The man who claimed to have explosives in his truck outside of the Library of Congress on Thursday streamed live on Facebook for hours before the platform took down his account.
The suspect, who surrendered to D.C. police on Thursday afternoon, "livestreamed his anti-government remarks for hours" on Facebook before his account was taken down, Politico reports. In the videos, the man said that he was "ready to die for the cause" and claimed a device in his truck would go off if its windows broke, per The Washington Post.
According to BuzzFeed News, Facebook ended the suspect's live streams around 12:30 p.m. following hours of on-and-off streaming. This, Politico wrote, is likely "to prompt fresh scrutiny of Facebook's ability to detect and take down dangerous and incendiary content." In 2019, the gunman who killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques livestreamed the shooting on Facebook, and Facebook said that it later removed 1.5 million videos of the massacre.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told Politico on Thursday that "we are in contact with law enforcement" as they investigate the threat, and "our teams are working to identify, remove, and block any other instances of the suspect's videos which do not condemn, neutrally discuss the incident or provide neutral news coverage of the issue."
-
Delhi's dogs earn Supreme Court reprieveIN THE SPOTLIGHT After an outcry from the public and animal rights activists, India's Supreme Court walks back a controversial plan to round the city's stray dog population into shelters
-
8 hotels with ace tennis courtsThe Week Recommends Bring your A game
-
Abrego released from jail, faces Uganda deportationSpeed Read The wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego García is expected to be detained at an ICE check-in and deported to Uganda
-
Supreme Court allows social media age check lawSpeed Read The court refused to intervene in a decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring social media users to verify their ages
-
Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestoneSpeed Read The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence
-
X CEO Yaccarino quits after two yearsSpeed Read Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to run X in 2023
-
Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on XSpeed Read Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler'
-
Disney, Universal sue AI firm over 'plagiarism'Speed Read The studios say that Midjourney copied characters from their most famous franchises
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellitesSpeed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Test flight of orbital rocket from Europe explodesSpeed Read Isar Aerospace conducted the first test flight of the Spectrum orbital rocket, which crashed after takeoff
-
Apple pledges $500B in US spending over 4 yearsSpeed Read This is a win for Trump, who has pushed to move manufacturing back to the US
