Study confirms that Facebook Live service used to broadcast nearly 50 acts of violence directly!

Facebook's live streaming service can be used to share important life events or educate others. But also has a dark side, according to a new study of BuzzFeed.
Since December 2015, BuzzFeed reports that Facebook Live has been used to broadcast at least 45 acts of violence, including shootings, killings, child abuse, and torture. Press reports for The news outlet, which conducted its own analysis to reach this figure, said Facebook Live averaged two to three acts of violence per month.

In 2015, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook Live as a new way for users of the site to communicate. This service allows users to broadcast their videos directly from Facebook apps to their friends via the social network. While in the vast majority of cases, they were used for positive reasons, such as sharing their memoirs and their lives with friends, but users did not take long to incite violence to others.

The problems of violence on Facebook Live have been well documented over the past few months, but there is some controversy over the prevalence of violence; tracking Facebook live broadcasts can be very difficult given the size of the user base in the social network. In March, for example, the Wall Street newspaper found in its own analysis that there were at least 50 acts of violence on Facebook Live, more than the BuzzFeed toll.

Regardless, both critics and Facebook have acknowledged that the live broadcast service has a violent problem. While the violence continued to triumph over service, Zuckerberg responded in May, saying his company would hire 3,000 people for its video surveillance team.

"If we want to build a secure society, we need to respond quickly," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook posting. "We're working to make it easier to report these videos so we can take action sooner, whether it's responding quickly when someone needs to help or delete the post."

Zuckerberg added that Facebook receives "millions of reports" every week to review potentially inappropriate video content.

BuzzFeed recently found nine violent videos broadcast directly in April and three in May, suggesting that the additional team members may already have an impact.