LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

That’s really sad. They were one of the few platforms that would carry content honestly no matter how offensive it might be. With how overwhelming the scope and influence of big tech platforms like YouTube are, free speech has few homes left.

The fact they were HQ'd in London always confused me. Yes the EU gives you some protections, but taking a pseudonymous TPB-style approach is probably easier for everyone (support, operations, management, marketing) than the legal grey area LiveLeak operated in.

Also the end of the note from Hayden sticks with me, I know the type of videos or users he's referring to and I don't think the majority of readers will realise just how fucked up this platform was. Yes, there were videos from the likes of Lasse Gjertsen who made people question a lot of the content they saw, but there were some real ones in there too.

> Lastly, to those no longer with us. I still remember you.

I'm not sad it's gone. But there should probably be a place for all of this type of content, I'm just not sure where. The public internet probably isn't it.

Reading the ToS for the new site.. It seems all the content that made LiveLeak so popular (murder, shock videos, terrorism, suicide, sexual violence) is the exact content they won't allow. Seems a little bit like management are wanting to settle down, they know the main brand isn't going to be profitable long-term - but they can at least monetize some of it by building a video hosting site from its userbase.

> The public internet probably isn't it.

If it's not available to the public internet, what's the point? If you just make a "upload your video and we'll archive it" site, it probably won't gain any traction as people can't link to it and thus your site doesn't gain the mindshare that LiveLeak had. And I don't think people are going to start sending SD cards to a random PO box.

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated.

A lot is said about desensitization as a result of seeing horrible things on the internet, but in my experience, only the opposite was true. Seeing violence online when I was in my late teens sensitized me and made the stories on the TV real. Frankly, I owe a lot of my political beliefs (especially on foreign policy) to horrible realities I saw on Liveleak.

i always understood that liveleak and dailymotion were the same site, and liveleak was just the branding for their less-respectable content.

but this article doesn't make any mention of that, and i can't find any other discussion online of a relationship between the two brands. is this something i just invented in my head?