In January, two different suicides were streamed using Facebook Live, a service that allows Facebook users to create and broadcast real-time videos to their followers. At the end of the month, a third was streamed live using a different service and is still publicly available on Facebook.To get more news about moonlive, you can visit official website.

On January 22, a 14-year-old girl hanged herself in front of about 1,000 viewers. It took nearly an hour for her to prepare, and followers watched her body hang in the bathroom where she took her life for another hour.

The very next day, a 33-year-old father of six told his Facebook followers that he was going to kill himself and subsequently did so while live-streaming. The video remained up on his Facebook page for eight hours, with many users sharing it on their own pages.The following week, a popular gospel singer filmed a two-minute live video of himself drinking poison after breaking up with his girlfriend. People who knew him were shocked, and his suicide sparked conversation on social media about suicide prevention.

This disturbing trend isn’t new. In fact, just weeks before these suicides, a 12-year-old girl created a 40-minute live video of her own suicide using the streaming app Live.me. It went viral on YouTube and Facebook, and even though her family immediately deleted it, it took Facebook two weeks to scrub all traces of it from the network.

These streams can be damaging on a number of fronts. Could they cause suicide contagion, in which a suicide attempt in an online or local community raises the likelihood of more suicide attempts within that network? What about the trauma inflicted on those who watch, especially family and friends?

Should Facebook be legally obligated to do more to prevent these types of disturbing live broadcasts?

Some see an ethical obligation for them to do so. But as a law professor who researches the real-world implications of social media, I don’t believe current law requires Facebook to take any additional steps.

Though these types of videos are tragic and devastating, the law has evolved in a way to protect social media companies from most lawsuits.In general, you can sue for emotional distress when you witness the death of a family member. In recent times, relatives have sued television stations that aired deaths and suicides live on air. But it can be difficult to win these cases, even though the legal rules are well-established.

Since the late 19th century, the law has recognized a limited right to sue for emotional harm. However, these laws were controversial from the start because courts typically think of harm as physical in nature. Courts have also been skeptical because emotional harm is difficult to prove and they disfavor rules with indefinite boundaries.