Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that, had there been a delay in the live stream of the Christchurch terrorist attacks, it "might" have limited the number of views the video received.
But, he added today in an interview with US programme Good Morning America, a delay would fundamentally break what live streaming is.
Speaking extensively about the Christchurch mosques shooting for the first time, the social media mogul was defensive of the platform's live broadcast feature as he spoke with US ABC reporter George Stephanopoulos.
"You're not just broadcasting, you're communicating and people are commenting back," he said of the feature.
"That was a really terrible event," Mr Zuckerberg said of the attacks. "We need to build our systems to be able to identify live stream terror events more quickly.
"I don't want our work to be something that gets towards amplifying really negative stereotypes or promoting hate."
The social media giant has been heavily criticised for taking 29 minutes to detect the live-streamed video of the massacre - eight minutes longer than it took police to arrest the gunman.
About 1.3 million copies of the video were blocked from Facebook, but 300,000 copies were published and shared.
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