LiveLeak was a British video sharing website headquartered in London. It was founded on 31 October 2006, in part by the team behind Ogrish.com, a shock site that closed on the same day.[2] LiveLeak aimed to freely host real footage of politics, war and many other world events and to encourage citizen journalism, although it later became known for hosting videos with gore and extreme violence.[5][6][7]
LiveLeak ceased operations on 5 May 2021, and the URL now redirects to ItemFix, a Safe-for-work video sharing site.[3][8]
History
LiveLeak first came to prominence in 2007 following the filming and leaking of the execution of Saddam Hussein. This, among others, earned the site a mention from White House Press SecretaryTony Snow as the likely place to see updates or stories from active American soldiers.[9]
On 30 July 2007 the BBC programme Panorama broadcast a show on how street violence between children as young as 11 was being posted on websites including LiveLeak.[10] When Panorama queried the "extremely violent videos" that were posted to LiveLeak's website, co-founder Hayden Hewitt refused to take them all down, stating: "Look, all this is happening, this is real life, and this is going on, and we're going to have to show it."[11]
LiveLeak was again in the spotlight in March 2008 when it hosted the anti-Quran film Fitna, made by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Fitna was taken down for 48 hours as personal threats against Hewitt, the only public representative of the site, peaked. It was reposted on 30 March 2008 after arrangements for Hewitt's family and safety had been improved. However, the film was soon removed again over a copyright claim.[2] On 24 March 2014 LiveLeak and Ruptly announced a content partnership.[12] On 19 August 2014, a video depicting the beheading of the American journalist James Foley was posted by Islamic State terrorists on YouTube and other sites. When it was reported on by U.S. News & World Report, YouTube and Facebook deleted all related footage and implemented bans, but demand increased for LiveLeak's footage as they permitted it.[13] In response to the James Foley video, Hewitt posted that LiveLeak's content policy had been updated to ban all beheading footage produced by the Islamic State.[2][14] The website continued to host the original video that depicted the aftermath of Foley's execution for its historical relevance as it did not depict the beheading itself. On 30 March 2019 Telstra, an Australian telecommunications company, and other Australian Internet service providers[15] blocked the websites 4chan, 8chan, Voat, Zero Hedge and LiveLeak as a response to the video of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand spreading.[16] LiveLeak responded that they did not host the video and were removing uploads of it. The ISPs in question did not respond.[citation needed]
At the beginning of June 2020, LiveLeak temporarily disabled users' ability to log into the website, and it also only suggested videos from other sources, such as YouTube or Dailymotion. After 14 June 2020 it became possible to log into the website and view LiveLeak's hosted videos again. Those who did not want to log in to LiveLeak would only see suggested videos that were hosted by YouTube, Dailymotion and VK.[citation needed]
On 5 May 2021, the LiveLeak website closed, with site visitors being redirected to ItemFix.com, a Safe-for-work video sharing website.[3]
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