The recent real-time broadcast of an attack on a French police commander on Facebook Live has raised concerns that others may be inspired to emulate such attacks in future, highlighting the ever-growing security conundrum for social media companies.

The recent attack of a French police commander and his partner by Larossi Abballa, an individual known to French authorities as an Islamist extremist and the simultaneous screening of the attack on Facebook Live, was the first instance in which the video of a terror act was live streamed on a social media platform.

Such an attack has once again turned the spotlight on social media platforms and their abuse by certain individuals for various nefarious purposes and the renewed calls for social media companies such as Facebook to do more to reduce the avenues and platforms for hate speech and terror.

… Dymples Leong is a Research Analyst at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.