What horror will Facebook show YOU next time you log on?
One mum was exposed to a live video of a girl’s suicide. Others witnessed rape and murder. And the web giant says it can do nothing
AFTEr rushing around dropping her two children off at primary school, Kerenza Dancy sat down on her sofa to enjoy a well-earned cup of coffee and a little light relief on social media before starting work.
There among the usual cute animal videos and updates from friends on her Facebook page, she came across a notification of an event on the platform’s new live-streaming app, Facebook Live. Without even clicking on it, the clip started playing. What Kerenza witnessed was an unfolding horror which has been lodged in her mind ever since — a desperate girl broadcasting her decision to take her own life.
Kerenza, an internet business owner who lives near Taunton, Somerset, says: ‘The video just popped up on my feed and I can only assume it must have been posted to a page I had joined. I saw a young girl saying what she was going to do. At first, I thought it was a stunt because I didn’t think Facebook would allow anything like that.’
Aghast, Kerenza, 27, quickly realised the girl was carrying out her threat. ‘Even after she went through with it, I expected her to start moving. When she didn’t, I realised it was real.’ Kerenza, who had a difficult childhood herself and knew how it felt to be young and under pressure, couldn’t get the horrific image out of her mind.
She started searching online and discovered the girl was a 12-year-old called Katelyn Nicole Davis from the U.S. state of Georgia, who said she had been abused.
‘It made me angry and helpless that no one had been able to help her,’ says Kerenza. ‘There was nothing I could do because by the time I saw it, it had already happened. I felt invaded that it came up in front of me — and angry children as young as 13 (the minimum age for an account) could also see it, because I know clips like that can trigger ideas.
‘When my daughter Chloe, who is ten, came home from school that afternoon, I hugged her a little tighter. I reported it to Facebook and heard nothing. Even though I saw it in January, it still plays on my mind as if I watched it yesterday.’
Of course, the internet does not create horrific scenarios like this, but it does give them a worldwide stage — especially now livestreaming can create the most gruesome reality TV possible.
Despite Facebook’s protestations that it takes user safety very seriously — it employs 4,500 ‘content moderators’ and plans to hire another 3,000 — it was accused of hypocrisy this week when its policies on what it considers appropriate were revealed.
The blueprints Facebook uses to moderate issues such as violence, nudity and racism are supposed to give guidelines to staff, but showed baffling inconsistencies.
Videos of violent deaths, for example, do not always have to be deleted as they can highlight certain issues, such as mental illness. Videos of abortions are also allowed, as long as there is no nudity, and videos of self-harm are not forbidden as Facebook ‘doesn’t want to censor or punish people in distress’.
The guidelines are clearly allowing some terribly disturbing material through the net.
NEVEr was that more clearly illustrated than when Wuttisan Wongtalay, a 20-year-old Thai man, used Facebook Live to calmly broadcast how he hanged his 11month-old daughter from the roof of an empty hotel in two clips last month following a row with his girlfriend, the baby’s mother. Wongtalay then committed suicide, off camera.
Despite the global revulsion, it was 24 hours before the social network removed the footage — by which time the footage had been viewed more than 370,000 times.
The random fatal shooting of 74-year-old grandfather robert Godwin, in Cleveland, Ohio, was also captured on Facebook Live by gunman Steve Stephens — who used the platform to claim global notoriety before shooting himself a few days later in a stand-off with police.
The ease with which anyone can broadcast live — coupled with a fascination with violence and the modern obsession with any form of ‘celebrity’, no matter how perverse — has led to increasingly repulsive footage.
Animal charities such as the rSPCA have seen a worrying rise in reports of Facebook Live broadcasting incidents of cruelty to animals.
While not the first internet company to allow live-streaming, the sheer scale of Facebook means it has quickly become known as the most convenient way to win an audience for the most depraved acts.
FACEbOOK Live became widely available a year ago as part of the battle to stay ahead of rivals YouTube and Twitter. Since then it has been heavily pushed on the network’s newsfeeds and by notifications from the company, which has close to 2 billion users.
To put yourself on air, all you have to do is download the app on to your phone. Then, when it asks you the question: ‘What’s on your mind?’, users can scroll down to the video icon which says: ‘Go live.’ After a 3-2-1 countdown you are on air.
To allow your audience to interact in real time, there’s also a comment section. Unless you delete it, footage will be automatically stored on your feed even after the filming has ended, where it can tot up more ‘likes’.
It’s also possible to scroll over a map of the world to find the most viewed — and most notorious — Facebook Live events taking place at that moment.
After the clamour of headlines around the murder of robert Godwin this month, an embarrassed Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage at a conference in San Jose to admit the firm had ‘a lot of work to do’ to keep such material in check.
