Three men have been arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in Sweden and live-streaming the act on a closed group on Facebook, BBC reported. A woman alerted police in the country’s Uppsala county on Sunday after claiming to have seen the footage on the social networking site.
The online witness said one of the accused tore the woman’s clothes and lay on top of her. “You have been raped,” one of the men said and then laughed, the witness told the police. She told Swedish tabloid Expressen that one of them had a gun.
Facebook data shows that 60 other people had seen the live video, she said, adding that one of the comments on the clip read, “Three against one. Hahaha.”
According to Sweden’s state broadcaster SVT, the accused were filming a second video, which a few members of the closed group said showed the woman denying being raped when the police arrived at the scene. Another viewer told the tabloid that “it was a poorly orchestrated joke”.
A Facebook spokesperson said: “This is a hideous crime, and we do not tolerate this kind of content on Facebook. Our teams work around the clock to review content that is being reported by users, and we have systems in place to ensure that time-sensitive content is dealt with quickly. We have given people a way to report violations during a live broadcast.”
The official added that Facebook “supported local law enforcement who make data requests related to criminal investigations,” according to Refinery29. “We take our responsibility to keep people safe on Facebook very seriously.”
While live-streaming is used by new agencies for reporting or by people wanting to share their opinions and events, several crimes have also been shared using the service.
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