Facebook on Tuesday removed two disturbing videos from its platforms – one of a 21-year-old man in Thailand murdering his 11-month-old daughter and the other of his own suicide. The company took action 24 hours after Wuttisan Wongtalay live-streamed his daughter’s killing and then his own suicide on Monday evening.
“This is an appalling incident and our hearts go out to the family of the victim. There is absolutely no place for content of this kind on Facebook, and it has now been removed,” a Facebook spokesperson said after the videos were taken down.
The incident was shared from an isolated hotel in Phuket, the police told BBC. In the clips, Wongtalay was first seen hanging his daughter and then himself. His actions are believed to have followed a fight with his wife. Wongtalay’s relatives informed the Thai Police after watching the videos.
The clips, which were posted 4.50 pm and 4.57 pm on Monday, were taken down around 5 pm on Tuesday, reported Reuters. However, Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy said the social media platform was prompt in its response after it was informed on Tuesday afternoon. “We will not be able to press charges against Facebook because Facebook is the service provider, and they acted according to their protocol when we sent our request. They cooperated very well,” spokesperson Somsak Khaosuwan told Reuters.
Last week, Facebook had said it is reviewing its “reporting flows” to improve how the platform will handle videos of violence and other offensive content shared on the social media site. The vice president for Facebook’s global operations and media partnerships, Justin Osofsky, had said they were working on a way to make it easier for users to report videos “with serious safety implications for our community” and on how to review such reports faster.
The footage was available on YouTube for a while and had 2,351 views before BBC flagged it. “YouTube has clear policies that outline what’s acceptable to post, and we quickly remove videos that break our rules when they’re flagged,” YouTube said in a statement.
Wongtalay’s videos are the latest in a string of such disturbing clips that have been appearing on Facebook. Less than two weeks ago, a man in the United States posted a video of a murder in Cleveland, Ohio, on the website. On April 3, a 23-year-old student in Mumbai streamed a Facebook live video outlining how to commit suicide before jumping off the 19th floor of Taj Lands End hotel.
In a separate incident on Tuesday, a Swedish court sentenced three men to jail for live-streaming the gangrape of a woman in Uppsala earlier this year. While one man was jailed for two years and four months, while another got a one-year term – both on charges of rape. The third accused was jailed for six months for posting the video on Facebook.
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