New Zealand attack video: An unnamed group spread it to millions on Facebook

Christchurch : So far it was known that a gunman live streamed New Zealand mosques massacre video on Facebook, and the moderators removed it within 30 minutes from the social network; but, now a new report claims that an unnamed group spread it to millions of the users in less than 24 hours.

An anonymous message board 8chan distributed the video link to several users and asked them to re-upload it, share it. The sad strategy worked and within 24 hours, the video of a mass terror attack that killed 50 people at two mosques had been uploaded onto Facebook more than 1.5 million times.

New numbers released by social media companies confirm what has been apparent since the Friday killings: A single video that had been seen live by a relatively small audience had become, at the speed of the web, impossible to contain, propelled by the same social-media infrastructure that has helped make American tech one of the most popular and wealthiest industries in history.

The original 17-minute live stream was announced on 8chan, a site known as a haven for far-right extremism and hate speech, and posters there shared tips on how to save and share the video for "posterity" and maximum distribution.

However, the Facebook claims that they had removed the original 17-minute stream from the social network by the time it was seen only by 4000 users.

They also added the video to an internal ban list and began blocking it almost immediately, removing 1.5 million videos of the shooting within the first 24 hours, the company said.