Ardern puts pressure on tech leaders at Paris

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has addressed tech company leaders at the Christchurch Call in Paris asking them to act on the way their platforms "funnel people" toward extremist content online.

In her speech at the opening of the summit Ms Ardern asked tech leaders to be transparent and prioritise terrorist and extremist content when it's flagged and take action immediately.

Tech leaders and heads of government have descended on Paris to sign up to the Christchurch Call - an agreement to try and eliminate harmful content online.

Ms Ardern says while some work is already underway, she asked that governments be reported to regularly on the progress being made in a "verifiable and measurable way''.

She said she stood before leaders with the 51 lives lost in New Zealand heavy on her mind and that the hearts of Aotearoa still ache.

While it's been two months since the Christchurch attack, she was still told of women who were "too frightened to leave their homes''.

She said the sheer scale of the reach of the footage of the attacks was "staggering".

"The original footage was viewed 4000 times before being removed by Facebook. But within the first 24 hours it spread and proliferated, 1.5 million copies of the video were taken down from Facebook. There was one upload per second to YouTube in the first 24 hours alone."

She said it was "unquestionable" that the spread of the footage caused harm.

"Thousands of New Zealanders called our nationwide mental health support line saying the video was causing them distress.

"The video persists, despite efforts taken to date to remove it. Those wanting to perpetuate grief or hate keep finding ways to cut and share the video and outwit the efforts of the companies in this room to stop its spread.

"The ongoing availability of the video continues to magnify the despicable terrorist act and the fear it causes."

Read the Christchurch Call agreement here: