SHAME ON YOU , FACEBOOK
How your child was just 3 clicks from this vile video of a man being beaten and stabbed...until MoS forced web giant to take it down after 2 years and 7 million views
A MAN is viciously stabbed with a 15in knife again and again and left lying in a pool of his blood as he begs for his life.
This is the shocking video which any child could easily stumble across on Facebook – and which has remained online for more than two years, despite pleas for the web giant to remove it.
The disturbing footage has been viewed more than seven million times and is just three clicks away from a simple search using innocuous terms on Google.
Anyone who happens upon the film is then confronted with other equally shocking footage, including a mother attacking her traumatised toddler.
When questioned by The Mail on Sunday, Facebook initially tried to justify its hosting of the films. It backed down yesterday and removed the horrific material while it mounted an investigation. Yet late last night the video of the attack reappeared on Facebook before coming down again.
Leading politicians condemned the web giant amid the growing furore over the failure of other internet titans including Google and Twitter to remove hate speech, child abuse and other offensive material.
Last night, Yvette Cooper, chair of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said: ‘These videos are deeply disturbing as they involve torture, potentially murder, and child abuse. Facebook need to now review their entire systems, because these vile videos have been up for years. They need a system that can enforce their own standards the first time around.’
The committee quizzed the web giants last week. Labour MP Ms Cooper said: ‘Facebook admitted to us that their systems didn’t do enough to consider the context of images. The same is true in these cases.’
Media Secretary Karen Bradley said Facebook must ‘take responsibility’ to ensure their platform is not used to ‘celebrate horrendous acts of violence’.
The sickening video came up after typing in the search term ‘Facebook video of man…’ on Google. The site’s auto-complete function, which is based on the most popular internet searches, then directed users to the first option ‘…man being stabbed’.
Clicking on the top result brought users to a Facebook page where a ‘disgusted’ user complained about the video more than two years ago and provided a link in the hope the social media giant would take it down. The user complained: ‘It is vile that you allow this to be on your website after reviewing!’
The two-minute stabbing video was uploaded in October 2014 by Kim Quaresma, who is understood to be from Rio de Janeiro, with a message which translates as: ‘The drug traffickers do not forgive.’
In the footage, the man is also seen being savagely beaten with a metal pole, his screams muffled by tape across his mouth. One of the attackers, speaking in Portuguese, says: ‘Hey, look at how you end up. You got to take it… he’s a scumbag.’ It is not known whether the victim survived.
The clip has been viewed more than 7.2million times, with more than 120,000 shares, as well as being ‘liked’ 32,000 times. The only warning on the video is a message before users play it which reads: ‘Videos that contain graphic content can shock, offend and upset. Are you sure you want to see this?’
Facebook’s rules allow certain graphic or violent content to be shared only where users are ‘condemning it or raising awareness about it’ – but not when it is ‘shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate or glorify violence’.
Such videos are also supposed to be blocked to under-18s, but experts said it was easy to circumvent the restriction.
Among the thousands of comments on the video, some glorify the violence, but others question why Facebook has not removed it.
Viewers who check Quaresma’s other videos after watching the brutal attack will see that in Octo-
ber 2014 he uploaded another graphic video showing a mother repeatedly beating her baby over the head with her hand and a pillow as the screaming child rolls around in pain on a bed. The video, lasting more than four minutes, has been viewed 108,000 times and shared nearly 3,000 times.
One user commented: ‘I reported this video but yet Facebook have reviewed it and do not think that it contains graphic violence. This is completely wrong.’ Another user wrote: ‘I reported it as well, unbelievable, should be taken down!’
The video is understood to show a teenage Malaysian mother beating her ten-month old child in 2011. The woman reportedly received an 18-month jail sentence.
Another clip uploaded by Quaresma in September 2014 shows a boy being beaten by a group with a flip flop and having a rock thrown at his head. The video, believed to have been filmed in Brasilia, has been viewed 119,000 times and shared 1,200 times.
As the boy lies on the floor during the attack, his face covered in blood, a Portuguese-speaking man says: ‘You are going to feel the pain, you understand?’
During the video, those beating him suggest that the boy has raped another child, but there is no evidence to support the allegation. The Civil Police in Brasilia told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no record of any report matching these facts.’
Jim Gamble, former chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit, said: ‘For this generation of children who are using games like Grand Theft Auto, violence, sexism and extreme violence are being normalised so it creates this confusion in young people’s minds about what is real and what isn’t and what’s legitimate to do and what isn’t.’
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said: ‘These are multi-billion pound companies who have the resources and expertise to do better. It’s now up to them to make sure their platforms are not used as a place to peddle hate and celebrate horrendous acts of violence.’
After being alerted to the predictive search options by The Mail on Sunday, Google took action to remove the suggested terms from appearing. Facebook initially refused to take down the clips when contacted on Friday, claiming that ‘videos like this may help identify abusers and bring help to victims, and we know that raising awareness of abuse can be an important part of stopping it’.
However, yesterday it performed a U-turn and removed the footage while it conducts an investigation. A spokeswoman confirmed the video filmed in Malaysia has been permanently removed.
She said: ‘In circumstances like this we mark the videos as disturbing, which means they have a warning screen and are accessible only to people over the age of 18.
‘Following such reports from The Mail on Sunday we have removed the content while we investigate. Where appropriate, we remove instances of videos from Facebook supporting or encouraging these kinds of behaviours.’
Mr Quaresma did not respond to a request for comment.
Facebook helps ‘peddle hate and violence’
FOLLOWING an investigation by The Mail on Sunday, Facebook has now removed the terrible video of a vicious stabbing, which was until yesterday easily viewable by schoolchildren.
Let us hope Facebook’s own inquest concludes that the real-life horror film should never have been available, and that with power comes responsibility.
As newspapers and broadcasters have long known, the law is only the final arbiter. Editors must use their judgment on whether images of this kind may permanently poison minds.
Internet giants often take a teenage view that because they can legally display such material, then they must. This is in fact just lazy. There will always be things best not given mass circulation. It is Facebook’s responsibility to decide. For if freedom is abused, it will in the end be snuffed out.