was called Bruce.

In all honesty I think this is more about politics than anything else. The Kiwi PM is saying a line that appeals to her supporters. Whether it has any impact on the crime itself I doubt. In terms of notoriety, I'd say being singled out by the PM as making such an impact he can't be named would make him more notorious than otherwise. One direct impact of Bruce being actively not named is that we're still talking about him.

You are cynical, aren't you? And I thought I was cynical and jaded...

I think this was for a local audience so that they talk about the victims more than the attacker. Obviously it won't make much of a difference on a global scale (e.g. Australian media have already been interviewing the family of the killer).

[Senlac]

Being Australian I just assumed he was called Bruce.

In all honesty I think this is more about politics than anything else. The Kiwi PM is saying a line that appeals to her supporters. Whether it has any impact on the crime itself I doubt. In terms of notoriety, I'd say being singled out by the PM as making such an impact he can't be named would make him more notorious than otherwise. One direct impact of Bruce being actively not named is that we're still talking about him.

You are cynical, aren't you? And I thought I was cynical and jaded...

I think this was for a local audience so that they talk about the victims more than the attacker. Obviously it won't make much of a difference on a global scale (e.g. Australian media have already been interviewing the family of the killer).

Now I’m cynical. This “naming” issue is about the NZ prime minister & little else. It’s called posturing.

[Octavious]

Why is talking about victims more than the attacker desirable? The survivors and the victims families need to be looked after and treated with respect, certainly, but in such a situation I'd much rather be left out of the media spotlight as much as possible.

In terms of the attacker, you will have public interest regardless of whether you mention the name or not. You can't stop mass murder being a major story. Hiding information just arouses curiosity. Going out of your way to state you're not mentioning his name generates a lot more notoriety than, say, simply not mentioning his name.

[flash2015]

Being Australian I just assumed he was called Bruce.

In all honesty I think this is more about politics than anything else. The Kiwi PM is saying a line that appeals to her supporters. Whether it has any impact on the crime itself I doubt. In terms of notoriety, I'd say being singled out by the PM as making such an impact he can't be named would make him more notorious than otherwise. One direct impact of Bruce being actively not named is that we're still talking about him.

You are cynical, aren't you? And I thought I was cynical and jaded...

I think this was for a local audience so that they talk about the victims more than the attacker. Obviously it won't make much of a difference on a global scale (e.g. Australian media have already been interviewing the family of the killer).

Now I’m cynical. This “naming” issue is about the NZ prime minister & little else. It’s called posturing.

I kind of think it is sad that we are seeing this as just posturing. At least to my understanding, NZ politics has not been infected (yet) with the same level of hyper-partisanship which we see in countries like the USA. I thought she was quite genuine in her response, especially since is something that in the past NZ has never needed to deal with.

[Octavious]

I kind of think it is sad that we are seeing this as just posturing. At least to my understanding, NZ politics has not been infected (yet) with the same level of hyper-partisanship which we see in countries like the USA. I thought she was quite genuine in her response, especially since is something that in the past NZ has never needed to deal with.

I don't follow the link with partisanship, nor with the USA. Politicians have had one eye on public opinion for thousands of years. Politicians are human, and I have no doubt that she has genuine compassion for the victims and genuine anger at the attacker. But it would be somewhat naive to assume that the no name speech hasn't been carefully looked over by spin doctors and their ilk.

[MajorMitchell]

I watched the entire speech by the New Zealand Prime Minister. I don't think others who have suggested it's just political posturing have. I don't see what is so difficult with the proposition, or that using the behaviour of the media is the wisest choice for a model for societies' behaviour.
Obviously the alleged murderer will be referred to in discussions​.
What's so difficult about using that description, or similar and not using his name ? He wants the world to know of him, to know his name. If you think he deserves that reward, then go ahead and give him something he wants. I don't & I won't. I made a request, I didn't issue a directive.

[flash2015]

Why is talking about victims more than the attacker desirable? The survivors and the victims families need to be looked after and treated with respect, certainly, but in such a situation I'd much rather be left out of the media spotlight as much as possible.

