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Showing these kind of things has always been against the ethical standards of journalism and exceptions to it used to be discussed intensively by editors - excl

Showing these kind of things has always been against the ethical standards of journalism and exceptions to it used to be discussed intensively by editors - excluding the tabloid yellow press who make their living from this trash, of course. I guess some of the more recent American TV channels realized at some point, after they had gained fame for showing everything, that quotas are not everything and that relatives usually don't want the death of their beloved ones displayed all across the Internet without their consent. Sites like Liveleaks are very hypocritical, they pretend to show videos for "freedom of speech" while instead their main purpose is simply to satisfy their viewers' voyeurism. Cheap thrills are the main reason for viewing this kind of material - and don't pretend to be someone better, you've looked up that kind of stuff yourself for precisely that reason just like I have. People who watch this material only want to satisfy their curiosity and get the thrills from it. That's also why Truffault once said "There’s no such thing as an anti-war film." (There are exceptions, like "Taxi Driver", and perhaps also "Deer Hunter" and "Killing Fields", but these are rare.)

baybal2 5y ago
Excuse me, but showing "Palestinian children blown to bits" was probably the biggest contributor to global pressure on Israel which resulted in Oslo accords, Israeli military pullout from Lebanon, and Rwanda not burning to the ground completely. Such things indeed play a vitally important role.
- jonathanstrange 5y ago
  Even if what you claim was true, emotional knee-jerk reactions have never helped in any conflict. You give the best example, the situation in Palestine has not improved and looks as dire as ever. Showing things like "Palestinian children blown to bits" will first and foremost escalate a conflict and instigate more violence. I stand by what I said, people almost solely look up these videos to satisfy their personal morbidity and voyeurism. It's the same reason why there are always many bystanders around accidents who stare at the victims without doing anything. On a side note, there is also a false dichotomy in your argument. I haven't said that the press should never show such pictures or videos, just pointed out that it generally violates ethical standards of the press and it has always been hotly debated when exceptions should be allowed. Sites like Liveleaks are nothing more than trash in comparison.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    > Even if what you claim was true, emotional knee-jerk reactions have never helped in any conflict. I think it did, it did massively. On other hand keeping people oblivious to dire facts "because people will be outraged" is how you get Belgiums happening. "This can't be happening here" people were saying, despite a very credible threat, news of which were deliberately silenced, and played down by Belgian government of the time for the same reason. And when they woke up to the sight of German tanks on the streets, it was too late to agitate anybody. Belgian mobilisation failed because no men went to barracks because of prior normalisation of the situation. > Showing things like "Palestinian children blown to bits" will first and foremost escalate a conflict and instigate more violence. It's often when you do escalate conflict, and bring it to its logical end, when people can't simply stand, and do nothing, you do get things done. Ireland could've probably been English Gaza by now if Irish simply decided to lay down, endure repressions without inflicting pain upon British, and thus normalising the situation. When you have to scream your lungs out, you need to scream your lungs out. If you don't, this is how it gets to outrageous situations like women being raped in broad daylight without any men around doing anything about it, and to dead silence of passer-by's. Before, I thought something like this can only be possible in societies of China, or Russia, but to my most visceral disgust, it does now happen in the West too.
macinjosh 5y ago
You haven't explained why my view of the world should be decided by a bunch of rich corporate media guys. This filtering is exactly why newspapers and TV news are going away. The Internet can show you what actually happened not some filtered, preened, and positioned propaganda. It is not your responsibility to control other people's emotions and reactions to real life events.
- jonathanstrange 5y ago
  Newspapers, TV and press agencies are going nowhere. Contrary you what you seem to believe, journalists are risking their lives daily to bring you the actual news and all the pictures you click on. So far, the Internet has not provided anything of value in that regard except copy & pasting info from the press and news agencies, most Internet sites do not employ any writers and correspondents who actually go abroad to get the news at all. "citizen journalists" have barely ever reported on anything of relevance, and even in the rare cases when they happened to be at the right place and time (some hurricans in the US, I guess) their "reporting" was by far more biased and way less informative than what you'd get from the news media. You're completely deluded if you think opinion blogs and copy&paste news aggregation sites make you better informed. On the contrary, they are just a modern form of the "Chinese whispers" game.
Nasrudith 5y ago
If those are the standards of ethics then ethicists are just a bunch of pretentious tossers who should be disregarded on principle. It fits with the absolute shit that comes out of the mouth of any "AI Ethicist" who takes any spurious correlation as creating robo-Hitler and clearly have Hollywood as the basis of their credentials. There is no "consent of awareness of events" and frankly that would be a nightmarishally exploitable situation. It is a rationalization of being afraid of retaliation usually from being sued. How on earth would Liveleaks be hypocritical for saying it is for free speech even if voyeurism is the main purpose? Upsetting as it may be to you it needs actual contradiction of itself to be hypocritical. Accusing it of being a cynical facade is the the closest casting in a bad light stance. The whole fucking point of free speech is recognizing you don't get to decide how other people think! It can be both things at once. Better person is a matter of interpretation and context - there is never a guarantee that /any/ action will make somebody "better" to any framework much less the fuzziness of defining better.
- jonathanstrange 5y ago
  > The whole fucking point of free speech is recognizing you don't get to decide how other people think! Just like other media, Liveleaks could pretty much make you think anything they want you to think. The fact that they are more radical in their editorial decision (but they did not show everything either) does not mean that they influence people less. On the contrary, the more emotionally upsetting the content, the easier is to influence other people's thinking. But I bet you're one of those guys who think everyone else is influenced except for you.

