When Rape Is Broadcast Live On The Internet
Sexual assault, domestic abuse, and attempted murder are among the crimes recently captured on live video services. BuzzFeed News uncovered one apparent incident of a rape aired in real time and asked what it means for the companies that host this content.
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
The Periscope link was titled "live sex" and colourful hearts, indicating people were liking the video, flooded the right-hand side of the screen. "This girl is getting raped," a 20-year-old student in London tweeted.
"I beg you, watch the whole thing," she added in another tweet. "There was a point where the girl didn't want sex no more, and the guy was telling her 'one more'."
The Periscope live video, shared on Twitter on 30 March, showed three young men and one young woman engaging in sexual activity in a well-lit bedroom in London. According to some of those who watched it, the males were fully clothed, while the female was only partially dressed. When one of the men was having sex with her, the other two were seen to be watching and recording on their phones, and were often heard laughing, or telling her what she should do.
After being alerted by one of the viewers, BuzzFeed News found and interviewed 15 people who watched the video. Although they publicly tweeted the link, all were willing to recount what they saw only if their quotes were kept anonymous.
"There was big hype over the video, the stream had a good 2.8K views," one 18-year-old student from Hackney, east London, told BuzzFeed News. "People were constantly inviting their friends to watch."
It took some of the viewers a little while to realise that what they were watching live was a serious crime: rape.
While live streaming is not a new phenomenon, the aggressive push by social media companies in promoting their live video platforms over the last year – such as Twitter-owned Periscope, and more recently, Facebook Live – has ignited its popularity.
But the most appealing factor of live streaming – raw content at the touch of a button – is also its biggest threat: The inability of companies to monitor live content has spawned an entirely new set of serious safety and privacy issues for users. The freedom to live-stream just about anything, anywhere in the world, has prompted a new and uncomfortable predicament for social media companies: What should they do if – or when – a crime is being live-streamed on their platform?
As the Periscope video progressed, it was flooded with comments. People disputed the participants' ages – "they look underage" and "they're in year 9" – while others who claimed to recognise the girl began to type her name, calling her a "sket" and a "skank".
But as thousands of people joined up to watch the stream, the mood in the video shifted. Viewers said that, at first, the girl shown on screen appeared to be complicit – then, when she saw that the others were filming, she asked them not to. Viewers say she then told them "no", as well as explicitly saying that she wanted to stop, and that "she was almost passed around".
"I felt helpless," a 19-year-old woman living in west London told BuzzFeed News. "She was going along for a bit at first, then it was clear she didn't want to be there. All I could do was report it and wait. I sat there and watched people talk about it on Twitter, while it just carried on live."
What sets live video apart from pre-recorded or photographed content – and the reason it arguably needs to be treated differently from other content – is that a viewer is intrinsically, in some way or another, involved in the moment. Its viewers are not passive: They may be sitting behind a screen in a different country, but they will also feel a sense of responsibility, even though they are powerless to stop what is happening before their eyes.
"The girl in the video said no and that she didn't want to have sex any more, but the guy was telling her to continue," said the 20-year-old student who tweeted the Periscope link describing it as rape. "A lot of people couldn't see that it was rape because the boys weren't physically grabbing her or hitting her."
"I was more angry at the fact that while they recorded they were screaming 'get this to 2K likes' and 'like up the post,'" she added.
Viewers of the live video were frustrated. They thought that by flagging it, there might be a way they could intervene while the apparent crime was in progress – maybe they could alert authorities to stop it.
But even after the stream ended, viewers who were horrified that they had been unable to step in discovered that there was also little they could do once it had finished.
Soon after streaming the incident – and after many of the Periscope comments and tweets described the video as rape – the person who filmed the footage deleted his Periscope account, as well as his Twitter account. If a user deletes a Periscope video within 24 hours of airing, the company has no copy of it. That means there is now no recording of the live stream on Periscope's servers, and so if someone did want to take the case to police, there would be no video evidence available.
Periscope told BuzzFeed News on two occasions that for privacy and security it could not comment on individual cases, and so the company was unable to confirm whether it was aware of such a video, or whether it had been alerted to the video by users.
Instead its parent company, Twitter, directed BuzzFeed to the terms and conditions regarding inappropriate, graphic, or spam content, outlined on Periscope's website. "Periscope is about being in the moment, connected to a person and a place," it reads. "This immediacy encourages direct and unfiltered participation in a story as it's unfolding. There are a few guidelines intended to keep Periscope open and safe. Have fun, and be decent to one another."
The company states it gives law enforcement the option to make an "emergency disclosure request" to access videos of criminal activity, but only if there is an "exigent emergency that involves the danger of death or serious physical injury to a person that Twitter may have information necessary to prevent." Rape and sexual assault were not listed among its priorities for emergency requests.
