Live Hate and Violence: The Dark Side of Social Media Broadcasts

The live broadcast of a mass murder in upstate new york was cut in a matter of minutes, a time long enough for those images to circulate freely in any corner of the Internet.

The free speech laws of the United States They do not prevent posting this type of contentexperts warned AFP, so the decision to keep them online or not depends largely on each technology company.

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But even sites that want to remove them have a hard time doing so, because once they are transmitted over the internet, the videos can be edited and shared again.

Buffalo shooter was inspired by other live-streamed massacres

In the case of the Buffalo shooting, which killed 10 African-Americans in a supermarket on Saturday, it is particularly frightening that writings attributed to the suspect highlighted that he was inspired by another live-streamed massacre.

“If (companies) commit to broadcasting live, they commit to broadcasting a certain number of rapes, murders, suicides and other types of crimes,” said Mary Anne Franks, a professor at the University of Miami law school.

The live broadcast of the massacre on the platform Twitch by Amazon was removed in two minutes, according to the company, much faster than the attack on a New Zealand mosque broadcast on Facebook in 2019, which was 17 minutes on the air.

Tech companies say they are fighting hard to keep such images off their platforms, with automated and manual efforts by workers seeking to shut down the broadcast of video of attacks like the one in Buffalo.

But images can be edited, titles and names changed and content reposted on sites who agree to generate traffic with a product that others rejected.

For example, a tweet was posted Wednesday that quoted the Buffalo suspect by name, Payton Gendron, 18, adding a link to a video of the attack It didn’t show the murders.

But other videos were offered on the site, including one showing more than 90 seconds of the attack and claiming nearly 1,800 views since Sunday.

“there is nothing illegal in posting in the United States a live video of the broadcast” of massacres like the one in Buffalo, said Ari Cohn, a free expression adviser for the think tank TechFreedom.

Life and death consequences

Once a mass shooting is broadcast on an online platform, it can be perpetuated in different ways, for example by being recorded by users.

These new edited versions to prevent their removal then become part of a game of cat and mouse with the companies that hunt them, said a spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company.

The same problem is seen in other platforms like Twitter, that it has a policy of deleting the accounts of the perpetrators of massive attacks “and can also delete tweets that spread manifestos or other content produced by the perpetrators,” he said.

But companies must draw a fine line, as too broad a filter can end up unintentionally affecting other contentMeta Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen told reporters at a meeting on Tuesday.

Live broadcasts are one of the areas where social media platforms face accusations of promote violence and hatred, and law professor Franks says it’s not wise to offer that capability to the general public.

“The biggest problem is that when tech companies make these decisions for the public,” they do so as “a tool that is useful in ways that outweigh its drawbacks,” he added.

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Wednesday the opening of an investigation into several technology companies for the buffalo attack, including Twitch.

No clear policies or rules

The general lack of up-to-date national social media policies in the United States has also contributed to the problems associated with streaming video online.

States have created their own policies, which may reflect strong partisan differences about what can be allowed online.

Texas, for example, passed a controversial social media law that prohibits large companies from “discriminating” against freedom of expressionheavily criticized for being so broad that it interferes with content moderation.

“The recent tragedy (in Buffalo) shows that this is not just a partisan issue,” said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, at a roundtable on the law this week.

“There are life and death consequences by tying the hands of the industry to respond to bad actors on the Internet,” he added.

For Glenn CHAPMAN with Joshua MELVIN in WASHINGTON / AFP