Murder videos on facebook - acceptable?

facepollution

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24608499

Apparently facebook now think it's OK for videos of things like decapitations to be shared, because they believe that people should be able watch it and 'condemn it'. Nevermind the psychological effect watching something like that could have on a child. I know some people might say that that kind of stuff is available all over the net, but you would have to actively search for it to view it, which is not the same as a video popping up on your news feed and clicking out of morbid curiosity - as we all know, you can't un-see some things.

Secondly, where is the respect for the poor victim? Shit like this gives me a really heavy heart, that a person could do that to another human being is hard enough to believe, but for people all around the world to watch their last agonizing breaths.......

I've just read a news update whilst typing this, saying that facebook have agreed to now post warnings with such videos and not make them available to children. They also said that they will remove content if it believes violence is being glorified. But who are they to decide whether people are glorifying it or not? I'd wager that the majority of people are clicking out of morbid curiosity, the same as they would any of the gore sites out there, but this way they can some how justify it because it's on their news feed.

hedonist

Why on earth would a child have or need Facebook?

Why wouldn't any responsible parent monitor what their child is viewing online?

I agree with you on the victim comment though. On our local news, I've seen many a body in the street covered, or shots of their footless shoe in the street after a hit and run, pools of blood on the sidewalk after a shooting...and I think my god, what if that was a loved one they're showing? What good does it do to air that?

Not that I haven't indulged my share of morbid curiosity over time, but I'm kinda past that these days. I don't necessarily have to view footage of heinous acts to be aware they occur and denounce them.

Annafalk

It's wrong, that's what I think anyway..

facepollution

hedonist wrote:

Why on earth would a child have or need Facebook?

Why wouldn't any responsible parent monitor what their child is viewing online?

Well you only have to be 13 to have a facebook account, and it seems most kids these days have smart phones, making it harder for parents to track I guess.

hedonist

facepollution wrote:

hedonist wrote:

Why on earth would a child have or need Facebook?

Why wouldn't any responsible parent monitor what their child is viewing online?

Well you only have to be 13 to have a facebook account, and it seems most kids these days have smart phones, making it harder for parents to track I guess.

I hear ya. Both of those make me shake my head...so young for these things!

JimmyV

Boobs...still banned.

facepollution

JimmyV wrote:

Boobs...still banned.

yep, what about if you agree to only condemn them :-?

mickeyrat

what better way to sell more ad content?

Frankly i dont need to see a video of murder in order to condemn it. Or animal cruelty either for that matter.

Last-12-Exit

I've said it before when I hear stories like this: the purge doesn't seem like a bad idea

Thirty Bills Unpaid

My kid was shown a brutal video at school by one of his buddies. He told me about it and I asked to see it- I wanted to know what he saw.

It was very challenging to try and provide some form of guidance in light of what he saw.

Growing up is much different than when I was growing up. Parenting is much different than when my parents parented.

Take pornography for example. In our tree forts, stashed under things, if we were lucky we had a portion of a Playboy to look at. Nowadays, in seconds, kids can access all kinds of pornography.

Innocence has been lost- murder videos reflect this fact. There's no going back either. It's become a question of how do we deal with the reality.

Jason P

It's not a good sign of society that a question like this even needs to be brought up.

ajedigecko

Jason P wrote:

It's not a good sign of society that a question like this even needs to be brought up.

Truth

gimmesometruth27

is facebook a legit news source now?

they can't show that stuff on tv, why would it be acceptable on facebook? wouldn't that essentially be showing a snuff film? but then again, hard news sources USED to show things like self immolation, but for some reason the news is more sanitized now.

i dunno, if a photo of a breast or butt gets censored, then atrocites should be censored as well. just my opinion. the human body should be embraced, not censored.




***edit, i have kinda rethought my position on this. i was thinking in terms of american society. if i think about it, the arab spring was basically organized, documented, and blogged via social media. the war in syria is being chronicled on social media. the israeli occupation of palestinian land is being documented on social media. it is an important too now. i am thinking that perhaps the horrors of war and atrocites need to be seen by the masses.... put a disclaimer and make people click that they are over age 18 and let the videos stand. i do think that the nudity ban does need to be overturned though..

Hugh Freaking Dillon

haven't we all been desensitized enough already?

