I have a strong view that shocking content should be censored until verified and confirmed. One of the most shocking periods of news coverage is ISIS. If one looks at the reason for the images it was simply to shock and instil fear into the western people. If the images are fake then the message should not be spread by the western media. I have never doubted that individuals died, merely the method. Imagine the headline Jordanian pilot shot dead or Jordanian pilot burnt to death.
Jordanian Air Force pilot Lieutenant Moath Youssef al-Kasasbeh is reported to have been burnt alive.
The fact he was killed is not in dispute, however, Thomas Wictor has presented strong evidence that this atrocity is a hoax. It was not unknown for the ISIS media to be faked. I am no expert and it has been a few years since I viewed the video so do not feel in a position to validate his findings. I could be wrong in entertaining the idea of fake news, am I?
Could our current crisis be down to citizen journalism or the free use of the Internet to spread propaganda? and be a case that the video is out in the wild and our media have to post the story to get ahead so experts are not used or possibly, in this case, this is just another conspiracy to make the public feel better for having watched something so horrific?
The desensitising has occurred through social media and the rolling 24hr news. If we look at major events and disasters they drop onto our screens often without images or it’s the aftermath images that only show the trace of the event that is shown over and over until they can find another shocking image. Debord eloquently rephrases the old chip paper saying, ‘When the spectacle stops talking about something for three days, it is as if it did not exist, for it has gone onto talk about something else, and it is that which henceforth exists.’ (Debord, 1988, p20)
I do not feel that there is any solution to the shocking images and the way they infiltrate or screens. If the time for change is now then the populous need to change. When there is a traffic accident on the motorway, why is the other carriageway blocked? Simple everyone wants to look.
I personally don’t have an issue with a shocking content, maybe one too many experiences, as maybe some of the others here don’t either. If I have to show a disturbing image it would be this one. Clearly, this is a trace, the event has happened and this is the aftermath. Should this disturbing image be censored? I think not.
The reason I find this disturbing is that this is the capsize of a French lifeboat, On 7 Jun 2019, the lifeboat Jack Morisseau launched, 22 mins later, 3 crew died and that is too close for comfort. As seen with the Hastings lifeboat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXmtWtexo_c – the same class I volunteer on.
Reference
Deboard, Guy (1994) The Society of the Spectacle, New York:Zone
Thomas Wictor http://www.thomaswictor.com/the-jordanian-pilot-was-not-burned-to-death/
Figures
Fig 1 http://www.thomaswictor.com/the-jordanian-pilot-was-not-burned-to-death/
Fig 2 https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2019/0607/1054121-capsized-vessel-leaves-three-dead-in-french-storm/
Current Work in Progress
