Hegseth Says Nidal Hasan's Execution Will Be Livestreamed, Raising Questions for Social Media Platforms
The Pentagon chief said 'people need to understand there's consequences' as the Fort Hood shooter faces a firing squad on Dec. 3; Meta, YouTube, TikTok and X all have rules against such footage.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will be streamed live, a plan that has drawn strong criticism and calls for him to reconsider. It also raises a question no American government has had to answer in decades: whether the world's largest social media platforms will carry a state execution.
Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. He is scheduled to die by firing squad at 1 p.m. on Dec. 3 at the Texas Army installation.
Hegseth made the remarks Thursday in an interview with far-right activist Jack Posobiec. He justified public viewing by saying "people need to understand that there's consequences for these types of things." He did not say how the stream would be distributed, including whether the Pentagon would post it on its own social media accounts or website.
Every major platform has rules that appear to cover such footage. Meta's policy on violent and graphic content explicitly bars livestreams of capital punishment, though it leaves room for content that sheds light on human rights abuses or armed conflict. YouTube bars violent or gory content meant to shock and prohibits live streams showing someone handling or transporting a firearm. TikTok prohibits extremely gory, disturbing or violent content, although some graphic public-interest footage, such as war or disaster video, may be allowed but limited to adults or kept out of the For You feed. X, owned by Elon Musk, prohibits highly severe violent media, including "gratuitous gore" and "moment of death" content. Google, Meta and X did not say whether they would allow the Defense Department to stream the execution.
David Greene, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said a private entity announcing an execution would likely be told it "can't use our platform." Government involvement makes the call harder, he said, because of public interest in witnessing state actions and likely government pressure to carry the footage. Greene said he thinks the government's motive is propaganda, aimed at showing off its power to execute people. Because the plan was announced in advance, he expects platform staff, not just automated systems, to make the decision.
The platforms tightened their policies after a gunman livestreamed a 2019 attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and they scrambled earlier to remove graphic Islamic State execution videos. Human rights groups have also urged platforms to preserve content that documents abuses or war crimes.
A livestream would put the United States in unusual company. Amnesty International counted at least 17 known public executions in 2025, six in Afghanistan and 11 in Iran. The last known public execution in the United States was in 1936, when an estimated 20,000 people watched the hanging of Rainey Bethea in Kentucky. The last U.S. military execution was the 1961 hanging of Army Private John Bennett.
Vice President JD Vance has said he would not watch the livestream, CBS News reported.
