The day before Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference, the tech titan is in the headlines for a very different reason.
A Cleveland man named Steve Stephens used the social media platform Sunday to post graphic video of himself committing a murder, along with a Facebook Live stream where he described killing over a dozen people.
Cleveland police identified the victim shown in the Facebook video as 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr., whom Stephens apparently chose at random. They have not found any other evidence of the murders Stephen described in his live stream. Stephens’ videos and posts related to the incident have since been removed from the platform.
Buzzfeed, which originally covered the incident, reports that the video of the murder shows Stephens exiting his car and saying, “I found somebody I’m about to kill. I’m about to kill this guy — this older dude.” It then shows him confronting Godwin without provocation and shooting him in the head.
“This is a horrific crime and we do not allow this kind of content on Facebook,” a Facebook spokesperson told Buzzfeed. “We work hard to keep a safe environment on Facebook, and are in touch with law enforcement in emergencies when there are direct threats to physical safety.”
Facebook removed Stephens’ video and posts several hours after they went up, possibly after requests from local law enforcement. Cleveland police were still working to locate Stephens Monday morning, and described him as armed and dangerous
The incident highlights Facebook’s awkward position when it comes to detecting, censoring and removing graphic content on its platform. Some activists have claimed Facebook has unfairly removed evidence of police violence against residents, while others are upset that it took the site so long to take down a video clearly showing a violent crime.
Update, 3 p.m. April 17: Facebook posted a response to the incident on its blog Monday afternoon, penned by VP of Global Operations Justin Osofsky. The post said the company had been too slow to respond to Stephens’ videos and posts, particularly the video of the murder, and that it is working to find ways to make reporting and flagging content more effective.
Read an excerpt of the post below:
As a result of this terrible series of events, we are reviewing our reporting flows to be sure people can report videos and other material that violates our standards as easily and quickly as possible. In this case, we did not receive a report about the first video, and we only received a report about the second video — containing the shooting — more than an hour and 45 minutes after it was posted. We received reports about the third video, containing the man’s live confession, only after it had ended.
We disabled the suspect’s account within 23 minutes of receiving the first report about the murder video, and two hours after receiving a report of any kind. But we know we need to do better.
Update, 9 a.m. April 18: Pennsylvania State Police report they found Stephen in Erie County, Pa., on Tuesday morning. Following a brief pursuit, he killed himself without being taken into custody.
