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An Argument For Not Taking Down Horrific Videos
A few days ago, we posted a story that asked whether posting horrific videos online served a legitimate journalistic purpose; some images that are shocking in their violence are now routinely available, including and especially the recent video of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned alive. Matthew Ingram writes at GigaOm that, whatever you think of the motives or results of the traditional news media showing such videos or choosing not to, there's good reason for social media sites not to reflexively remove such content.
An Argument For Not Taking Down Horrific Videos
Freedom of speech.
There done. Issue solved. Next?
Somewhere, hopefully in Nirvana, a self-immolating monks nods in approval.
I'm not entirely against showing these type of images or media, but I am absolutely of the mind that the publisher must censor the individual's identification - such as not presenting their name, blurring face or other identifying features, in any sort of media. Media would most definitely (in accordance with the law..) censor it's own citizens being murdered without approval from the deceased's family or next of kin, why should that common sense respect not apply to foreigners?
That being said, Fox didn't publish this video for any "journalistic integrity" or whatever nonsense reason they claimed - but for clickbait/viewer trash to bump their numbers. I, for one, haven't seen the video - and don't plan on seeing it, and Fuck Fox News for using journalistic integrity as a means of justifying something like this.
The key question is why do governments want them down so badly?
The government so desperately wants these videos down and routinely makes claims that these videos are radicalizing people (not proven but still doesn't change anything). But this doesn't make sense. The videos don't really cost money. They aren't going against some vested interest of a lobby group. So why are they so desperate?
The answer is clear. They make the bureaucrats look bad. How can they claim that any given battle has been won or an area "pacified" if videos crop up showing their opponents doing what they want where they want? Bush jr claimed that the war was over but very quickly both the media and the internet proved him very very wrong. But if he had complete control over the information we might have only been able to speculate as to why so many soldiers were dying in "accidents". Instead he was humiliated and his legacy largely ruined.
And this is the crux of real power; the control of information. Look at the power that Snowden has managed to take away. Not all of it but even in the UK the courts have just delivered a gut punch that mightn't ever have happened without his release of the information and caused such potential for a power shift.
So while I don't really want more power to groups like ISIS. I am 100% sure that I don't want more power in the hands of the US or any other western government. So ignore any argument that they might make about keeping the children safe and remember that this is a quest for power over information pure and simple.
More sex, less violence please.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Yes, because the US has so often set fire to persons who would normally be called legitimate prisoners of war (uniformed, part of a regular military, etch) in order to execute them for... what exactly?
How many folks at Gitmo have been executed? Of the survivors... how many have gained weight because of their treatment there?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
As bad as these videos are, censorship is a vastly greater evil. Who decides what is censored and what is not? Who appoints the censors? This is a problem which even the Romans wrestled with.
Don't think censorship is bad? if your are:
You all get the picture. Censorship is bad. In the formerly-Free West we understood that censorship was worse than most bad speech. But now there are very, very many who believe so fervently in their cause that they are willing to silence all dissenting voices - this is a great regression in the World (but unfortunately, even Slashdotters ardently apply censorship through their mod points [not modding up posts they like, but deliberately trying to silence posts they don't agree with]).
The true solution to Bad Speech is *more speech*. This is what Free Speech is all about - let ideas compete in the open arena of public discourse - no matter how offensive and uncomfortable for those with political, religious or financial power.
Only authoritarians or totalitarians which to censor the speech of others:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often misattributed to Voltaire)
This is the principle that should reign - and the US 1st Amendment to the Constitution is brilliant in allowing Free Speech to flourish. Too bad the powers in the US, EU and UN (eg. the disgusting UN HRC 16/18) are working to destroy Free Speech criticism of the powerful - and ensuring that you don't get a vote or say in the matter.
There is no substitute for Liberty!
I find it amusing how whenever the topic of free speech comes up here, or at Hacker News, or even at Reddit, many of the comments will be supportive of free speech, and against censorship. Yet when it comes to how such sites actually operate, we see the complete opposite. We see lots of censorship, and the active suppression of free speech.
Granted, Slashdot isn't as bad as some sites. At least we can post as AC here, we generally don't see users banned completely (although there are apparently posting restrictions can be put in place), and we can optionally see all comments. But it's still quite distasteful to see so many good comments get modded down to -1 so often. Modding like that is a form of censorship, and it should have no place here.
