Facebook Live Controversy

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As Facebook continues to grow and evolve, it brings new technology and features along with it. In 2015, Facebook launched Facebook Live. It enables you to post live video directly to your Facebook page while you are filming. Facebook has been pushing this feature heavily and has even paid some companies and media sites to use the Live function to help increase its popularity. Facebook Live has subsequently taken off and been very successful, but it has also brought some negative attention along with it.
One of the first viral videos that was filmed on Facebook Live was a comical 3-minute video of a woman opening and wearing a Star wars Chewbacca mask and then laughing for the rest of the video. It currently has over 163 million views on Facebook. …show more content…

Many times, the content can be violent or inappropriate for general audiences. Although the imagery is not the entertaining content that Facebook thought they would be encouraging, some of these videos are now being used as evidence in investigations. The question is, is Facebook the appropriate site to host live videos that may contain disturbing images or criminal activity. If the answer is no, is there actually a way to regulate what is posted or will Live videos continue to be a free-for-all style …show more content…

It is important to me to keep all of my social media content appropriate and as non-biased as possible because I never know when a potential employer or even a family member may be looking at my posts. I hope that there will never be a need for me to post a Live video that contains criminal evidence or graphic content, but if I do, I know that it has the potential of being seen by thousands if not millions of people, and could potentially be used as evidence in court. Not necessarily a situation I’d like to involve myself with.
Facebook recently released a statement saying that it now has an on-call team who specifically monitors live videos and also reviews flagged videos as they are being reported. After Facebook removed a video of a man dying as the result of a police shooting, the company came under a lot of scrutiny and users were unhappy with the removal. Facebook soon put the video back online, but added a “graphic content” warning. They then attributed the removal to a technical glitch. This shows that Facebook is almost helpless when it comes to screening and removing violent or inappropriate Live

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