Diamond Reynolds Misrepresentation Of Social Media

As Philando Castile reached down for his wallet to get his license and registration after being pulled over for a broken taillight, a police officer fired four shots directly into his chest (McLaughlin). Sitting directly beside Mr. Castile was his fiancée, Diamond Reynolds, while his four-year-old daughter sat alone in the back seat. With blood gushing from Castile's lifeless body and the officer still pointing his gun at him, Diamond Reynolds calmly livestreamed the horrific incident on Facebook Live. In the video, the officer frantically declared that he told Castile not to reach down because Castile had a gun, a weapon he was licensed to carry. Yet, Reynolds unveiled the entire unedited truth, asserting that Castile told the officer before

Her livestream quickly rose in popularity, not because an officer shot a man, but rather, because it was viscerally powerful to intimately watch a man get senselessly murdered from the perspective of a loved one seated right next to him. Social media livestreams, such as Facebook Live and Periscope, have provided people like Diamond Reynolds with the newfound ability to document and share live events with others around the world, effectively affording any individual the opportunity to become a reporter of the news who can check the power of mainstream media. Livestreams provide unfiltered, objective footage of an event from a first-person point of view; as a result, consumers of the news can make their own informed opinions on issues and better understand injustices by putting a face to a

Young children can see horrible events on livestreams before the video is later censored, such as the murder of a man by cops, a tragic suicide, or the senseless shooting of hundreds in Las Vegas. Watching these gruesome videos could potentially scar these children for years. My friend’s younger brother Adam, who was only 12 at the time, watched a Facebook livestream last January of a special-needs man being beaten, bound, and gagged by four heartless captors. This gut-wrenching video both horrified and confused Adam, making him almost lose his faith in humanity. His innocence was shattered, and he had to see a therapist for two months. Although he is doing much better now, he will never view the world through the same hopeful and innocent lens. Although adults sometimes need to see graphic footage in order to fully comprehend the severity of an event, young children should always be spared from seeing any kind of killing or torture. To that end, Twitter and Facebook have instituted measures to combat or at least minimize this issue by requiring its users to be at least thirteen years old to sign up for their sites/apps. If an underage child now views an inappropriate video on one of these sites/apps, the responsibility shifts from the company to the parents. A company cannot control if a child disobeys its policies. While these