HN and Reddit are particularly bad. HN has its vague, extrajudicial "hellbanning", for example. Both sites suffer from an extreme self-righteousness complex, where members there are absolutely sure they're right, and will go so far as to silence anyone who disagrees with them. If you're lucky, they'll only accuse you of being "disingenuous" or "snarky". But most likely anyone who doesn't completely follow the flock will be abusively downvoted, if not banned.
So I think it's quite sad when people here and at those other sites talk about how important free expression is, and how bad censorship is, yet they actively support such things when they go on at the sites that they frequent.
Anything else sugar-coats the truth. You can't have real progress in anything without knowing the truth. As the old saying goes, know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
A photo of the incineration of the Jordanian pilot, with the legend
"Waterboarding no longer bothers me."
Warning: Graphic Photo, and general political incorrectness
http://www.theospark.net/2015/...
I was appalled without having to see it. Visual media was not needed. The fact that we lie in a society that seems to need to have it's shock porn is disturbing. And it wasn't censored, privately held media/news companies decided not to show it.
"freedom of speech only applies to government actions."
The Constitution (and its ammenments) apply to government actions, "freedom of speech" is a more general thing.
But I do agree that a website can set its own rules, if news or social media sites don't want to have people post porn, violence or racist shit they don't have to accept everything that is uploaded. And if some islamic terror group wants to host their own blogs showing what they do to non-believers then they'll just have to put up with anti-islamic sites hosted elsewhere poking fun at their religion and their Prophet.
There are sites that will leave the content up. liveleak.com comes to mind. It just happens that the ever popular youtube isn't one of them. Vote with your mouse clicks if you take issue with it.
As someone who has managed to avoid watching the video of the Jordanian pilot being intentionally burned to death, I thought I would share my approach, which didn't involve removing it from the internet. I did not click, and I don't watch Fox News. Actually, I don't watch any mainstream TV news; I listen to the radio and read online sites run by newspapers (the Guardian, mainly) and other organizations (Pro Publica).
This has saved me enormous amounts of time, and spared me from having to tut-tut when TV newsreaders working for General Electric, Westinghouse, or other large successful corporations turn out to be liars and frauds. It also prevents me from having nightmares from watching people being bombed by governments, burned to death by other terrorists, and yet I still feel relatively informed about just how disastrous 21st century capitalist fraud has been for humanity.
Freedom of speech.
There done. Issue solved. Next?
Not so fast.
Shouting out "Freedom of speech!" to abort all thought and argument about the meaning and limits of free speech is the oldest and most subtle enemy of free speech.
If this article is supposed to be an argument for publishing it is unconvincing. Note I am not saying that publishing is wrong, just that this would lose at debate club.
Why? He has duty to be informed backwards. We hardly need to be more informed about the horrors perpetrated by ISIS. Our networks have no problem publishing that stuff 24 hours a day. If we were talking the duty to be informed seriously we need to be informed about the horrors WE are perpetrating, but FOX certainly isn't interested in that.
Take the examples given in the fine article: A burning Jordianian pilot; A burning little girl; Dead American soldiers. You see how one of these things is not like the others? Only one of them was deliberately produced and then cynically appropriated for pro-war purposes.
There ARE good arguments for showing the video, but need to be informed is bogus. Lets stick with free speech, huh?.After all that (fairly embarrassing) #JeSuisCharlie onanism we can't turn around and silence the voices of our enemies without revealing ourselves as self-righteous hypocrites.
.....but the freaking out over one Jordanian pilot takes the cake. If you don't remember the phosphorous dumped on Fallujah, how about the tons of napalm dropped over Vietnam?
we need laws to protect our freedoms so even freedom has its limits. there needs to be a standard of censorship especially from videos of discrimination
Yes, because the US has so often set fire to persons who would normally be called legitimate prisoners of war (uniformed, part of a regular military, etch) in order to execute them for... what exactly?
How many folks at Gitmo have been executed? Of the survivors... how many have gained weight because of their treatment there?
Not just that, the 'caliph' of ISIS - Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi - was a US POW from 2005-2009. He was released, and went on to become the leader of ISIS, and now claims supreme leadership of all the world's 1.8B Muzzies. While his state exhibits Islam in all its gory glory.
But never mind all that. Why not bring up 'Abu Ghraib' so that we can have a field day w/ the moral equivalence sweepstakes?
Dresden.
I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but I think it counts. Also - I would imagine it unlikely that none of the civilian casualties of the current round of US 'wars' were burned alive.
Regardless facts and the truth trump the need to protect the fainting goats of the human species from their tendency to swoon.
Who gets to pick what that "standard" is? The censors get to pick. What if they are the worst perpetrators of discrimination?
