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posted by cmn32480 on Friday August 28 2015, @08:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the and-they-are-annoying-too dept.

UK politicians and have urged Twitter and Facebook to change the default behavior of autoplaying videos following the spread of footage showing the shooting of a WDBJ-TV reporter and cameraman:

MPs have called on Twitter and Facebook to take action after many users were confronted with autoplaying videos of the murder of a US TV news crew. The footage was suspected to have been posted by the murderer on Wednesday. Because the sites have set video to play automatically by default, many people saw the video without choosing to when it was shared into their feeds.

A parliamentary group said the firms should ensure that users are warned about graphic content before it plays. The chair of the cross-party Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (Pictfor) said that both social media sites should automatically sift for such content. "Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others have already worked together with government and regulators to prevent people being exposed to illegal, extremist content, using both automatic and manual techniques to identify footage. Social media, just like traditional media, should consider how shocking other content can be, and make sure consumers are warned appropriately," Matt Warman told the BBC.

The Conservative MP for Boston and Skegness added: "For victims, friends and families it's important to make sure that, in an online world without a watershed, users know what they're about to see and have a reasonable opportunity to stop it." He said that, while users can change their own settings to stop videos auto-playing, Facebook and Twitter "need to be aware that one size does not fit all". He said: "Many people who are ordinarily happy that videos play will have seen shocking footage by accident, without warning of its graphic nature."


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by MrNemesis on Friday August 28 2015, @11:56AM

    by MrNemesis (1582) on Friday August 28 2015, @11:56AM (#228944)

    Fuck autoplay, I find it pretty disgusting that this sort of thing gets posted at all, autoplay just being the putrescent icing on top of the shitty but-then-we-can-get-more-money-from-advertisiers cake. It was the same bollocks with all of those beheading videos as well even when there wasn't any monetary reward in doing so. Thousands seemed to take perverse pleasure in watching them on youtube, newspapers had stills plastered all over the front page of people about to be murdered. Lovely to look up from my book and seeing that picture all across the carriage on my morning commute. I've never had any desire whatsoever to watch snuff and, frankly, people who do terrify me.

    On a semi-related topic, I highly recommend Nightcrawler [imdb.com]. A deeply unsettling drama/satire about the exploitative nature of modern media (and on a par with Network [imdb.com] in my opinion) made even scarier by the fact that live 24/7 news is apparently just as unsettling (I'm the token Area Guy who doesn't watch TV).

    --
    "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
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  • (Score: 1) by SomeGuy on Friday August 28 2015, @04:52PM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Friday August 28 2015, @04:52PM (#229066)

    Yes, money.

    And that goes for the TV news to. There is lots of good, positive, real, news going on in the world like local events, and such, but what do they ever air on the news? Shooting, shooting, rape, horrible car crash, interviewee spewing "very scary stuff", child molester, shooting, fire, interviewee saying "you can't be too safe!!1!!", lockdown from yet another fake bomb threat, robery, shooting, anchor spewing "very scary stuff!", on a slow day falling trees, shooting, and now for the weather....

    They only ever air the knee-jerk attention getters that take no real reporting effort. Because money.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @02:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @02:59PM (#229429)

      The irony in your statement is that the reporter and cameraman who were killed were killed while interviewing the local Chamber of Commerce chairperson, a nice, non-scary local story.