Facebook Live appears to be a more common topic of conversation than the actual reason why Facebook Live is now a common topic of conversation. A police officer killed a man and we could see that live. A man armed with a sniper rifle shot and killed five police officers and the world saw that live as well.

Twitter Periscope showed us a girl being raped while another girl filmed it for the extra likes.

In regards to the Facebook Live video that started it all, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, said he hopes the world will never have to see another video like that again. Soon after, the Dallas shooting video was streamed through Facebook Live.

Could Facebook Live Replace Television News?

In early June, a Facebook official said that the company saw the future as being all video. But in order to have that sort of ambition, in order to make that sort of commitment, clear video guidelines should exist ahead of time.

Periscope demonstrated that there are people out there willing to commit atrocities just to live stream them. There are also people willing to like, love, share, or retweet not for the sake of raising awareness but for the sake of leaving a bad taste in everyone else’s mouths.

Livestreaming events by regular people have the added benefit of being real news, or relevant news. The people have been complaining about network censorship or about the bias and subjectivism of news networks in regards to several people or topics.

Through the camera lens of the common person, the world will see what they saw. How much will we end up seeing on Facebook Live, however?

Currently, Facebook believes that only videos that fit their community guidelines should be allowed to stay on Facebook Live. The issue with that, however, is the “live” part. Once data reaches the internet, it is there to stay. If a brand new Facebook user decides to broadcast a two-minute live film that breaches the community guidelines, by the time users report it and a moderator takes it down, it will have already had views.

When a Twitter account gets hacked, no matter how quickly the rightful owner reclaims it, no matter how well they scrub the account clean of any trace of the hack, it will still be in the news.

If Facebook Live is to become the world’s next news channel, perhaps the community guidelines and moderation need an upgrade.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia.