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The Digital Asymmetry of the Christchurch Shootings
An act of terror by a few overshadows — online and off — a global youth protest against climate change
On Friday morning in Christchurch, New Zealand, scores of students walked out of their classrooms. Inspired by the example of the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who last August began regularly staying out of school to demonstrate against inaction on climate change, the Christchurch students were among the first to take part in today’s Global Climate Strike, an international protest that will feature hundreds of thousands, even millions of students striking in more than 120 countries. At 1 p.m. local time, the students gathered in Christchurch’s Cathedral Square, where they sent out tweets and Instagram posts meant to publicize their message: climate action now. They were hoping to seize the attention of not just anyone who might be passing by their protest, but the entire world — through the power of the internet. Their natural habitat.
At 1:40 p.m. local time, less than two miles away from Cathedral Square, a gunman entered Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque, where hundreds of worshippers were taking part in Friday Prayers. Another shooter reportedly entered the city’s Linwood Mosque at about the same time. They opened fire. By the time the shootings were finished, at least 49 people were dead, and dozens more were wounded. It was by far the worst mass shooting in New Zealand’s history, a larger death toll by population in this small country than the 9/11 attacks were for the United States.
Like the young climate strikers just a few miles away, the 28-year-old man who allegedly carried out the Al Noor shooting engineered his act for, in the words of the New York Times opinion writer Charlie Warzel, “maximum virality.” The shooter livestreamed 16 minutes of his attack on Facebook Live, and shortly before he entered the mosque, uploaded a long manifesto heavy with references to white genocide conspiracy theory and hate speech against migrants and Muslims, larded with winks at online far right-wing culture and internet memes. He called for people to support his attack online and to create more memes — to give his act of mass murder fresh life on the internet. His natural habitat.
