Facebook says no one reported the New Zealand mosque shootings live video. But a reporter says he raised the alarm mid-attack.

Isobel Asher Hamilton

March 19, 2019 11:09 AM

FILE - In this April 11, 2018, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pauses while testifying before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington about the use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 election and data privacy. Zuckerberg said Facebook will start to emphasize new privacy-shielding messaging services, a shift apparently intended to blunt both criticism of the company's data handling and potential antitrust action. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Facebook said no users reported the video of the New Zealand mosque shootings while it was still live.
This was disputed by a reporter for Right Wing Watch, who said he was alerted to the live video and raised the alarm immediately.
The shooter streamed the attack on Facebook, and despite copies of the video spreading like wildfire, the company said the live broadcast was viewed fewer than 200 times.

Facebook has provided further details of its response to the video of the mosque shooting which left 50 people dead in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday.

The attack was streamed live on Facebook via what is thought to be a body-mounted camera. A link to the stream was posted on 8Chan, an imageboard site known for a being a hotbed of far-right extremist views.

In a blog published Monday , Facebook said the live video was viewed fewer than 200 times. After the livestream ended, the video was viewed a further 3,800 times before being taken down, Facebook said.

According to Facebook, no one reported the video while it was live, and the first user report came in 12 minutes after the broadcast ended, 29 minutes after it began.

This has been challenged. Jared Holt, a reporter for Right Wing Watch, said he was alerted to the live stream and reported it mid-attack.

"I was sent a link to the 8chan post by someone who was scared shortly after it was posted. I followed the Facebook link shared in the post. It was mid-attack and it was horrifying. I reported it," Holt tweeted . "Either Facebook is lying or their system wasn't functioning properly."

Facebook did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. It said on Sunday that it removed 1.5 million versions of the video that were uploaded to the platform .

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