Facebook and Google Profited from Video of Female Reporter being Murdered

The dad of a TV journalist who was murdered live on-air by a disgruntled ex-colleague has demanded action against Facebook’s ‘savagery’ for failing to take down footage of her 2015 shooting death.

Andy Parker, father of slain 24-year-old Alison Parker, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Tuesday to hold the social media giant accountable for still allowing the graphic video to circulate on its platforms six years on. 

Parker accused the company of profiting from the footage of his daughter’s murder as he described the sharing of the video as ‘savagery’ which is ‘undermining the fabric of our society.’

‘Posting content, violent content and murder on social media is not free speech, it’s savagery,’ he said.  

‘And as you all know, Alison’s murder shared on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube is just one of the egregious practices that are undermining the fabric of our society.’  

TV news reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman colleague Adam Ward, 27, were filming a segment for local Virginia station WDBJ-TV live on August 26 2015.

Viewers at home watched in horror as they were shot dead by former co-worker Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, who then went on the run before committing suicide.

As well as the footage broadcast live through Ward’s own camera, Flanagan also filmed his attack using a GoPro and uploaded it that day on social media. 

Parker tore into Facebook during a scathing press conference Tuesday, where he pointed to the recent bombshell allegations made by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen as evidence that the social media giant profits from the footage.

‘I’ve maintained for years that Facebook and Google profit from the video of my daughter, Alison’s murder, in 2015, and violate what they advertise to the public that they don’t allow violent content on their platforms,’ he said.

‘Now both these companies have denied it over and over again, but we knew better. And it’s one thing for me to say it and keep saying it. 

‘But when someone with insider firsthand knowledge, like Frances Haugen confirms, as she did last week in her Senate testimony, that this is what they do, it validates what I’ve maintained for all these years.’

He added: ‘Ms. Haugen revealed, again, as we’ve known for some time, that Facebook has the ability to use its AI [artificial intelligence] to stop this shameful practice. 

‘But instead, their algorithms are not designed to make using Facebook as helpful or as wholesome as possible. They’re designed to keep users hooked.’ 

The furious father said the issue he has with Facebook is part of the wider problem with social media that should be ‘fix[ed]’.

‘It’s time to act,’ he said. 

‘I hope my FTC complaint gets traction, but ultimately Congress is going to have to fix social media before it ruins our country and the world.’ 

In the complaint, filed by Parker and attorneys with the Georgetown Law Civil Rights Clinic, Parker says his family still faces seeing clips of his daughter’s murder on Facebook and its sister service Instagram six years on, as social media users resurface the harrowing footage and the platform doesn’t take it down. 

His complaint took aim at Facebook over the continued appearance of the clip, despite the fact he has been given assurances from top executives that all copies of the footage would be removed.

He claims the company is violating its own terms of service in hosting videos that glorify violence. 

‘The reality is that Facebook and Instagram put the onus on victims and their families to do the policing of graphic content – requiring them to relive their worst moments over and over to curb the proliferation of these videos,’ says the complaint.

The complaint says Facebook is engaging in deceptive trade practices by violating its own terms of service and misrepresenting the safety of the platform and how hard it is for users to get harmful content removed.

Parker also says he ‘cannot stand the thought that videos of his daughter’s murder are being used to promote dangerous conspiracy theories, for monetary gain, or simply for pleasure or shock value.’

At the time of the shooting, conspiracy theorists shared the footage claiming it was a hoax. 

Three videos of the murder were reportedly posted on Instagram on October 5, followed by two videos on Facebook the following day, reported Vice. 

The videos were reported to the social media giant but had not been removed, the outlet reported.    

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Parker previously worked with the Georgetown law clinic to file a similar FTC complaint against Google and its YouTube service.  

A team of volunteers help Parker and his family find and report instances of the footage circulating online. 

The FTC doesn’t typically disclose whether or not it has decided to investigate a complaint.

Flanagan attacked his ex-colleagues live on air during a lighthearted segment where ward was filming Parker as she interviewed Vicki Gardner – then-executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce – about a local event.

The TV footage shows the look of horror on Parker’s face as gunshots ring out and the camera falls to the floor, revealing the killer standing over Ward, pointing a gun at him.

The producer finally cut the feed broadcasting the ambush on live TV, returning to the stunned news anchor back in the studio.

Flanagan’s footage shows his arm outstretched in front of him pointing a gun before opening fire as Parker tries to flee before being shot. 

Gardner was also shot and injured in the attack but survived.  

Flanagan, a former general assignment reporter at the network, posted the footage he filmed on social media immediately after executing his former colleagues. 

He also took to Twitter to air his grievances against the reporter and cameraman.

He claimed that Parker made ‘racist comments’ and that a complaint was filed against her through the equal employment opportunity commission, but that WDBJ chose to hire her anyway.

Flanagan also claimed that he worked with Ward once, before the cameraman complained to HR about him. 

Flanagan also faxed a 23-page manifesto-cum-suicide note to ABC News saying he was motivated to go out and buy a gun after the Charleston Church mass shooting that June. 

White supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine people in the mass shooting in a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina.

In the memo, Flanagan – who was black – said the shooting was the ‘tipping point’ for him and that he had his victims’ initials on the bullets he used.

‘The church was the tipping point, but my anger has been building steadily. I’ve been a human powder keg for a while, just waiting to go BOOM!

‘Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…’ he wrote. 

‘What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.’

‘As for Dylann Roof? You [redacted]! You want a race war [redacted]? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …[redacted]!!!”

He wrote that he had been the victim of both racial and sexual discrimination as a black, gay man and that he was just waiting to explode. 

A manhunt was launched with police finding Flanagan five hours later, where he shot and killed himself.

Flanagan, who was known professionally as Bryce Williams, had worked at the CBS-affiliate station in Moneta, Virginia, before being fired two years before the 2015 attack.  

A former colleague said he had to be escorted out of the building by local police. 

Flanagan, meanwhile, claimed to have suffered racist and sexist abuse at the hands of his colleagues. 

Parker’s father Andy released a book in 2019 dedicated to his daughter, called ‘For Alison.’  

The complaint against Facebook is just the latest issue to hit the scandal-ridden company in recent weeks.

On October 4, Facebook and its platforms Instagram and WhatsApp went offline for seven hours in a blackout that left billions of people worldwide cut off from their usual lines of communication.

This marked the longest outage the company has endured in 13 years costing the company $100 million in revenue and renewing calls for it to be broken up.  

The same week, a former employee turned whistleblower testified before Congress about Facebook’s dangers to young people and democracy.  

Haugen, who previously worked as a product manager in its misinformation department, told a Senate Commerce subcommittee Tuesday that Facebook’s bosses ‘put their astronomical profits before people.’  

Haugen also told the hearing Zuckerberg is not held to account by anyone ‘but himself’ and so ‘the buck stops with’ him.

‘Mark holds a very unique role in the tech industry in that he holds over 55 percent of all the voting shares for Facebook. There are no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled,’ she said. 

‘There’s no one currently holding him accountable but himself.’ 

The former employee has caused a major headache for Facebook in recent weeks after quitting the firm and taking with her a trove of tens of thousands of pages of internal company documents.

She accused the network of contributing to the Capitol riot by turning online safeguards off too soon after the presidential election.  

—

Original Article: Slain reporter’s father takes on Facebook over violent… | Daily Mail Online