In wake of Christchurch, tech regulation in EU and Australia risks restricting journalism - Committee to Protect Journalists

The challenge is to make sure these efforts succeed without undermining reporting or putting journalists at risk of being considered criminals. Journalists rely on original online source material, some of it violent, to do their work. "Why is it that we heard so much about the online documentation of the Syrian war?" former CPJ Middle East researcher Jason Stern said in an interview. "Well, the usual way of reporting, to be there in person, see with [your] own eyes, is no longer possible because it is too dangerous." Stern, who worked at CPJ from 2013 to 2016, reported on the 2014 murders by Islamic State operatives in Syria of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, which proliferated online after they were videotaped as part of the militant group's propaganda and recruiting efforts. "I noticed a huge shift in what it was like to research potential war crimes after the ISIS execution of Foley and Sotloff," Stern said. "[Social media platforms] became much faster and finding and removing content."