Here’s a new standard by which we’re going to have to judge social media addiction – the Thousand Oaks gunman stopped in the middle of his rampage in order to post to Instagram. Somehow the children having short attention spans, or getting insomnia from blue light from screens, is going to look a little more trivial after this.
It is hard to believe too, but we’re assured it is true:
California bar shooter posted to social media while inside Borderline Bar & Grill, cops say
Actually, not just that, he stopped shooting to do so.
Gunman apparently stopped shooting to post online
A law enforcement official said that — based on time stamps — the Southern California gunman apparently stopped shooting inside the bar and posted to Instagram.
It’s even a little more than that, one claim is that he actually posted video of what he was doing to Instagram.
Shooter Ian Long was holding a gun in one hand and his phone in the other as he indiscriminately killed people inside the bar, law enforcement officials told TMZ.
As he carried out the shooting, he posted messages to his Instagram story in real time, the site reported.
Those videos remained up on Long’s social media profile for hours after the shooting, before being discovered by police who asked Instagram to remove his account, according to the same report.
It’s at this stage that it begins to sound a little unlikely. For if he really was posting videos of his own mass murdering then I’m really pretty sure that those videos would have been copied and would now be doing the rounds. At least as far as we know, they’re not.
But still, we do have this new definition of social media addiction now, don’t we? Fascinated enough by the act of posting that you interrupt a mass murder spree to do so?
So why isn’t Instagram being banned like Gab? Double standards anyone?
So why isn’t Instagram being banned like Gab? Double standards anyone?