In some past incidences of terrorism and hate crime, pictures of the wrong people have been published around the world on social and in mainstream media.Īfter the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, the wrong man was fingered as a culprit by a crowd-sourced detective hunt on various social media sites. Sharing this material can be highly problematic. The risks of sharing information about terrorism Mainstream media outlets are dropping the ball with terrorism coverage Six minutes of raw video was posted by, which, after a warning at the front of the clip, showed video from the gunman’s helmet camera as he drove through the streets on his way to the mosque. On Facebook, it was easy to source pictures, and even a selfie, that the alleged perpetrator had shared on social media before entering the mosque.īut it was not just social media that shared the pictures.
Later, it was possible to see that his Twitter account had been suspended. Today, information about the name of the Christchurch gunman, his photograph and his Twitter account, were easy to find. The editor of Le Monde, Jérôme Fenoglio, said:įollowing the attack in Nice, we will no longer publish photographs of the perpetrators of killings, to avoid possible effects of posthumous glorification.
Following a spate of killings in France in 20, French mainstream media proprietors decided to adopt a policy of not recycling pictures of atrocities.
