Facebook and Twitter's autoplay videos in the firing line after Virginia shooting

The Virginia shootings in which two journalists were killed on live TV by Vester Flanagan highlighted one of the problems of social media: it can be used for terrible things. If the news of two needless deaths was not enough, countless Facebook and Twitter users were upset by footage of the killings that quickly spread around the social networks, automatically playing for many people.

This is not the first time that autoplay videos have been in the news, and it certainly won’t be the last. Now politicians in the UK are calling for Facebook and Twitter to better police content that is uploaded by users to avoid a repeat incident in which people are unwitting viewers of horrific scenes.

People have previously complained about the fact that the autoplay feature of Twitter and Facebook is enabled by default. While it is possible to disable this option, it is not something that the casual social network user will be aware of, even less be comfortable adjusting. UK members of parliament are suggesting that the social networks need to be proactive in seeking out potentially upsetting content such as the Virginia murders and adding warnings.

Matt Warman, Conservative MP and co-chair of the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum, told the BBC:

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.

He points out that while some people may be happy for some content to play automatically, there should be different rules in place for graphic content.

But opinion remains divided, and the logistics of actually policing the fallout of tragedies such as the shootings in Virginia is rather more complex than politicians simply saying "something needs to be done about this".

Just one stumbling block that would need to be overcome is one that we have already seen in relation to other types of online content. Block a site that offers pirated material, child pornography, or something else illegal, and it really doesn’t take long for a replacement to pop up. Cut one head off the Hydra, and another quickly grows back.

This is not to say that social network users should not be given more control over the type of content they are happy to see, but we are getting into soundbite politics when something so complex is reduced to "this is terrible and I think we should do something about it".

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