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Thailand baby killing: Facebook removes video

Posted at 8:42 AM, Apr 26, 2017
and last updated 2017-04-26 08:42:27-04

Facebook has removed video that reportedly showed a man in Thailand killing his 11-month-old daughter, the social media company said Tuesday.

Police on Phuket Island confirmed to CNN that the man killed the baby and then he committed suicide by hanging himself. The two bodies were discovered hanging in a derelict building in the Sakhu area of the southern Thai island.

Police Major Prawat Tantibhussapun said the father’s cousin had been browsing Facebook on Monday and had come across the live video, in which the man, identified as 20-year-old Wutthisan Wongthale, was putting a rope around his daughter’s neck.

The cousin called the girl’s mother and she, along with other relatives, called the police.

Police arrived at the scene at 6:30 p.m., around an hour after the live feed started.

Police said the man had an abusive history toward his wife — the day before the incident took place he was trying to change his wife’s Facebook profile picture and they had fought.

She was threatened by Wutthisan, Prawat said, so she left the family home and came back, too late, to find her daughter the next day.

Several dozen people, including the girl’s mother, attended the baby’s funeral on Tuesday.

Two videos showing the child’s death were posted on the man’s Facebook page for about 24 hours, Reuters reported. They were taken down about 5 p.m. Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy told the news agency it requested Facebook remove the videos.

Facebook statement

“This is an appalling incident and our hearts go out to the family of the victim. There is absolutely no place for acts of this kind on Facebook,” a company spokeswoman said.

The incident comes a week after an Ohio man fatally shot a man walking down the street and uploaded the video to Facebook. He later killed himself after a police pursuit in Pennsylvania.

The slaying prompted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to say at a developer’s conference: “We have a lot of work, and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.”