Facebook will allow its users to livestream violent or graphic video under certain circumstances, the company announced in a statement released Friday.
In the statement, the social media giant stated that, “if a person witnessed a shooting, and used Facebook Live to raise awareness or find the shooter, we would allow it.” On the other hand, the company will not allow such videos to be used “to mock the victim or celebrate the shooting.”
“Live video on Facebook is a new and growing format,” the statement continues. “We’ve learned a lot over the past few months, and will continue to make improvements to this experience wherever we can.”
The story behind the story: Facebook’s statement comes in the wake of a series of high-profile incidents this past week in which police officers shot and killed two African American men and a gunman shot 11 police officers, killing five, in Dallas Thursday night. Social media has played a large role in documenting each of these recent events. In the case of of Philando Castile, who a police officer shot during a traffic stop, his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, used Facebook Live to document the shooting’s immediate aftermath.