The better solution is not have censorship in the first place, and have the ability to respond to people behaving poorly.
Charlie Booker had a good analysis on why you're wrong. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Being free citizens isn't supposed to be comfortable. It involves hard choices about serious issues. To pre-filter the information provided to citizens based on what *you* think they can handle is as patronizing as it is misguided.
As Twain once said something like, "censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak because a baby can't chew it."
Is it unpleasant? Yes. If you can't bear to watch it, don't watch it. But understand that it will take people who are willing to see it for what it is to really understand how hard we need to fight this.
-Styopa
Sorry to burst your tea party bubble, but freedom of speech only applies to government actions.
No, the First Amendment only applies to government actions. It may be hard for you to believe, but some of us find virtue in protecting freedom of speech even in cases where the law would let you get away with suppressing it.
Dunno why you'd bring up the tea party or twitter, but it is interesting that this story and last week's twitter story both neglected to use the censorship icon.
BTW if anyone is interested in the contents of the video but doesn't want to watch it, Qbertino provided a detailed.summary in the last story about it:
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
Although it may kill a lot more people, waging war in the knowledge that innocent people will die is rightfully treated very differently from actively targeting defenseless innocents as a primary war strategy. Morality is not the math of summing up body counts. Both are in my opinion immoral, but the active targeting is far more so.
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ie, allow people to see them if they seek them out, but never auto-play them (!!) and never show them unsolicited.
barely mention it on the news and only provide a link to where to get the video, and with suitable warnings.
that seems to be a reasonable compromise between giving the bad guys an easy outlet for their sick deeds - vs allowing freedom of speech. suppressing them entirely is wrong, but parading the videos is also wrong.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
"The answer is clear. They make the bureaucrats look bad."
How about frigging human decency. This persons had a family, friends, and acquaintance. How about this was a HUMAN being. You see free speech as trumping *everything* including human decency. I see human decency as being more important than free speech. As for your qip about bureaucrats looking bad , frankly where do you pull that shit out ? It only makes ISIS or whatever flavor of barbar did that looks bad. It does not reflect on any administration badly, be it american or jordanian. Why do i get the feeling you analyze *ANY* events with the tainted political glasses ? At least that explain why you did not think of human decency first.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
see topic.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Who is to be the arbiter of what should and should not be said? Do they know the motive of every statement a person makes every time they make them? How can anyone teach people bad arguments if they can't hear them? The answer to those questions are "Nobody", "Fat Chance", and "Impossible".
If you fear debate and are so inadequate in your own opinion that you wish to censor, remain a hermit. Hide in your house and hire a good delivery person. The world is full of contrary opinions, and you can't possibly agree with them all.
I have no issues with Freedom of Speech because I trust my own opinions, beliefs, and ability to debate. I can defend my opinion rationally and factually, even when it's not the popular argument. I am not always right, and I do make mistakes. That is how I improve myself and my opinions and I welcome debate so that I can improve.
Believing that speech can be controlled and regulated is a delusion. From the times of Ancient Greece to present people have tried, all to no avail. You can only control your own ability to hear the arguments and defend your own position.
In a rare moment of defending Fox "News" I believe that what they did was perfectly valid. They did not force anyone to watch the video. Anyone that didn't want to see it had ample opportunity to avoid the video. If you go out of your way to feel offended, then you deserve to be offended.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Wow. You dummies really need to take a second and read the bill of rights. All that freedom of speech guarantees is there won't be any laws passed infringing it. There's no guarantee of an audience for anything anyone has to say. There's no guarantee that there will be no consequences for speaking your mind. You won't be arrested for it, though, that's guaranteed.
If I owned a valuable media company I sure as hell wouldn't want it associated with snuff films. You can distribute your shit some other way, thank you very much.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
All those American social media have policy preventing to show even a small part of a tits, but it is fine to show someone burnt alive??? WTF? Have you lost any basic common sense? "Violence should be worshiped and sex is bad" is the new America social standard that is pushed to the rest of the world.
With all this censorship, I haven't even been able to find the damn video everyone is talking about.
BTK video ... of your young niece? ... of your mum?
Or a snuff video
Can't walk the walk? Then don't talk the talk!
More to the point - all copyright or ownership of the video became forfeit to the young man when he was being tortured. And it has passed to his legal hiers. So if they don't want you to watch it, or wish to remove certain portions, you do not have the right to watch or distribute it.
The only exceptions are fair use, or genuine public interest (with 'public interest' determined by a legitimate authority - like a government fighting the murderers)..
