One of the internet's most infamous homes of the grotesque and gory is closing its doors for good. LiveLeak, home to countless videos often depicting some of the most horrendous aspects of society, is shutting down after 15 years of operation as the management team no longer has "it in us to carry on fighting."
LiveLeak Confirms Shut Down
In the full blog post, LiveLeak founder Hayden Hewitt confirmed that LiveLeak would indeed be closing down.
However, LiveLeak "fans" will be left wondering why, as the official statement didn't provide an explicit reason for the website's demise. Hayden only said that the internet is a different place from the one where LiveLeak launched and that the people running the site were different, too.
Nothing lasts forever though and – as we did all those years ago – we felt LiveLeak had achieved all that it could and it was time for us to try something new and exciting
As the home of some truly awful footage taken from cameras worldwide, the LiveLeak name was synonymous with gore, murder, terrorism, and everything in-between. Hewitt's site grew out of the early internet, which was a more lawless environment and host to numerous shock sites that existed for one sole reason: to disgust visitors.
LiveLeak has featured in the news multiple times, almost always for allowing content barred elsewhere to air with impunity. Absolute freedom of speech was engrained into the fabric of the site—with the dangerous pitfalls that approach can manifest.
For Hewitt, providing a space for some of these videos to exist was a form of preservation, providing a platform that would protect controversial content no matter what. In his own words, "We have to take a stance of saying 'look all this is happening, this is real life, this is going on, we're going to show it."
End of the Line for LiveLeak
Despite the oft-disturbing and graphic nature of the content found on LiveLeak, the website was incredibly popular. A 2019 New York Times post noted that website tracking firm Alexa ranked LiveLeak as the 695th most popular site in the entire world, which at the time gave it comparative status to many other mainstream sites.
Despite LiveLeak shutting down for good, many people who use the internet appear to have an insatiable desire for dark and extreme content. Without LiveLeak, other websites will pop up to take its place, and there is little doubt that LiveLeak's users will flood to the next similar offering.
As for LiveLeak, Hewitt is launching a new video streaming site that will ban "excessive violence or gory content," seeking a move away from disturbing and disgusting content.
0 Comments