Facebook tightens live streaming rules after New Zealand mosque mass shooting

Moscow:  Facebook has announced that following the horrific terror attacks in New Zealand, which were livestreamed through its social media platform, it will tighten restrictions against people who violate its community standards with hateful content.
“Today we are tightening the rules that apply specifically to Live. We will now apply a ‘one strike’ policy to Live in connection with a broader range of offenses. From now on, anyone who violates our most serious policies will be restricted from using Live for set periods of time – for example 30 days – starting on their first offense,” Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of product management, said in a blog post on Tuesday.
The company said it would also expand the restrictions to include preventing people who promote hateful speech from creating ads on Facebook.
Additionally, Facebook announced that it was partnering up with several US universities to research and develop technology that could detect manipulated media across images, video and audio, in order to prevent the proliferation of hateful content on its site through various media.
In April, Facebook said that it had shut down several pages linked to groups that promoted white nationalism, enforcing a ban that the company announced in March in response to New Zealand shootings.
The social media giant’s wide-ranging initiative to limit hateful content on its website has come in the wake of the gruesome terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand on March 15 during which a man, supporting white nationalist views, gunned down 50 people in two mosques and livestreamed the massacre on Facebook. Prior to livesteaming the attack, the shooter posted a 740-page manifesto in which he expressed hatred against Muslims and immigrants.
The public outcry following the shooting questioned Facebook as to why tighter content restrictions were not in place that could have flagged the shooter’s hateful manifesto and possibly prevented the mass shooting.