Facebook chief defends firm's stance on beheading footage

 
19 November 2013

A Facebook chief today defended allowing users to post footage of beheadings.

Simon Milner, the company’s UK and Ireland policy director, argued that the images could help to tackle human rights abuse, provided they were being shown in “the right context”.

Appearing before the Commons culture, media and sport committee, he said: “We are grateful that we live in a country where beheadings aren’t normal.” In some countries they were a “normal part of life”, he added.

Human rights activists, he said, used Facebook to “highlight what’s going on” and to condemn rather than “glorify” the barbaric practice.

He insisted, therefore, that there was “a place for people to share that kind of content in the right context”.

David Cameron has accused Facebook of behaving irresponsibly, and has called for decapitation clips to be removed amid concerns that they cause viewers psychological damage.

Facebook, which allows people to become members from the age of 13, introduced a temporary ban on beheading footage in May, before lifting the ban last month.

A clip of a man, whose face was hidden by a mask, killing a woman in a brutal scene apparently filmed in Mexico sparked fresh protests.

Mr Milner told the MPs that such images and videos were not easy to find on the site: “If you go to Facebook and search for ‘beheadings’, you would never be able to find them. In some other parts of the internet they are much easier to find.”

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