‘Transmitting violence’: Livestream video’s dark side

People visit a makeshift memorial set up outside the Tops supermarket on May 18, 2022 in Buffalo, New York. In the case of the Buffalo shooting that killed 10 African Americans at a grocery store on Saturday, it’s particularly chilling because writings attributed to the suspect noted he was in part inspired by another mass shooter’s livestream. — AFP

SAN FRANCISCO: A gunman’s livestream of a mass killing in New York state was taken down in a matter of minutes – but even that was not fast enough to prevent those images from becoming effectively impossible to erase from the Internet.

Posting horrific clips like those is not barred by US speech laws, experts told AFP, so the decision on whether to keep them online is largely left up to individual tech companies.