Facebook has backed down after the controversy surrounding a video showing masked man beheading woman in Mexico and canned the video. But that it was there in the beginning, while breast feeding images were banned, speaks volumes about the site, and if we are honest, society in general. And yes, I use it but it doesn't mean I approve of everything it gets up to. These are real people in these snuff movies, not actors. Its one thing watching a Hollywood slasher movie, quite another clicking on a link that shows real murder. Worrying that some think its perfectly okay to watch.
Facebook themselves seem to be fine with it though: "the public should be free to view beheading videos then condemn the content" Dear me, what is that cotton-mouthed pish supposed to mean?
"Hey chums, look at this video of some geezer being beheaded! Terrible isn't it? It should be banned...wait, I've got another one showing people being tortured, disgusting eh? I don't know why they show these things ... hang on, wait until you see this video
of a woman being set on fire, its well wicked!"
Where are we heading? Don't we realise that by clicking these awful links, we are in fact encouraging more sickos to make them? In the same way that watching child pornography makes the viewer as guilty of child abuse as those who did the actual abusing. Look I know we used to gather at public executions in the 1700s and make a spectacle out of it but are we not meant to advance? And I suspect if the film showed animal cruelty, the outrage would have come a lot sooner.
It all comes down to this: how would you feel if it was your son, daughter, wife, husband, friend that was murdered and the video posted on the net for all to see? Context! Videos of murders, rape, torture and cruelty that are clicked on on a social media site are not concerned with reporting the news. Atrocities have to be exposed but to show a human being's last moments on earth in a video loop denies the victim of dignity, desensitises us to violence and makes us more callous.
I'm sorry, but videos of beheadings are videos of murder, and there cannot be any justification for showing them. It's nothing to do with freedom of speech or terrorism, it's murder, and posting and watching such imagery makes you complicit in that crime.
Way back when I was in school I used to carry a notebook everywhere I went to record daily thoughts and observations. So you see, ive been blogging since before it was popular and where better to carry it onward than to give it a digital page of its own? Welcome to the pages of bar fly Hollywood Francis...
