Finland shooting prompts web monitoring rethink

OSLO A deadly shooting at a Finnish school on Tuesday raises questions over tougher policing of the Internet after news the gunman posted menacing videos of himself on the Web before killing 10 people.

Student Matti Juhani Saari, 22, also killed himself in the incident closely resembling a 2007 massacre at another Finnish school, where that gunman also published messages on Internet video sharing site YouTube.

Police were alerted to videos posted by Saari and even questioned him on Monday, a day before the attack.

He was not detained because the videos "did not threaten anyone" directly, said Finland's police chief -- highlighting the difficulty in judging the risk of postings on the Internet.

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said authorities needed to look into what can be done to better protect citizens, including possible changes in Internet monitoring and tougher gun laws.

Finnish President Tarja Halonen told broadcaster YLE: "The Internet and YouTube forums ... are not another planet. This is part of our world and we adults have the responsibility to check what is happening, and create borders and safety there."

Several videos posted on YouTube by "Mr. Saari" over the past month showed a dark-clad man firing a handgun at a shooting range. The videos were removed by YouTube, owned by U.S. Internet giant Google, shortly after the killings.

One video on a different website showed what appeared to be the same man saying directly into the lens: "You will die next," before firing off shots toward a camera on the ground.

In other footage, he emptied his pistol at an off-screen target, turned to the camera, said "goodbye" and walked off.

Finnish police declined to detail their Internet file on Saari or their talks with him on Monday, beyond they were carried out by "an experienced policeman".

MASS OUTLET

Criminologists say video-sharing websites offer killers unprecedented scope to get their messages across.

"This type of networking was not possible before the Internet era," Aarne Kinnunen, a trained criminologist and adviser to Finland's justice minister, told Reuters.

"The Internet creates the image that there is a crowd of people that respect this type of behavior and ... misrepresentation of reality."

Videos linked to killing sprees gained widespread attention in 2007 when Cho Seung-Hui killed 33 people, including himself, at Virginia Tech university in the United States and mailed a film explaining his actions to U.S. broadcaster NBC.

Analysts say web monitoring for malicious intent would be difficult since such threats were often vague, hoaxes commonplace and police resources limited. Kinnunen suggested linking Internet background checks to new gun permits.

Google said in a statement the videos posted by the suspected gunmen on YouTube did not breach its "zero tolerance policy for threats and incitement to violence".

YouTube, which said it receives 13 hours of new content each minute, removes material largely through a system of "community policing" if users themselves report inappropriate videos.

Saari's profile on YouTube included a link to another YouTube content provider, "Lovehetar" whose listed interests included serial killers, mass murderers and the Columbine high school shooting in the United States in 1999.

(Additional reporting by John Acher and Sakari Suoninen; Editing by Matthew Jones)