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Neil Finn Leaves Social Media Due To Enabling "Hateful Ideology"

Neil Finn, the frontman of Crowded House and one of New Zealand's most esteemed singer-songwriters has announced that he will not partake in social media in the wake of the Christchurch mosque shooting.

On Friday 15th March, a lone gunman opened fire on two mosques in the city of Christchurch. The shooter, a white supremacist, was charged with murder the following day. Fifty people were killed in the shooting, making it New Zealand's worst mass shooting. What is deeply unsettlingly about this attack is the gunman live streamed the attack across social media in a bid to maximise the number of witnesses to the attack across the globe.

Finn took to Twitter to share his condolences with the families of the victims.

He also shared that as a result of this attack he has made the personal decision to longer take part in social media. He states that these platforms have enabled "the spread of hateful ideology".

Friday's attack exemplified the global issue of extremist content being shared across social channels. The Facebook live stream of the shooting lasted 17 minutes. The original video was taken down, however, it was copied and shared across other platforms including YouTube and Twitter. The tech giants struggled to stop the videos and other white supremacist propaganda relating to the attack.

British home secretary Sajid Javid is urging the tech giants to take ownership and take action on stopping the violent extremism promoted on their platforms.

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