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Ronnie Mcnutt – McNutt Suicide TikTok Video Viral

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Ronnie Mcnutt : A friend of Ronnie McNutt, whose suicide was livestreamed and became viral, believes Facebook could have prevented it.

Clips from a Facebook livestream of veteran Ronnie McNutt, 33, taking his own life, have been circulating on social media for over a week.

Unwitting users of TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram continue to come upon the gory film of McNutt’s suicide on August 31, while his family claims bots and trolls are harassing them directly by sharing snippets from his death.

All of this might have been avoided, according to long-time friend Josh Steen.

Steen, who met McNutt over two decades ago in a community theatre in Mississippi while they were still in high school, blamed the clip’s virality on Facebook’s failure to follow its own regulations on “every level.”

While McNutt was still alive, Steen and many of McNutt’s other friends claim they reported the two-hour-long livestream to Facebook hundreds of times, but they didn’t hear anything until nearly an hour after he died, when they received a message from Facebook saying the video didn’t violate community guidelines.

“Ronnie’s video had been up for eight hours and had already gone viral when it was taken down,” Steen claimed. “This video would not be public if Facebook had done its job.”

The initial video was taken down “on the day it was posted,” according to Facebook, but Steen said it remained on McNutt’s page until nearly 2 a.m. central time. At 10:30 p.m., he passed away.

Later, Facebook verified that the video was removed the same day, Pacific time. The entire broadcast lasted 2 hours and 41 minutes on the platform.

A Facebook spokeswoman told Forbes, “We’re looking into how we could have taken down the livestream faster.”

The video was already being circulated in private Facebook groups by midnight, and excerpts and memes were all over mainstream social media within a few days.

Teens and their parents protested on TikTok, where an estimated 18 million daily users are 14 or younger, that the videos were recommended on the “For You” discovery tab, often camouflaged as recordings of cute animals.

On Instagram, a search for McNutt’s name turned up over a dozen phoney accounts advertising the video, while the tagged part of McNutt’s real profile has been deluged with hundreds of users seeking to upload screenshots or copies of the footage, according to Steen (it appears Instagram has blocked most from playing).

McNutt’s profile, which is now an in memoriam page on Facebook, has been bombarded with directions on how to discover the video or links to the video, which have since been removed, while McNutt’s family has been subjected to online harassment and false fundraisers.

“His entire family was present when he committed suicide,” Steen said. They’re now being forced to watch it again and again.

Facebook (which owns Instagram), Twitter, and TikTok all declined to comment on why the videos are still being shared on their platforms, according to Forbes.

McNutt was well-liked in his neighbourhood, but struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after fighting in the Iraq war, as described by a friend as “strange, very odd, and very energetic” with a “unusual chuckle.”

During difficult times, McNutt was active on social media, according to Steen, and would frequently post YouTube videos or Facebook livestreams in which he’d “ramble.”

Steen is convinced that his friend did not begin livestreaming on August 31 with the goal of killing himself.

The incident developed, culminating with McNutt shooting himself in the head, fueled by drink and comments from friends and acquaintances trying to talk him down while he played with a one-shot rifle on camera, at one point accidently releasing a round.

During the video, the New Albany Police Department was called to the site, but they did not enter McNutt’s apartment until after he died.

After securing the perimeter, evacuating neighbouring homes, and attempting to talk with McNutt via speakerphone, it was determined that McNutt was “in such a mental state nobody could’ve gotten through to him,” according to Police Chief Chris Robertson.

“If I had forced it, the outcome would have most likely been worse,” he added. Steen claims that if the cops had intervened, he would have lived.

Although Facebook has stated that it will remove content related to self-harm and suicide—including certain graphic imagery, real-time depictions, and fictional content that may inspire similar actions—this isn’t the first time the social media platform has been chastised for its handling of violent footage such as suicide, murder, and torture.

In 2019, it took Facebook half an hour and thousands of views to take down a video of a mosque shooting in New Zealand. Other services, such as TikTok, have also battled with content regulation.

TikTok was chastised earlier this year for taking nearly three hours to notify authorities after a 19-year-old user livestreamed his apparent suicide.

“Facebook has the technology to just take it down… So, why does this happen only when it’s reported?”

Steen wondered. “Every single step has failed and continues to fail here. Their algorithms are failing, and whoever is in charge of vetting these documents is failing as well. If nothing is done, it will continue to happen, and it will get worse. “This has to be the tipping point.”