I'd be furious if I found out one of my daughters was able to view a video of such real brutality so easily.

know1

facepollution wrote:

hedonist wrote:

Why on earth would a child have or need Facebook?

Why wouldn't any responsible parent monitor what their child is viewing online?

Well you only have to be 13 to have a facebook account, and it seems most kids these days have smart phones, making it harder for parents to track I guess.

That's not tough to police at all. Don't let them have a smart phone.

hedonist

know1 wrote:

facepollution wrote:

hedonist wrote:

Why on earth would a child have or need Facebook?

Why wouldn't any responsible parent monitor what their child is viewing online?

Well you only have to be 13 to have a facebook account, and it seems most kids these days have smart phones, making it harder for parents to track I guess.

That's not tough to police at all. Don't let them have a smart phone.

But but...then they'll be mocked! The Joneses must be kept up with, you know.

facepollution

know1 wrote:

facepollution wrote:

hedonist wrote:

Why on earth would a child have or need Facebook?

Why wouldn't any responsible parent monitor what their child is viewing online?

Well you only have to be 13 to have a facebook account, and it seems most kids these days have smart phones, making it harder for parents to track I guess.

That's not tough to police at all. Don't let them have a smart phone.

I know where you're coming from, I guess it's just become acceptable for young kids to have phones these days - I know how much pressure my 11 year old niece put on my sister to get her a phone for her birthday, which of course came from the feeling of being left out because all her friends have them.

Anyway, I've given this topic a lot of thought over the last few days and come to the conclusion that I can't continue to support a company that thinks it is acceptable to allow this kind of content to be so readily available. Their rules on what is and what isn't acceptable is fucking farcical. They stipulate that a video is ok so long as it comes with a warning and doesn't seem to glorify the content - in which case presumably ANYTHING is acceptable, child rape, child murder?.......they argue that users should be able to reflect the world we live in, yet the context of these videos is completely ambiguous and ultimately decided by the viewer. Some people will view it out of morbid fascination and condemn it, whilst there will be some who derive some perverse enjoyment from it.

Obviously there is no real way of policing the internet as a whole, and with the advancements in technology such videos will always be available, but there are places where thsee videos belong - gore sites for people who actively want to search for and view such content, not on a social media site.

hedonist

You make good points, facepollution...and it makes me think too (out loud here) - what about footage of wars, of the Holocaust, of countries where still the inexplicable happens? Sometimes seeing the horrors of our past (and present) can be beneficial in some small way, whether via learning, blinders off, prevention, etc.

Definitely should be warnings on these things though (plus the parental supervision as metioned before).

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Couple things:

Warnings almost serve as promotional tools. They do not produce the effect people think they might.

Phones have become very purposeful. I like my son to have a phone for many reasons. My daughter is 12 and she doesn't have one yet, but there have been many moments when we wished she had one. She wants one, but this is not the reason why she will get one soon.

Kids are going to come across these types of things- phone or no phone.

I don't have Facebook and never will.

facepollution

hedonist wrote:

You make good points, facepollution...and it makes me think too (out loud here) - what about footage of wars, of the Holocaust, of countries where still the inexplicable happens? Sometimes seeing the horrors of our past (and present) can be beneficial in some small way, whether via learning, blinders off, prevention, etc.

Definitely should be warnings on these things though (plus the parental supervision as metioned before).

But those kind of videos have context, they're typically presented with a story detailing the history surrounding what happened, a video with the tagline 'see how much of this video you can watch', however, is simply trivializing an unspeakably evil act, and shows zero respect or compassion for the victims and their families.

I've also been witness to the kinds of people who view these types of videos, and their interest is not simply to condemn it (why would you need to see someone have their head cut off to condemn it?! surely we all know that's wrong, right??) - some guys at work the other day were passing around a phone with a video of a guy cutting the end of his dick off! I remember loads of people watching Saddam's hanging too - it is sheer morbid curiosity.

There's a reason why these kinds of videos aren't featured on the evening news, and that's because they are essentially snuff films, which up until a few years ago were still regarded as unacceptable.

facepollution

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Warnings almost serve as promotional tools. They do not produce the effect people think they might.

Absolutely, it's almost like "I dare you to watch this".

All the while facebook continues to rake in billions of dollars - it absolutely sickens me.