Keyword: BuzzFeed - Tech
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
The Periscope link was titled "live sex" and colourful hearts, indicating people were liking the video, flooded the right-hand side of the screen. "This girl is getting raped," a 20-year-old student in London tweeted.
"I beg you, watch the whole thing," she added in another tweet. "There was a point where the girl didn't want sex no more, and the guy was telling her 'one more'."
The Periscope live video, shared on Twitter on 30 March, showed three young men and one young woman engaging in sexual activity in a well-lit bedroom in London. According to some of those who watched it, the males were fully clothed, while the female was only partially dressed. When one of the men was having sex with her, the other two were seen to be watching and recording on their phones, and were often heard laughing, or telling her what she should do.
After being alerted by one of the viewers, BuzzFeed News found and interviewed 15 people who watched the video. Although they publicly tweeted the link, all were willing to recount what they saw only if their quotes were kept anonymous.
"There was big hype over the video, the stream had a good 2.8K views," one 18-year-old student from Hackney, east London, told BuzzFeed News. "People were constantly inviting their friends to watch."
It took some of the viewers a little while to realise that what they were watching live was a serious crime: rape.
While live streaming is not a new phenomenon, the aggressive push by social media companies in promoting their live video platforms over the last year – such as Twitter-owned Periscope, and more recently, Facebook Live – has ignited its popularity.
But the most appealing factor of live streaming – raw content at the touch of a button – is also its biggest threat: The inability of companies to monitor live content has spawned an entirely new set of serious safety and privacy issues for users. The freedom to live-stream just about anything, anywhere in the world, has prompted a new and uncomfortable predicament for social media companies: What should they do if – or when – a crime is being live-streamed on their platform?
As the Periscope video progressed, it was flooded with comments. People disputed the participants' ages – "they look underage" and "they're in year 9" – while others who claimed to recognise the girl began to type her name, calling her a "sket" and a "skank".
But as thousands of people joined up to watch the stream, the mood in the video shifted. Viewers said that, at first, the girl shown on screen appeared to be complicit – then, when she saw that the others were filming, she asked them not to. Viewers say she then told them "no", as well as explicitly saying that she wanted to stop, and that "she was almost passed around".
"I felt helpless," a 19-year-old woman living in west London told BuzzFeed News. "She was going along for a bit at first, then it was clear she didn't want to be there. All I could do was report it and wait. I sat there and watched people talk about it on Twitter, while it just carried on live."
What sets live video apart from pre-recorded or photographed content – and the reason it arguably needs to be treated differently from other content – is that a viewer is intrinsically, in some way or another, involved in the moment. Its viewers are not passive: They may be sitting behind a screen in a different country, but they will also feel a sense of responsibility, even though they are powerless to stop what is happening before their eyes.
"The girl in the video said no and that she didn't want to have sex any more, but the guy was telling her to continue," said the 20-year-old student who tweeted the Periscope link describing it as rape. "A lot of people couldn't see that it was rape because the boys weren't physically grabbing her or hitting her."
"I was more angry at the fact that while they recorded they were screaming 'get this to 2K likes' and 'like up the post,'" she added.
Viewers of the live video were frustrated. They thought that by flagging it, there might be a way they could intervene while the apparent crime was in progress – maybe they could alert authorities to stop it.
But even after the stream ended, viewers who were horrified that they had been unable to step in discovered that there was also little they could do once it had finished.
Soon after streaming the incident – and after many of the Periscope comments and tweets described the video as rape – the person who filmed the footage deleted his Periscope account, as well as his Twitter account. If a user deletes a Periscope video within 24 hours of airing, the company has no copy of it. That means there is now no recording of the live stream on Periscope's servers, and so if someone did want to take the case to police, there would be no video evidence available.
Periscope told BuzzFeed News on two occasions that for privacy and security it could not comment on individual cases, and so the company was unable to confirm whether it was aware of such a video, or whether it had been alerted to the video by users.
Instead its parent company, Twitter, directed BuzzFeed to the terms and conditions regarding inappropriate, graphic, or spam content, outlined on Periscope's website. "Periscope is about being in the moment, connected to a person and a place," it reads. "This immediacy encourages direct and unfiltered participation in a story as it's unfolding. There are a few guidelines intended to keep Periscope open and safe. Have fun, and be decent to one another."
The company states it gives law enforcement the option to make an "emergency disclosure request" to access videos of criminal activity, but only if there is an "exigent emergency that involves the danger of death or serious physical injury to a person that Twitter may have information necessary to prevent." Rape and sexual assault were not listed among its priorities for emergency requests.
Keyword: BuzzFeed - Tech
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