In 2009, Nidal Hasan, a US Army Major and psychiatrist, killed 13 US Military personnel and injured dozens more after opening fire at military base Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan claimed that he had carried out the attack to stop American soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan and killing fellow Muslims. In 2013, Hasan was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. 

On the 5th of October 2026, officials from the Defense Department announced that Hasan would be executed by firing squad on 3rd of December. This will be the first person executed by a US military firing squad since WWII, and the first person executed by the US military at all since 1961. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth then announced that the execution will be live-streamed. While regulations prohibit the broadcast of executions carried out in prisons, there are no such prohibitions relating to the broadcast of executions by the military. 

Here in Australia, Greens called on the government to block the live-stream in Aus. This received non-partisan support, including from One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce. A spokesperson for the federal government said that Australians ‘rightly expect’ not to be presented with this material on their screens. Albanese pledged that the government would do everything in its power to stop the live-stream being shown in Australia. Liberals condemned the live-stream whilst simultaneously expressing freedom of expression concerns about attempts to block it.

Having initially expressed support about the planned live-stream, and then later ambivalence, Donald Trump announced the it had been cancelled on the 16th of October. Though Hasan’s execution by firing squad is still scheduled for the 3rd of December, Trump has said that ‘many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die’, and that the live-stream will therefore not go ahead.

This case raises interesting questions about eSafety’s capacity to block such an event, as well as social media platform’s guidelines involving graphic and violent content. If the live-stream had gone ahead, could the government have prevented its broadcast in Australia? Would major social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube and Tiktok have agreed to host it?

Esafety said it did not have the powers to block the live-stream, but also that platforms have a responsibility to protect users from harmful material, and that Esafety has the responsibility to enforce those obligations. Experts said that eSafety could, at most, have issued take-down notices once the live-stream had occurred, but could not have pre-emptively taken action. 

In 2019, the Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Bill was passed. This was in response to the live-streaming of the Christchurch massacre. This made it an offence for internet service providers to fail to remove or cease from hosting abhorrent violent material that can be accessed from within Australia on their platform. 

In order for content to qualify as abhorrent violent material, it must involve a terrorism, torture, murder, rape or kidnapping. For the purposes of the amendment, ‘it is immaterial whether the abhorrent violent conduct was engaged in within or outside Australia’. At the time of writing, this amendment has not yet resulted in any convictions. In 2024, eSafety abandoned its attempt to get X to remove footage of a stabbing in a Sydney church. But, earlier this year, eSafety initiated court proceedings against Telegram for failing to remove violent footage of (among other things) the Christchurch massacre from its platform.

An execution carried out by a government, in according with its own laws, would not have fallen within any of the categories that would allow the live-stream to be classified as abhorrent violent content.

Platform Policies

Most Social Media Platforms have policies that prohibit certain violent material. This raises the issue of whether the live-stream would have been in contravention of those policies.

The first thing to note is that these policies are not enforceable by any independent authority, and so there is nothing stopping a platform from making an exception to their policies whenever they wish. Hence, even if the live-stream had been unambiguously in contravention of a social media platform’s community guidelines, that social media platform would still be at liberty to ignore those guidelines and host the live-stream anyway.

Furthermore, as some experts have pointed out, many social media policies demure from outright banning content, always allowing wiggle room based on context. Still, the planned live-stream put many social media and streaming services in an awkward position (especially those that have community guidelines designed to prohibit this kind of content). The decision of any such platform to host the live-stream could have been seen as a politically expedient move made at the expense of the safety of its users. 

Tiktok’s Community Guidelines prohibit ‘extremely graphic, violent, or disturbing content—especially when it could cause viewers emotional distress’, but notes potential exceptions for material that is ‘less graphic or shared in the public interest’. ‘The shooting of an individual’ is listed as among the types of video that is straightforwardly not allowed on the platform. This may be why Tiktok announced it would not be live-streaming the execution, back when the live-stream was still on the cards. Tiktok is one of only two platforms that made this resolution. 

Meta’s transparency centre explicitly lists ‘Live streams of capital punishments’ among its ‘Do Not Post’ list of things that will be removed. It does also say that the platform will consider the content of any graphic or violent material, such as whether the content is shared to ‘shed light on or condemn acts’. But there is no reason for thinking the official live-stream of the execution would have fallen into this category; the US government would not have been sharing the live-stream in the hopes of condemning the violence it portrays. This suggests that the live stream would have contravened the community guidelines of Meta platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Though, again, whether or not these platforms would have opted to enforce their community guidelines in this instance is an open question. 

Youtube’s guidelines around violent of graphic material do not explicitly address the live-streaming of capital punishments. It says that whether or not violent and/or graphic content is removed depends on certain contextual factors like whether it has educational or artistic merit, and whether it is in the public interest. But it does list the following kind of video that may not be allowed regardless of context: ‘Footage filmed by the perpetrator during a deadly or major violent event, in which weapons, violence, or injured victims are visible or audible.’ The planned live-stream execution did not fall squarely within this category; this clause is clearly aimed at those who film themselves committing a mass terrorist attack, and this is not what would have been featured in the live-stream. On balance, Youtube’s community guidelines have sufficient grey area that they avoid outright prohibiting the live-stream. 

X’s policies on violent material are the most lax of the social media platforms discussed in this briefing, and it is likely X would have agreed to host the live-stream if it had gone ahead. Their policies state that ‘We may request the removal of images or videos that were taken at the point of, immediately before, or after an identifiable individual’s death, if we receive a request from their family or an authorized representative.’, but this would have been unlikely to apply in the current context. Furthermore, X’s policy on violent attacks explicitly allows for ‘The use of force by law enforcement and military personnel, as part of the scope of their official functions, that resulted in casualties’, and this seems to describe the events planned for Hasan’s execution. Finally, X has refused to take down footage of a violent attack in a Sydney church at the request of eSafety, and so there is precedent for X platforming violent and graphic material. Taken together, these factors all suggest that X would have very likely hosted the live-stream if it had gone ahead. 

What about platforms that are specifically designed for live-streaming? Twitch is the biggest such platform, and its community guidelines expressly forbid ‘content that displays realistic gore including death’. This seems to straightforwardly prohibit the live-streaming of an execution.

Kick, another major streaming platform, has community guidelines that are much more permissive, stating that while ‘Extreme violence’ is not permitted, ‘Context is always considered’. As such, it was possible that the context of the planned live-streamed execution would have made it permissible. But, somewhat surprisingly, Kick was the only other platform (in addition to Tiktok) to say explicitly that they would not host the live-stream, precisely because it contravened their community guidelines.

As others have pointed out, the CEOs of some major social media platforms have a close relationship with the White House. This means (i) that they were unlikely to be penalised if they did decide to host the live-stream, and (ii) they may have felt political pressure to do so. Given that most platform’s guidelines have clauses that allow for grey area based on context, it is likely that at least some would have opted in to host the live-stream. It is also a distinct possibility that platforms would have opted not to enforce their community guidelines, even if the live-stream did contravene them. Furthermore, it’s hard to see how eSafety could have pre-emptively stopped the live-stream being viewable in Australia. Taken together, these factors imply that, if the live-stream had been broadcast, it probably would have been accessible on Australian screens. 

Thankfully, the live-stream was cancelled. Still, this situation revealed weaknesses in online safety for the Australian public. Firstly, eSafety needs to have stronger prevention powers, in addition to their retroactive powers to have content removed. Secondly, the policies of social media platforms cannot be relied upon to protect the Australian public, as they can always opt to ignore their own rules on a case-by-case basis, depending on whether or not doing so is within their interest.