Who is liveleak

The UK even tried to stop the site when content from struggling children started to go viral. At the time, Hewitt defended LiveLeak and said that the platform showed reality.

Something similar happened in , when American journalist James Foley was beheaded by the terrorist group Islamic State. At the time, the site showed the video in which the man was killed. You have been our constant companions, and although we have probably not been able to communicate very often, you are more appreciated than you think. On a personal level, you fascinated and amused me with your content. Finally, for those who are no longer with us. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company.

Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Researchers identify 'cybermercenary' group behind dozens of hacks. But with that notoriety came a risk to the lives of the site's founders. Business Insider asked Hewitt why he chose to become the only public face of the organization: "I drew the short straw on that one.

Just being another faceless website is a little too corporate. It is an independent outfit, everybody works, everybody has other jobs. There are no full time LiveLeak employees. Sometimes ignorant people should be able to have a voice. I believed in that. Does being the public face of one of the internet's most notorious websites hurt Hewitt's career away from the site? But overall, I just spend far too much time on it. More often that not, the LiveLeak community is able to quietly share and discuss videos on the site without interference or criticism.

But every few years, LiveLeak resurfaces as the polar opposite of the restrictions on mainstream sites. The divide between LiveLeak and other sites became more prominent in after Facebook issued a six-month ban on all videos showing beheadings.

Facebook had decided to remove the violent videos after being warned that viewing beheadings could cause its users long-term harm. LiveLeak, however, had allowed beheading videos since its inception, and continued to let users upload graphic content. Hewitt was invited onto Britain's Newsnight current affairs programme to discuss LiveLeak's policy of allowing content that was banned elsewhere. With its graphic violence and notoriety, does LiveLeak's sole public founder consider the site to have a positive impact on the internet?

Hewitt isn't sure it has any impact at all. It depends what you take out of it, what the experience is The video was quickly removed from YouTube, as it violated the site's policy on violent content. But LiveLeak, which chooses not to censor violent content unless it's overly gratuitous, decided to host the video. LiveLeak has been a mainstay of internet culture for many years, its name synonymous with footage of murder, terrorism, and everyday incidents of crime and violence.

Official statements from those involved sometimes defended its content in terms of newsworthiness or truth-telling. When the site attracted controversy in the UK for hosting footage of children fighting, for example, Hewitt defended sharing the videos as a form of bearing witness. Despite this, the site often changed its policies concerning controversial footage. A report from The New York Times noted that web tracking firm Alexa ranked it as the th most popular website in the world, putting it roughly on a par with mainstream sites like The Onion and Jezebel.

The same report cites an academic study by Sue Tait that attempts to explain the enduring popularity of such violent and gory content. The range of justifications identified by Tait and other academics suggest that demand for such extreme content will always exist, even if individual sites like LiveLeak come and go.

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