Murders, suicides on Facebook: dark side of live-streaming

By now, almost every user of a popular social networking site Facebook has tried out the new feature of live streaming. Basically, this component allows members to film themselves or specific events and broadcast them for other Facebook users to see as they are happening. Many people saw this as an opportunity to provide online lessons, stream their journeys or simply show documentaries of mundane events. However, not everything is as glossy as it seems from the first glance.

After live streaming function was introduced, certain members have taken advantage of it and broadcasted highly-disturbing content. Now, it appears that an adult man had filmed himself and his infant daughter. Nothing too crazy, right? The traumatic experience occurs when the father kills his baby and commits suicide afterwards. We should stress out that murder of an infant was shown live on Facebook and social networking site took nearly 24 hours to remove it. Of course, we do understand that a lot of posted content gets red-flagged, but it is still a shock that such a disturbing material was available for an entire day. The same video was removed by Youtube shortly after 15 minutes. So, it remains unanswered: was it impossible for Facebook to delete inappropriate content faster?

In the recorder footage, a Thai man holds his baby girl by the neck while standing on a roof of an abandoned building. The actual time of the live stream appears to have been 5pm in Bangkok. Presumably, after the man had killed his daughter, he committed suicide but by that time he had concluded his broadcast. Possible reasons for murdering his daughter and later on, himself, have been indicated. It appears that the man had a quarrel with his significant other and had no hope of reuniting with her.

This was not the only heart-broken fellow that decided Facebook was a suitable place to release pain. A 49-year old man live streamed his experiences with this girlfriend and explained that they had broken up. Of course, the guy struggled to get back on his feet. This live stream would not have been so terrifying if the man had not pulled out a gun and shot himself.

As it appears, you have to be extremely careful while watching live streams of random people or even of the people you do know. This is the 3 time when such a disturbing content was posted on Facebook this week. We hope that it does not become a trend and Facebook will learn to manage their affairs. Of course, the representatives of this social networking site admit that this was an unacceptable video material and hopes that they will be quicker to react if similar incidents take place again. If you are feeling that your life has hit a low point, we advise you to call certain helplines and think rationally before doing anything or posting material for the entire world to see. If live streams cannot be better-managed, wouldn’t it be better to remove this function?

Source: cnbc.com

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