His comments were a long way from the sunny optimism he exuded a year ago when the site launched, promising that it would be like ‘having a TV camera’ in your pocket — omitting to mention that TV companies have to abide by strict broadcasting standards.
In the fast-moving, competitive world of social media, only the moving image seems to hold our attention. While it’s a brilliant tool for most of us to share family events as they happen, in the wrong hands the outcome can be devastating.
Take, for example, this recent livestreaming incident at an unidentified british university. In the dim light of a student dorm, a young
woman is engaging in an intimate act with a male student.
Unknown to her, this is not an act of intimacy. The girl appears to be drunk and doesn’t seem to realise the young man on whom the act is being performed has positioned his phone nearby so every moment can be captured.
Not only that, but several dozen of his friends have been alerted to the fact that the act is being broadcast on Facebook. Several tune in, posting their appreciation with ‘likes’ and lewd comments.
When the woman heard about the footage and reported it to Facebook, the clip remained on the man’s newsfeed for 24 more hours before it was taken down.
Andy Phippen, professor of social responsibility in IT at Plymouth University, said while he was unaware of anything like this at his university, this was only one of the recent live-streaming incidents he has heard about taking place at other British colleges.
‘It appeals to the narcissist in everyone in that you can live broadcast and then post it on your timeline afterwards, so more people can see it,’ he says. ‘You get a double hit.’ The fact perpetrators can also get live feedback — ‘likes’ and comments — from viewers, may also encourage them.
‘It means there’s a potential for escalation,’ he adds.
Although the UK is yet to see anything like the number of disturbing incidents as in other parts of the world, there are growing signs it is being misused.
On easter Sunday, a group of self-styled paedophile hunters broadcast themselves on Facebook Live at the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, confronting and getting into a brawl with a man they accused of grooming a 14-year-old girl for sex. Police have warned other vigilante groups not to try the same thing.
And this week, the RSPCA told the Daily mail it is seeing ‘a growing trend in reports of Facebook Live videos showing cruelty to animals’. In one sickening incident, michael Garner, 50, was broadcast punching his American bulldog Roscoe at least 16 times when he baited the pet with his sleeve.
He was given a suspended 12month prison sentence and barred from keeping an animal by Peterborough magistrates in February.
equally pressing is the urgent need to ensure that live-streaming services do not become this generation’s suicide note.
The case of Katelyn Nicole Davis is not an isolated one. Dr Domenick Sportelli, of the New Jersey Centre for Advanced Psychiatry, spotted the worrying trend earlier this year — and raised concerns about how such films may tip vulnerable people over the edge.
He says: ‘Social media is how kids communicate now, so when they’re hurting and they have a cry for help this is what they do.’
NHS consultant clinical psychologist marc Kingsley, who specialises in digital risk, agrees. He warns of a ‘contagion effect’ when suicidal thoughts or acts are live-streamed on social networks.
He says young people need to be made aware that going live when they feel upset or suicidal could increase their risk of harming themselves because of the feedback they get in the comments.
‘While the internet provides the opportunity for people to support each other, there is also a threat from people, such as trolls, to encourage the vulnerable to go further and take their own lives.’
Psychologist Barrie Gunter, emeritus professor at the University of Leicester, says that before live-streaming, there was already a theory that suicide among young people could be contagious, after an area in Wales reported a suicide a week over 11 months in 2006.
He added: ‘The difference is these new technologies have scaled up the potential for that kind of behaviour in a much wider audience — and possibly have a wider impact on others.’
Trauma can also be experienced by people like Kerenza who view such incidents and feel unable to do anything about it, adds Professor Gunter. ‘Seeing an act of extreme violence and knowing it’s for real is almost like being there in person,’ he says.
Ged Flynn, head of young suicide prevention charity Papyrus, is also concerned that while newspapers and TV have to follow strict rules about reporting suicide, there are no such restrictions around showing it live on the internet.
He urges anyone who sees someone talking about taking their own lives, even if it looks like attention-seeking, to immediately alert the person’s family or a suicide helpline.
In a statement to the mail, Facebook said: ‘We recognise that there are a unique set of challenges when it comes to moderating live content.’
The only real way to halt this horrific trend is to stop fuelling it by tuning in. After the senseless shooting of his grandfather in cold blood, Robert Godwin’s grandson Ryan posted a message begging others not to share the video — and to report anyone who did.
He gave up asking when it continued to go viral — and clips of the killing are still widely available on the internet. Proof, if any was needed of the challenges for Facebook — and us all.
IF YOU are concerned about a young person considering suicide, contact PAPYRUS HOPeLineUK on 0800 068 41 41, or go to papyrus-uk.org.