A disturbing video showing an infant being dunked in water and spun around by its limbs remains on Facebook despite public outcry that it depicts child abuse.
Like others, we find the behavior in this video upsetting and disturbing,” Facebook said in a statement. However, the company has decided to keep it on the site because it raises awareness.
Facebook’s policy is to remove violent or disturbing images when they are being celebrated, but to leave that content when it is being used to bring attention to a problem.
“In this case, we are removing any reported instances of the video from Facebook that are shared supporting or encouraging this behavior. In cases where people are raising awareness or condemning the practice, we are marking reported videos as disturbing, which means they have a warning screen and are accessible only to people over the age of 18,” the statement said.
The video in question shows an infant being dunked repeatedly into a bucket of water, feetfirst and then later headfirst. The baby is screaming, and the adult is unidentified.
Facebook has been removing the video if it’s shared in a sadistic way — i.e, if a user shares it along with the comment “LOL” or “this is so cool.” Facebook has been leaving the two-minute clip up in cases of users sharing it to promote awareness of a crime being committed.
But the woman who uploaded it in the first place is pleading to have it stay up on the social network. That woman is Lurleen Hilliard, the CEO & Founder of NoLonger Victims, and she tells The Independent she was sent this video 10 days ago from an anonymous person in the Philippines.
In her interview, Hilliard says “she posted the video online in order to ‘expose’ the abuser and potentially track down the baby.”
“By removing this video, you’re giving that baby a death sentence — if they’re not already dead,” Hilliard explained. “The only important thing is finding that baby. If the video is removed, we can’t find the baby.”
It’s gone completely viral on Facebook, but its massive reach has unfortunately been no help to Hilliard. Like most things tainted by digital virality, once the video was uploaded it was grabbed and shared with inaccurate information.
Hilliard’s original video, also posted to YouTube, has only 2,000 views.
