Elham Asaad Buaras

The role of social media and online forums in the radicalisation of the white supremacist who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in two Christchurch mosques three years ago will form part of the coroner’s inquiry into New Zealand’s worst modern-day mass killing.

The Coroner, Brigitte Windley, who announced the details of her inquiry in a decision released on May 5, has warned of “monumental hurdles” to exploring the terrorist’s online activities—including Brenton Tarrant’s attempts to wipe parts of his digital footprint before committing the attacks.

The terrorist attack on March 15, 2019, was planned for an online audience; the gunman streamed live footage and posted a manifesto online before the Australian shot dozens of people at two mosques. Windley’s decision to include the terrorist’s online activity in her investigation of what factors caused the deaths was welcomed by some Muslim groups.

Aliya Danzeisen, of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand said the coroner had “opened the door to investigating the responsibilities” of online platforms in the radicalisation of Tarrant and others.
Many of the families had earlier decried the Government’s decision to exclude the actions of private companies—including online platforms—from the royal commission into the attacks, which published its report in December 2020.

Windley said she would focus on Tarrant’s online activities between 2014 and 2017, during which he travelled the world extensively, and before he moved to New Zealand from Australia and began planning the attack. She said it was a window not covered by earlier investigations.

It is known that Tarrant spent time on YouTube and the message forums 4chan and 8chan. But the coroner said she would not scrutinise the actions taken by online platforms to monitor their users for extremist content unless her inquiry uncovered evidence that Tarrant’s online activities were a significant cause of his radicalisation. His “psychological makeup” and “upbringing in provincial New South Wales” were among other factors, she said.

Windley has ordered Tarrant to divulge the location of a missing hard drive and whether information on it was uploaded to cloud-based storage.

The gunman was sentenced to life in prison, however his guilty plea meant the evidence against him was never heard, and the royal commission was conducted entirely behind closed doors. In a report of over 800 pages, it concluded that while counter-terrorism agencies had focused on “Islamist” terror threats to the exclusion of other ideologies, Tarrant’s attack could not have been prevented “except by chance”.

Some families bereaved have raised questions about whether their relatives’ deaths could have been prevented—either in the lead-up to or immediate aftermath of the attack.

For many, the lack of access to material investigators had relied upon—some of which will now be provided to them as part of the inquiry—has prompted distrust in official conclusions about the case. Windley acknowledged the “information void” to date for the bereaved families and survivors, but stopped short of expanding her inquiry to cover everything they had asked her to investigate.

A public inquest would be held into the emergency response to the attacks.

Photo: Brenton Tarrant (Credit: John Kirk-Anderson/Pool/Epa/Anadolu Agency)