海角大神

In the past week, thousands of Facebook users have watched two of the biggest news events of the month 鈥撀爐he police shooting of Philando Castile and the massacre of Dallas police officers at a protest event 鈥撀爐hrough live streaming videos posted by other users.

The proliferation of forums that allow civilians to step into the shoes of journalists has indelibly changed the news landscape, leaving formerly entertainment oriented websites such as Facebook to grapple with how to maintain these platforms responsibly.

鈥淟ive video allows us to see what鈥檚 happening in the world as it happens. Just as it gives us a window into the best moments in people鈥檚 lives, it can also let us bear witness to the worst,鈥� wrote Facebook in a blog post following Diamond Reynolds鈥檚 live streaming of the death of her fiance, Philando Castile.

鈥淲e understand the unique challenges of live video. We know it鈥檚 important to have a responsible approach,鈥� Facebook added. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we make it easy for people to report live videos to us as they鈥檙e happening.鈥�

Live coverage of flashmobs or sports events are one thing, but knowing that thousands of people had watched a man die in real time forced Facebook to reconsider its live video policy.

鈥淭here are a handful of companies at the moment in a position to offer a live-streaming service where individual broadcasts are easily discoverable and shareable,鈥� Harvard Law and computer science professor Jonathan Zittrain told The New York Times. 聽鈥淚t just puts companies in positions they weren鈥檛 designed to deal with well.鈥�

According to a report on news consumption released by The Pew Charitable Trusts this month, some 80 percent of social media users say they look to Twitter or Facebook as a news resource.

Moreover, fully聽two thirds of Facebook users (44 percent of the US population) get their news from Facebook. And that number is growing. Although 66 percent of Facebook users use the site for news today, just 47 percent of Facebook users consumed news through the site in 2013.

Over the past decade, Facebook has grown from a Friendster-like entertainment platform for sharing thoughts socially with friends into a mechanism for sharing news articles and opinion posts.

And now, news consumption is giving way to news creation.

Not only can Facebook users click on article links shared by friends, but as evidenced by recent events, they can also use Facebook Live to act as journalists themselves.

While just three percent of social media users say they "often" post videos online, reported Pew, 16 percent "sometimes" do. All told, almost one in five social media is creating and posting videos online.

And although social media websites may be growing significantly in their role as news providers, circulators, and facilitators, the trend isn鈥檛 new.

After all, Twitter and other social media sites have been given great (though debated) credit for facilitating the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt, and Libya.

"It's amazing that we participated via the internet in ousting him," Tarak Mekki said of the ouster of Tunisian president Zine Alabidine Ben Ali, according to the Guardian in 2011. "Via uploading videos. What we did on the internet had credibility and that's why it was successful."

Shortly after it was posted, the graphic Facebook Live video depicting Castile鈥檚 death was removed, which Facebook claims was due to a 鈥渢echnical glitch鈥� but which many users thought was censorship by the social media giant.

On Friday, Facebook posted clearer guidelines for Facebook Live video posters.

Facebook officials do monitor Facebook Live streams, the company said in a blog post. And violence or graphic content is still not acceptable, unless it serves a higher purpose. Videos or comments that glorify violence will result in the video being removed, the company said.

Videos of events like the shootings in Dallas or the death of Philando Castile would be unacceptable on an entertainment website, and perhaps in Facebook鈥檚 original iteration, they would have been altogether prohibited. Yet now, Facebook and other social media sites recognize their role in enabling news dissemination by the very people who also consume the news.

"Live video on Facebook is a new and growing format," said the company in their statement. "We鈥檝e learned a lot over the past few months, and will continue to make improvements to this experience wherever we can."