When graphic content finds its way online, social media can make it tough to look away.
That was the case this morning, after a man shot and killed a reporter and cameraman during a live televised interview in Virginia. After fleeing the scene, the suspected shooter posted a graphic video of the murder on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. The video was accompanied by a string of posts, indicating that the suspect, a former reporter for the network, was seeking revenge against Alison Parker and Adam Ward, the two newscasters who were killed.
The alleged killer's Facebook and Twitter accounts were immediately shut down, but by then, it was too late. The video had already weaved its way throughout the Internet and was being shared widely, and thanks to new features like video autoplay, the footage just started to roll in users' Twitter feeds. They might not have wanted to watch it, but they didn't have a choice.
This tragic event—and all the tragic events that have preceded it, including, but not limited to the heinous ISIS beheading videos that were circulating on Twitter last year—point to a very real problem for social media platforms: there's still no good way to swiftly and comprehensively prevent destructive videos like this one from being shared once they're released. What's worse, features like autoplay, which were created in part so platforms could trump up their viewership numbers for advertisers, make this content even tougher for the average user to avoid.
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