Facebook: A Reluctant News Website?

If you haven't already noticed, Facebook has had live streaming for a couple of months now. With the current live-streaming option of many social media sites, and their influence on people's daily lives, it is not surprising that we also get our daily dose of news online - thanks to media sharing.

“Kids loved him”: Here’s what we know about #PhilandoCastile https://t.co/wklC9vWMaz pic.twitter.com/naG7nKzXDd

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) July 8, 2016

However, when Diamond "Lavish" Reynolds logged on to Facebook after Philando Castile, her boyfriend, was shot by a police, she recorded the murder on live feed - urging him, as many who watched after did, to stay with her.

Castile's life was in the hands of the police officer who shot him - the gun pointed into the car with Lavish and her daughter still inside.

Rolling Stone noted that instead of screaming or crying, Reynolds took out her phone and streamed the murder live on Facebook as she recounted the events that unfolded.

A Georgetown University Law professor and former prosecutor, Paul D. Butler shared with The New York Times his take on the incident, saying that "The videos are smoking-gun evidence. Both literally because they are very graphic, which generates outrage, and figuratively, because people believe their own eyes."

These types of posts make Facebook somewhat of a news site: if it weren't for the video, police action may have been left unquestioned - and this shed an evidence saying otherwise. However, the social network still does not seem to see themselves as they are - making them a reluctant purveyor of truth in this internet-centered community.

In a recent blog post, Facebook Executive Adam Mosseri shared, "We are not in the business of picking which issues the world should read about. We are in the business of connecting people and ideas - and matching people with the stories they find most meaningful."

Crucial decisions are being made by Facebook and other social media sites regarding the content they take down from sites. The Washington Post noted that Twitter has suspended over 125,000 accounts associated with terrorist recruitments. YouTube took down, the put back up, videos of Syrian security forces torturing a teenage boy.