Facebook has pulled down the account of the man who was spotted open firing at people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act near the Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi on Thursday. The social media giant confirmed to Gadgets 360 that it removed the gunman’s Facebook account. Mentions of the attacker’s name have been removed from this article, while his image has been blurred. Police officials say the attacker was a juvenile, and cannot be identified.
The attacker used Facebook to conduct a few live streams before attacking at the protesters. He also posted some status messages on Facebook opposing the ongoing protests against the law that came into force just earlier this month.
“There is no place on Facebook for those who commit this kind of violence. We have removed the gunman’s Facebook account and are removing any content that praises, supports or represents the gunman or the shooting as soon as we identify it,” a Facebook spokesperson told Gadgets 360 in a prepared statement.
Some initial reports claimed that the attacker used Facebook Live during the shooting. However, his Facebook account, an archive of which was available at the time of filing this story, showed that he posted four brief live stream videos on the site just before open firing at the venue. The videos didn’t indicate the violent act, though. That can be seen in a separate video taken by media.
Facebook has its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations Policy in place that is aimed to remove content praising, supporting, or representing shootings on its platform. The Menlo Park, California-based company is also claimed to have a global team of 15,000 content reviewers to review user reports in most major languages.
Last year, Facebook was used as a platform to live stream the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand that took the lives of at least 51 people at two mosques. The company in response restricted its live streaming feature and announced a “one-strike” policy for the use of Facebook Live.
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