Facebook recently took an extremely controversial step that puts the social network in an extremely bad position in front of users around the world. At a time when more and more live broadcasts of suicides, crimes, beatings, rapes, or other crimes are published on Facebook, the American company should not limit the right to free expression of some people.
More precisely, those at Facebook took the decision not to ban the live transmission of suicide attempts, or even suicides, despite the opposition of many users. New documents provided by moderators of the Facebook company reveal the fact that the decision was made to relax the policy regarding the transmission of suicides via Facebook Live.
Those at Facebook made this decision because they do not want to deprive people who are in despair of the cause of the help they could receive to stop them from attempting suicide. If the suicide takes place, those from Facebook will delete the video clips only if the person has died, or if the tragedy is not important for the press.
Facebook - will allow the transmission of suicides live
It seems that certain experts hired by the Facebook company have advised the management to take this extremely controversial decision and there will certainly be a lot of opposition to it. According to the experts hired by Facebook, banning the transmission of suicide attempts, or suicides, would represent a punishment for those people and would even put their lives in danger.
The transmissions of these events will only be possible if the respective people chat on Facebook with the people who watch the respective live transmissions. Facebook is of the opinion that these video clips could convince other people to commit suicide, so it will delete those that are not important enough to be reported by the international press.
"We're now seeing more video content – including suicides – shared on Facebook. We don't want to censor or punish people in distress who are attempting suicide. Experts have told us what's best for these people's safety is to let them livestream as long as they are engaging with viewers. However, because of the contagion risk [ie some people who see suicide are more likely to consider suicide], what's best for the safety of people watching these videos is for us to remove them once there's no longer an opportunity to help the person."
Basically, Facebook indirectly confirms the fact that suicide attempts, or suicides, keep people busy on its social network and will allow their transmission. The video clips left after a suicide on Facebook will be deleted only if the social network is not sufficiently promoted by the press, and this is how things are done in the civilized world.