In terms of the attacker, you will have public interest regardless of whether you mention the name or not. You can't stop mass murder being a major story. Hiding information just arouses curiosity. Going out of your way to state you're not mentioning his name generates a lot more notoriety than, say, simply not mentioning his name.

Why put locks on your door? A determined thief can always break in anyway.

Sure people are still going to talk about it, especially with the internet. We can't block it completely...as we could do in the past. But I think it helps not to add to the discussion, no? We know that part of the reason to do this will be for fame/notoriety...and this fame/notoriety will encourage more copycats.

I don't know where you thought I said or she suggested the victim's families should be harassed by media coverage. At least to my understanding, we are only talking about condolences/support for the victims, their families and the community.

[MajorMitchell]

Clearly there are other things people can do. One thing that is happening in New Zealand and Australia is non Muslims are visiting Mosques to offer their protection and support. To also demonstrate their support for the rights of freedom of religious expression and to make the point that they support the right of people who have a different faith to theirs to enjoy the same rights that they have.

[Octavious]

@ MajorMitchell

As I say, I believe that making a speech in Parliament saying you refuse to say his name makes him more notorious than he would have been otherwise, not less. I suspect he won't be crying into his porridge that she didn't call him Boris, but delighting in the fact that the Prime Minister is making a speech about him being reported across the globe.

On a more general point, what the bastard claims to want doesn't make a blind bit of difference to me. Whether he wants a martyr's death or not should be of no consideration to how the police choose to stop him. Whether he wants his day in court should have no influence over how the law treats him. Whether he wants his name spoken or not will make no difference to how I will discuss him. As soon as you give his desires any weight you get into guessing games over what he actually wants, and changing your actions in the hope of outfoxing him. He's not worth the effort.

[MajorMitchell]

I disagree with the proposition that we should avoid or minimise discussion about the tragic event. I hold the antithetical view. This event must be discussed, and in that discussion the perpetrator will be mentioned. Aspects other than his identity are far more important imho.
Reforms to New Zealand's gun control laws are an important issue for the kiwis to resolve.
Tolerance of hate speech, dog whistling, the vile politics of the racists have to be discussed and ways to repudiate and eradicate the influence of these foul activists found and implemented.
The responsibility, or irresponsibllity of social media players like Facebook has to be addressed. It can't be only profits and little, token or no responsibility taken. They're, in my opinion, publishers with the same responsibilities as newspaper publishers. A newspaper publisher is responsible for the content of it's Letters to the Editor page. I don't think that "we only printed what leon1122 wrote" is a viable defense in a libel case. Why should Facebook be able to use this sort of pathetic excuse.. "we only provide a platform, if a person we allowed to use our service posted a libellous/offensive post that's not our responsibility" ?
Plus this, it's too hard technically excuse doesn't have any validity in my opinion. Facebook are certainly capable of creating extremely sophisticated algorithms to analyse users behaviours as consumers, their interests to enable targeted advertising, and do so because it's extremely lucrative. Political Parties are using sophisticated algorithms to analyse citizens probable voting behaviour and using that information to target political messaging to individuals.
And it's supposedly too difficult to create algorithms that search out hate speech etc ??? Sorry, I'm just not buying that. It's not profitable that's why it's said to be too technically difficult.

[MajorMitchell]

Octavious, it's not about influencing the degree of the Blighters notoriety, his actions have bought him imfamy and notoriety.
I think the main motivation was to make the point that as a national leader, Ms. Ardern intends to give maximum respect to the victims and their families and the barest minimum/none to the alleged murderer. A secondary motivation was, deny him something he wants.
It appealed to me and I intend to follow her example. Others, as always, can do as they choose. I'm Daffy old MajorMitchell. You, Octavious are as wise as a tree full of owls. Please don't expect me to be rational to the degree that you are. My motivation to follow the example of Ms. Ardern was more emotionally driven than by dispassionate logic, I freely make that admission.

[MajorMitchell]

Perhaps I should have written, I'm not sure that it's about influencing the degree of the Blighters... rather than boldly stating it as a fact.