On March 15 2019 Facebook live-streamed the murder of 51 people to more than 4,000 others. Strangely they haven’t been de-platformed as a result.
Facebook said a live streamed video apparently showing last week’s attack on two mosques in New Zealand was viewed 4,000 times before it was removed.
The suspected gunman, an Australian named Brenton Harrison Tarrant, allegedly killed 51 people after opening fire on Muslim worshipers at the two mosques, livestreaming the whole ordeal on Facebook. Tarrant has been charged with murder.
During the livestream, Facebook said the video was viewed fewer than 200 times. No users reported the video during the live broadcast, the social network said. Such broadcasts remain on Facebook even once they have ended. In total, the video was viewed 4,000 times before it was removed, the American social media giant said.
CNBC
Yet Parler was de-platformed for allegedly allowing their platform to be used to plot insurrection, despite no actual evidence of that, and plenty more evidence that both Twitter and Facebook were also used to plot insurrection.
Both Google and Apple removed the app Parler from their app stores, claiming the free speech alternative social media platform was used to coordinate the assault on the Capitol. However, according to the Associated Press, Twitter was also used for this purpose.
Defense and National Guard officials, including McCarthy, have said in interviews over the past several days they were told by D.C. that they believed the protests would be similar to the ones on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12. And they said that federal law enforcement authorities said that there was activity on Twitter, but that they weren’t expecting the level of violence they ultimately saw last Wednesday.
Activity on Twitter? Wasn’t “activity” on Parler the excuse for dropping the app from the Google Play and Apple app stores, and for Amazon to stop hosting them?
PJ Media
But back to Facebook and their platform which was used to spread video of the murder of 51 people:
The video was, however, shared in different formats across Facebook. The company said it was able to detect visually similar videos to the original and automatically remove them from Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook said on Saturday that it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack in the first 24 hours after it was originally livestreamed. Facebook said 1.2 million of those videos “were blocked at upload.”
CNBC
So 300,000 videos weren’t blocked.
When you compare what Parler is alleged to have done versus what Facebook actually did, you have to wonder why Facebook hasn’t been de-platformed or removed from Apple and Google stores.
Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that Facebook has their own server farms. But it still doesn’t answer why both Google and Apple allow Facebook’s apps, including Instagram, in their app stores.
What Facebook allowed to happen on March 15, 2019 was far worse than what Parler has been accused of. Yet they remain as the arbiters of truth in an increasingly polarised world.