Supporters of the GPL, or any copyright-based licenses - this is particularly applicable to you.
After all, the act of doing that abuse is illegal, but disseminating it is pure speech. Therefore you should be all up your government's ass demanding the removal of the laws against KP right? Write them a stern letter telling them they should remove all anti-KP laws for reasons of free speech and not bar you or investigate you for a potential paedophile.
Or are restrictions on free speech sometimes acceptable to you, unlike the cases where you pop up with "FREE SPEECH! FREEEEEEE SPPEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHH!!!!".
Yes, because making sure people are aware of the horrors of allowing tyrants to run wild is the same as kiddie-porn in your mind, right?
We can only be thankful you are the only one who has to live in your skull.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Lets ban all those horrible images from WOII too.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Surely it's 100x better to explain WHY the world is the way it is.
Because there's a right time to burn people alive?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Every single person who could of helped but didn't is responsible, that's simple, why do you even need to ask?
If someone is dying and you can help, why wouldn't you?
Greed, corporate control of countries via treaties and futures markets. Deliberate lack of distribution of wealth.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Why not just title this thing, "An argument against taking down horrific videos?"
Control being control of what I can do (government) or what I can see (media).
I am the decider of my own morality. So long as you inform me about what I am signing up to see or do in ways that do not impact others, I will chose if it is acceptable. You have no right to determine my own morality as long as it impacts me.
When my choices and actions impact others in ways they cannot chose to avoid or ignore (ie I can and successfully have ignored most of these videos as I believe the description was sufficient. Others may chose to view them.) you may step in and inform or restrain me as appropriate. Until I have crossed that line, please remain OUT of my life.
Thank you.
... Now if we could just all agree on what actually impacts other people, sigh.
You are totally correct. All those "free speech" claims aren't being applied toward child porn. Both are grave human abuses and not just committing the act is a crime, but filming it, distributing it, even hosting it are also crimes. Why should murder be any different?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I thought about this.
Between :
* dying a quick (but horrible) death
* rotting away for eternity without trial, regular torture, sleep deprevation and occasional 30-hour binge of Christina Aguilera.
What would you choose?
I'm really not sure, but I think I'd choose the death by fire.
Look for people who strenuously oppose posting such videos, in places where strong language and visuals commonly appear, and you know who ISIS' domestic friends are.
a) Nothing ever disappears on the internet, why is this still a question? b) Censorship is never good. Ever.
99% of things journalists show has no legitimate journalistic purpose, other than it falls under freedom of speech and people will tune in/click to see it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Independent of free speech issues, it forces us to confront the contents of the video. Jordan now appears to be balls deep in the conflict because of that video.
I'm not saying it's the duty of every person to confront evil in the world, petty or explicit, but a lot of us can handle it and wouldn't opt out. Just create a non-porn 18+ filter that 18+ can opt in for. Apply the filter after a couple thousand video reports.
So to be clear you think child porn distribution should be legal?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Ever notice we never see pictures of the actual effects of our foreign policies in the news at home? Say, the bodies of dead dismembered kids or any number of untold horrific scenes that are the consequence of our bombings in - pick any place we're engaged in? Foreign media will show the gruesome images and makes the concrete effects of our actions very visceral. As well articulated in the "Manufacture of Consent", the policies of local media serves the purpose of maintaining whatever support can be mustered in the public to continue our own terrorist actions.
I wasn't commenting on whether those videos should be left up or not. I was commenting on the moral equivalence drawn by the OP of this thread b/w US and ISIS. And from your comments, looks like you agree w/ him.
FWIW, I do think those snuff videos should be left up, so that people like you or the OP who thinks that the US is as bad is ISIS/al Qaeda/Hizbullah/Lashkar e Toiba/Hamas/Jemimah Islamiah/Abu Sayyaf/Boko Haram/$MY_FAV_JIHAD_GROUP can get a reality check. Also, while they do show the Russians, it's the Muzzies that they don't show, except when it's unavoidable, like in the case of ISIS. Otherwise, what ISIS does is done by other Jihadi groups as well, like al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hizbullah, Saudi Mutawa, Iranian Basij, et al, but none of those other gangs are stupid enough to videotape & broadcast worldwide what they do, unlike ISIS.
Because no one can read everything - so a preponderance of unwelcome body part augmentation advice can limit ability of people to have intended conversation. Hence any attempt to reduce spam is counter-censorship.
Moderation is an attempt to reduce spam, and therefore, counter-censorship.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.