baybal2 5y ago

Excuse me, but showing "Palestinian children blown to bits" was probably the biggest contributor to global pressure on Israel which resulted in Oslo accords, Israeli military pullout from Lebanon, and Rwanda not burning to the ground completely. Such things indeed play a vitally important role.

jonathanstrange 5y ago
Even if what you claim was true, emotional knee-jerk reactions have never helped in any conflict. You give the best example, the situation in Palestine has not improved and looks as dire as ever. Showing things like "Palestinian children blown to bits" will first and foremost escalate a conflict and instigate more violence. I stand by what I said, people almost solely look up these videos to satisfy their personal morbidity and voyeurism. It's the same reason why there are always many bystanders around accidents who stare at the victims without doing anything. On a side note, there is also a false dichotomy in your argument. I haven't said that the press should never show such pictures or videos, just pointed out that it generally violates ethical standards of the press and it has always been hotly debated when exceptions should be allowed. Sites like Liveleaks are nothing more than trash in comparison.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > Even if what you claim was true, emotional knee-jerk reactions have never helped in any conflict. I think it did, it did massively. On other hand keeping people oblivious to dire facts "because people will be outraged" is how you get Belgiums happening. "This can't be happening here" people were saying, despite a very credible threat, news of which were deliberately silenced, and played down by Belgian government of the time for the same reason. And when they woke up to the sight of German tanks on the streets, it was too late to agitate anybody. Belgian mobilisation failed because no men went to barracks because of prior normalisation of the situation. > Showing things like "Palestinian children blown to bits" will first and foremost escalate a conflict and instigate more violence. It's often when you do escalate conflict, and bring it to its logical end, when people can't simply stand, and do nothing, you do get things done. Ireland could've probably been English Gaza by now if Irish simply decided to lay down, endure repressions without inflicting pain upon British, and thus normalising the situation. When you have to scream your lungs out, you need to scream your lungs out. If you don't, this is how it gets to outrageous situations like women being raped in broad daylight without any men around doing anything about it, and to dead silence of passer-by's. Before, I thought something like this can only be possible in societies of China, or Russia, but to my most visceral disgust, it does now happen in the West too.

macinjosh 5y ago

You haven't explained why my view of the world should be decided by a bunch of rich corporate media guys. This filtering is exactly why newspapers and TV news are going away. The Internet can show you what actually happened not some filtered, preened, and positioned propaganda. It is not your responsibility to control other people's emotions and reactions to real life events.

jonathanstrange 5y ago
Newspapers, TV and press agencies are going nowhere. Contrary you what you seem to believe, journalists are risking their lives daily to bring you the actual news and all the pictures you click on. So far, the Internet has not provided anything of value in that regard except copy & pasting info from the press and news agencies, most Internet sites do not employ any writers and correspondents who actually go abroad to get the news at all. "citizen journalists" have barely ever reported on anything of relevance, and even in the rare cases when they happened to be at the right place and time (some hurricans in the US, I guess) their "reporting" was by far more biased and way less informative than what you'd get from the news media. You're completely deluded if you think opinion blogs and copy&paste news aggregation sites make you better informed. On the contrary, they are just a modern form of the "Chinese whispers" game.

Nasrudith 5y ago

If those are the standards of ethics then ethicists are just a bunch of pretentious tossers who should be disregarded on principle. It fits with the absolute shit that comes out of the mouth of any "AI Ethicist" who takes any spurious correlation as creating robo-Hitler and clearly have Hollywood as the basis of their credentials. There is no "consent of awareness of events" and frankly that would be a nightmarishally exploitable situation. It is a rationalization of being afraid of retaliation usually from being sued. How on earth would Liveleaks be hypocritical for saying it is for free speech even if voyeurism is the main purpose? Upsetting as it may be to you it needs actual contradiction of itself to be hypocritical. Accusing it of being a cynical facade is the the closest casting in a bad light stance. The whole fucking point of free speech is recognizing you don't get to decide how other people think! It can be both things at once. Better person is a matter of interpretation and context - there is never a guarantee that /any/ action will make somebody "better" to any framework much less the fuzziness of defining better.

jonathanstrange 5y ago
> The whole fucking point of free speech is recognizing you don't get to decide how other people think! Just like other media, Liveleaks could pretty much make you think anything they want you to think. The fact that they are more radical in their editorial decision (but they did not show everything either) does not mean that they influence people less. On the contrary, the more emotionally upsetting the content, the easier is to influence other people's thinking. But I bet you're one of those guys who think everyone else is influenced except for you.