Facebook makes changes to livestream policy in response to New Zealand mosque attacks
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On Wednesday, Facebook will introduce new rules for Facebook Live, its livestreaming feature.
The move comes in the wake of the shootings in March at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left dozens of people dead. The suspect livestreamed the massacres on Facebook, and Facebook said that now, any user who breaks the company's "most serious policies" will be prohibited from using Facebook Live for a set period of time and will not be allowed to purchase ads, CNN Business reports.
Facebook has not revealed all of the new rules, but a spokesperson told CNN Business that under this revised policy, the Christchurch suspect would not have been able to livestream the shootings; the spokesperson did not reveal what rules he had broken. In the aftermath of the attacks, video of the incidents spread on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, with Facebook removing 1.5 million copies.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
