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Facebook Decides Which Killings We're Allowed to See
Minutes after a police shooting took place in the Falcon Heights suburbs of Minnesota, a Facebook Live video was published on the social juggernaut website. The death of Philando Castile, 32, was documented in harrowing detail thanks to the live streaming tool offered by the social media giant. The 10-minute video was streamed via smartphone by a woman identified in media reports as Diamond Reynolds. She narrates the video with a mix of eerie calm and anguish. The video was removed from Facebook due to, as company says, a "technical glitch." The video has since been restored, but with a "Warning -- Graphic Video," disclaimer. Motherboard notes that Facebook has become the de-facto platform for such controversial videos, and that there's a pattern in these so called glitches -- as they happen very often time after a questionable content is streamed. This makes one wonder whether it is up to Facebook to decide which kind of controversial videos one should be able to watch The publication writes: As Facebook continues to build out its Live video platform, the world's most popular social network has become the de-facto choice for important, breaking, and controversial videos. Several times, Facebook has blocked political or newsworthy content only to later say that the removal was a "technical glitch" or an "error." Nearly two-thirds of Americans get their news from social media, and two thirds of Facebook users say they use the site to get news. If Facebook is going to become the middleman that delivers the world's most popular news events to the masses, technical glitches and erroneous content removals could be devastating to information dissemination efforts. More importantly, Facebook has become the self-appointed gatekeeper for what is acceptable content to show the public, which is an incredibly important and powerful position to be in. By censoring anything, Facebook has created the expectation that there are rules for using its platform (most would agree that some rules are necessary). But because the public relies on the website so much, Facebook's rules and judgments have an outsized impact on public debate.
It is Their Site. So they make Their rules.
Based on their business model.
If you're a software engineer or a system administrator, you probably already know exactly what the technical glitches are. People are trying to throw a shitfit without understanding technology. "Facebook" isn't just a single server with a single purpose. Information has to be distributed from the content source to the content consumers. If an account normally has a reach of 5-10 viewers, it is easy to have them stream internally though a single server that is handling several streams at once. They are shoved on this particular data delivery path based on past low viewer counts... then all of a sudden they stream something that hits a 100k+ reach? Yes, the content then needs to be moved to high capacity and more dedicated servers. This isn't an instant process. The easiest explanation to the laymen is a "technical glitch", because how many people outside of technology even know what a server or routing digital data even is? This exact scenario DOES happen with other content too, but only when it involves something controversial does it become a conspiracy and censorship theory. A great example of other content that has had this exact issue was the selfie taken at the Grammys that had overf 1,000,000 shares. Yes, that took out an entire Twitter datacenter. Not just a server, the whole datacenter went offline for some time.
Not that I'm defending the shooting, but by now everyone knows what the police officer will want when they pull you over. Get your license out of your wallet and registration/insurance out of the glove compartment, and have them ready in your hands while the officer is walking towards your car. If it's night, turn your dome light on so he can see inside the car.
I was pulled over one night for speeding, and happened to have my camera tripod on the passenger seat. The officer asked what it was, and I made the mistake of reaching over to grab it so he could get a better view. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the officer reach for his gun. They are extremely jumpy about any sudden movements with your hands. Leave your hands in sight at all times, like on the steering wheel.
As for Facebook, what probably happened is when you upload a video it gets put onto a single server that happens to host your FB wall. If the video goes viral, it needs to be moved to a higher capacity server or server farm, to better handle the load.
Back in the day, "Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain" was what Hearst shoved down everyone's throats.
Hearst's papers also documented the Spanish concentration camps in Cuba, which were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.