"Immediately after Charlie Kirk was shot during a college event in Utah, graphic video of what happened was available almost instantly online, from several angles, in slow-motion and real-time speed. Millions of people watched - sometimes whether they wanted to or not - as the videos autoplayed on social media platforms. Video was easy to find on X, on Facebook, on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube - even on President Donald Trump's Truth Social."
"The events illustrate the content moderation challenges platforms face in handling fast-moving real-time events, complicated by the death of a polarizing conservative activist who was shot in front of a crowd armed with smartphones recording the moment. Ambiguous policies It's an issue social media companies have dealt with before. Facebook was forced to contend with people wanting to livestream violence with a mass shooting in New Zealand in 2019. People have also livestreamed fights, suicides and murder."
"It was not immediately obvious whether Instagram for example was just failing to remove some of the graphic videos of Charlie Kirk being shot or whether they had made a conscious choice to leave them up. And the reason that it that was so hard to tell is that, obviously, those videos were circulating really widely,"
Graphic video of Charlie Kirk's shooting became available online almost instantly from multiple angles and in both slow-motion and real-time. Millions of users saw autoplaying clips across platforms including X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Truth Social. Platforms applied varying responses: some removed content that violated policies, some applied warning screens, and some restricted viewing for under-18 users. Despite takedown efforts and calls for removal, videos remained widely accessible two days after the killing. Ambiguous content policies and the speed of circulation complicated moderation, echoing previous incidents where livestreamed violence challenged platform rules.
Read at AP News
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