When news broke last week that US political influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event at Utah Valley University, millions of people around the world were first alerted to it by social media before journalists had written a word.
Rather than first seeing the news on a mainstream news website, footage of the bloody and public assassination was pushed directly onto audiences’ social media feeds. There weren’t any editors deciding whether the raw footage was too distressing, nor warnings before clips auto-played.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner called on platforms to shield children from the footage, noting “all platforms have a responsibility to protect their users by quickly removing or restricting illegal harmful material”.
