Videos depicting the assassination of a Japanese Prime Minister are being pulled from social media sites.
Videos showing the assassination of Abe will be removed from both Facebook and Twitter. While assassination videos are graphic by nature, some internet platforms have historically opted to allow videos depicting assassinations and other acts of political violence involving well-known figures due to their newsworthiness.
The assassination videos, which show a man shooting a double-barreled shotgun into Abe's chest, have been removed from the site. The offending videos were removed because they were against the company's rules. The spokesman for the company told Gizmodo that it was a way for people to report media that they think should be treated as sensitive.
Meta cited its policy on dangerous individuals as the reason for its video removal. The suspected shooter's account was disabled by Meta.
Meta told ABC News that they won't tolerate violent behavior on their platform. We are working to remove any violating content related to the incident.
Meta did not reply immediately.
As of writing, Gizmodo was still able to find videos of the event on YouTube, however selecting several of the videos triggered a warning saying, "The following content has been identified by the community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences." At least as of now, they seem to be taking a different approach to social media.
After looking at several of the links Gizmodo spotted, a YouTube representative reached out with a statement explaining the current approach to the assassination videos.
The Top News shelf contains videos from authoritative news sources related to the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Japan. Our teams will remove or age-restrict content in accordance with our guidelines.
We tried to get clarity on the strategy of the videos on the platform, but haven't heard back.
During a speech in the city of Nara, Abe was shot in the back. The shooting took place from a distance of around 10 feet. The shotgun in the video resembles a bundle of pipes. The suspect, a 41-year old former member of Japan's navy, told police that he wanted to kill Abe because he believed he held ties to a certain group.
The method of the attack is surprising because firearms are very rare in Japan. According to The New York Times, Japan has only had 14 gun deaths since the beginning of the year.
Videos depicting Abe's death do violate the written rules for most major internet platforms, but those sites have tended to allow more wiggle room for historical assassinations. Videos depicting the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were found on both Facebook and YouTube. There isn't a limit to the amount of footage that can be used. The more graphic assassination of the former Russian ambassador to Turkey was shown on both platforms.
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