A terminally ill man who had been intending to livestream his death on Facebook has had the plan blocked by the social media platform. He is protesting France’s right-to-die laws after President Emmanuel Macron denied his right to voluntary euthanasia and has since ceased eating and drinking.
Alain Cocq is 57 and has spent the last 34 years in the terminal stage of the disease from which he suffers, which causes the walls of his arteries to stick together. During much of that time, he has campaigned for an overhaul to France’s current right-to-die laws, with euthanasia currently illegal in the country. CNN reports that Cocq had requested to be allowed to “die with dignity,” but was not granted permission.
Addressing his 22,000 followers, Cocq took to a Facebook livestream to claim he felt compelled to share his final moments, “so that people know what the end of life is like in France.”
Facebook later removed that video and blocked him from broadcasting live until September 8th. A Facebook spokesperson told the Verge:
Our hearts go out to Alain Cocq and those who are affected by this sad situation. While we respect his decision to draw attention to this complex and difficult issue, based on the guidance of experts, we have taken steps to keep Alain from broadcasting live, as we do not allow the depiction of suicide attempts.
Since the ban, Cocq has been looking for another way to broadcast.
Nothing scares politicians more than the hard realities of life and death.
I don’t know about you, but I have yet to see a TV Channel publicise a live show in which it is announced that someone is dying live.
If anything it is pre recorded and vetted beforehand.
You may think about it and thank me afterwards for helping you to see the obvious reason for shutting it down.
You missed my point. I'm referring to Macron denying the man the right to an assisted death.
Well that’s pretty silly comment too. Has nothing to do with “Macron”:
It is illegal in France.
Macron just confirmed what the law says. He’s got other things to do than change a law on a very controversial subject in the middle of a recession and pandanic. Don’t you think?
We are commenting here on an article which states that "....President Emmanuel Macron denied his right to voluntary euthanasia". Feel free to make your point to the author.
I don’t understand why everything has to be a livestream anyway. Get a documentary videographer and a publisher and make sure it gets published in traditional media. Maybe even Netflix
Done.
In general, suicide rates tend to spike up when one is publicized. Based on this, I think Facebook did the responsible thing by blocking it.
And a new twist for FB - an official spokesperson made a human-sounding statement that addressed the actual situation.
T
Why, we've already been watching the death of Facebook for years now.
Yet FB happily promotes hate and conspiracy pages. I guess they just couldn’t monetize it.