Rest In Peace Liveleak.org
628LiveLeak was a British video sharing website headquartered in London. The site was founded on 31 October 2006,[6] in part by the team behind the Ogrish.com shock site which closed on the same day.[5] LiveLeak aimed to freely host real footage of politics, war, and many other world events and to encourage and foster a culture of citizen journalism.[7][8] Hayden Hewitt of Manchester is the only public member of LiveLeak's founding team.[5]
The site was shut down on 5 May 2021. The website currently redirects to ItemFix, another video sharing site.[9]
LiveLeak first came to prominence in 2007 following the unauthorized filming and leaking of the execution of Saddam Hussein. This among others earned the site a mention from then White House Press Secretary Tony Snow as the likely place to see updates or stories from active soldiers.[10]
On 30 July 2007, the BBC program Panorama broadcast a show on how street violence between children as young as 11 was being posted on websites including LiveLeak.[11] 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."[12]
LiveLeak was again in the spotlight in March 2008, when it was hosting the anti-Quran film Fitna made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. LiveLeak already held to being strictly non-biased in its approach to violent content, enshrining freedom of speech within the site rules, regardless of how certain content can offend.[13] Fitna was taken down for 48 hours as personal threats against Hewitt, the only public representative of the site, peaked. The re-post date was 30 March 2008 after arrangements for Hewitt's family and safety had been improved. However the video was soon removed again over a copyright claim.[5]
On 24 March 2014, LiveLeak and Ruptly announced a content partnership.[14]
On 19 August 2014 a video depicting the beheading of US journalist James Foley was posted by Islamic State terrorists on YouTube and other sites. When it was reported on by US News & World Report, YouTube and Facebook deleted all related footage and implemented bans, increasing demand for LiveLeak's footage as they currently allowed this.[15] In response to the James Foley video, Hewitt posted that LiveLeak's policy had been updated to ban all beheading footage produced by ISIS.[16][5] The website will continue to host the original video that depicted the aftermath of Foley's execution for its historical relevance as it does not depict the beheading itself.
On 30 March 2019, Australian telecom Telstra denied millions of Australians access to websites 4chan, 8chan, Voat, Zero Hedge, and LiveLeak as a response to the video of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand spreading.[17]
At the beginning of June 2020, LiveLeak was temporarily disabling the 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 didn't want to log in to LiveLeak would only see suggested videos that are hosted by YouTube, Dailymotion and vk.com.
On 5 May 2021, the LiveLeak website closed, with site visitors being re-directed to ItemFix.com.[18]