Murders, assaults and suicides have all been available for posting and viewing by nearly 2 billion Facebook users around the globe. Facebook needs to re-evaluate the merits of its live video feature and ask whether the advertising income it generates is worth horrifying audiences.

The posting on Easter Sunday of a gruesome video showing the shooting death of Robert Godwin Sr. in Cleveland was online for more than two hours, prompting outrage from users and an apology from Facebook.

On Tuesday, a man in Thailand recorded himself killing his 11-month-old daughter on the rooftop of a deserted hotel in two harrowing video clips streamed on Facebook. His later suicide was not broadcast on Facebook. The videos were accessible on the man's Facebook page for about 24 hours before they were taken down, according to The Guardian, a London-based daily newspaper.

Facebook's live video format is not even a year old and already has become an unwieldy service that CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledges needs tighter control. Facebook said that 37-year-old Steve Stephens, who shot and killed 74-year-old Godwin, uploaded the video after he recorded it, so it was not a live video. That distinction is lost on most viewers.

Facebook has legitimate reasons for not wanting to overly arbitrate what users may post, but the consequences of that reluctance are obvious, especially to anyone exposed to such grisly videos.

Media companies have huge platforms that can reach millions, and in rare cases such as Facebook, billions of people. Adhering to basic standards of social responsibility is critical given that reach. Just as freedom of speech stops with yelling fire in a crowded theater, reluctance to intervene online must stop with the depiction of crimes, suicides and assaults.

These videos are a form of pornography that do not meet any reasonable test for community standards. Facebook is believed to have the technical ability to weed out such postings, possibly even before they go live.

Facebook's problems with policing content mushroomed with its live video platform, which is designed to draw more lucrative advertising. Marketers say companies like live video because it lets them engage with audiences in an immediate way that is more effective than prerecorded content.

After the Godwin shooting, Zuckerberg said the company has a lot of work to do to "prevent tragedies like this from happening." The company said it would review its reporting flows to make sure viewers can easily report material that violates standards.

Facebook should also expand staff monitoring instead of relying on user reports and use artificial intelligence to capture problems, as it currently does with keeping child pornography, terrorist videos and copyright-protected content offline.

Zuckerberg started Facebook as a purely social website. But with its success comes the obligation of social responsibility.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH