Trevor Carroll
Over the past six months, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has grabbed the news’ attention with their terrible acts. The most horrific act they carried out, though, is the gruesome beheading of an American journalist. This beheading was surfaced in the most disgusting and volatile way possible: On video.
This brings up a question “are beheadings too graphic to be shown on news outlets or shared with social media?” and the only humane answer is simply yes. There is no situation in which an American citizen needs to witness a fellow American have his head chopped off by a rebel group. In an article in The New York Times, David Carr recalls how the beheading of a Wall street journalist in 2002 is “still fresh in my mind”. That was over 13 years ago, and the image still haunts Carr. If I were to watch the video, I can not even begin to imagine how many years it would take to erase it from my mind. Two years ago in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, a Louisville player gruesomely snapped his leg in half, on the court. The injury was so graphic that they did not even show a replay, and the injury was never shown on TV again. If a broken leg in a basketball game can not be shown on news outlets, then why should a beheading of a person be shown?
Watching the video is one thing, but sharing it for the world to see over social media is an entire different story. Sure, somebody can easily choose to not watch it, but the fact that the video is so easily accessible is plain awful. Sharing and re-posting the video only brings attention to ISIS, which is essentially their primary goal. By refusing to watch or share the video, you are benefitting your country and not giving their group any more of their ever so desired attention. A case could easily be made that if they were not given this kind of spotlight, the group would fade and even cease to exist. The group is only making themselves popular to one type of person: psychopaths( Scheer, Huffington Post). Only an absolutely crazy type of person would find this video enticing and consider joining the group.
Scheer claims that ISIS’s goal with social media is to find “a few good men” who are good at torture and excel in killing. These men are hard to find, and sharing ISIS’ acts on social media is not helping the cause.
Work Cited:
- Scheer, Peter. "Should News Outlets, Social Media and Internet Services Curb Public Access to ISIS?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 Feb. 2015. Web. 21 Apr. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-scheer/news-outlets-social-media-isis_b_6741340.html>.
2.) Carr, David. "With Videos of Killings, ISIS Sends Medieval Message by Modern Method." The New York Times. The New York Times, 7 Sept. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/business/media/with-videos-of-killings-isis-hones-social-media-as-a-weapon.html>.
