Since it became possible for anyone
with a smartphone and a decent signal to live-stream video, a number of
extraordinary and unpredicted events have been broadcast on social media
as they happened.
This week a woman in the USA live-streamed
the aftermath of the incident in which her boyfriend was shot dead by
policemen, with her young daughter sitting in the same car. Lavish
Reynolds was able to keep filming even when officers made her kneel on
the pavement at gunpoint. But in some places, it's best not to flash your phone and microphone around, even if you are a pro-government reporter.
On Wednesday, a presenter from Damascus Now - a popular Syrian Facebook page dedicated to local news - had some surprise guests while he was doing a Facebook Live appearance on the streets of the Syrian capital.
Damascus Now, which has almost one million followers, tends to adopt a pro-government tone. But despite that, and for reasons that are not entirely clear, passing members of the security forces became suspicious and decided to question the reporter while he was in the middle of his live broadcast from the Al-Baramkah neighbourhood. Viewers saw the camera shaking and the filming angle rotating,
There was a mixed reaction from the audience. Some made jokes in the comments section under the video as the reporter was questioned live on air. One interrogator asked him who he worked for and the content of the Facebook Live. One viewer commented "poor man", while another one was concerned about the fate of the reporter.
After the incident the video of the event was deleted from Damascus Now's Facebook page. But a brief account of what happened was posted on the page, pointing out that this was the first instance of a Facebook Live broadcast in Damascus being interrupted by security forces. According to the website, the reporter was set free "after the security found out he works for Damascus Now page" and then resumed his work.
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