I was 10-years-old when I watched the beheading of Suddiem Hussien on the news. I was about 15 when the president of the United States of America, Barak Obama said he wouldn’t publish any picture of a dead Oussama Ben Laden as they are too “gruesome” to the public. Now I am 19 and I finally realize there is an inconsistency in the transparency of distinctive news. Still, that’s only news.
As twitter aims to connect people all around the world, their main mission as stated on their policy page is that “We believe that everyone should have the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
As soon as the video of James Foley, an American photojournalist being executed by the hands of ISIS, began circulating on different social media platforms, twitter and YouTube decided to remove all the links of the video from their platforms and disallow ISIS from having any account. However, both social media websites opted to keep the links of the execution coming from news accounts.
To point out, twitter removed their links after a myriad of accounts protested against sharing the video and demanding to twitter to remove it.
Also, twitter took into consideration Foley’s family request to eradicate the videos.
Twitter acted on an act consequentialist basis, meaning they were trying to maximize the happiness of its users who were protesting. But what if every one did that to newsworthy links? For instance, the pictures of the deceased Syrian boy Alan Kurdi washed up on shore, which helped a lot with refugee crisis.
Eventually twitter, made a rule consequentialist decision and gave its user the privilege to ask for the removal of deceased images of their family and relatives. (Ward)
“Social media networks have the right to permit or restrict content as they see fit. But how they manage free speech raises ethical questions such as what kind of content should be blocked.” (Lauren, 2014) So, did we as users benefit from the blockage of the video?
For one thing, ISIS was harmed. According to P.W Singer and Emerson Brooking“Rather than calling followers to the front lines, ISIS’s social-media strategy cultivates them at home in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Asia. And it can use those followers to devastating effect, whether sending masked gunmen storming into the Paris Bataclan theater or inspiring an American citizen and his wife to massacre 14 co-workers at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California.” (Singer & Brooking) Yet when ISIS is harmed, don’t we benefit? Can’t it help more to keep the links up to detect who actually works for ISIS. Singer and Brooking also mentions that “While spies map ISIS networks through what they reveal of themselves online (one U.S. air strike was even guided in by an oversharing jihadist)” (Singer & Brooking)
Did James Foley and his family benefit?
As a photojournalist traveling to Syria, to exclusively take pictures of deceased people, it is ironic how his own death was banned from being captured. Of course, it is hard to see your loved one in such a horrible state, but if it can help the greater good, why not let it be. After all Foley was trying to show the barbarity of ISIS.
In my opinion Twitter should have not removed the video. Instead they should have used the video to spread awareness? It is a newsworthy video that should be shared not only by news accounts, but by the people who feel it worth to be talked about. Not to forget the fact that we are all citizen journalist on our social media accounts.
Bibliography
Ward, J. S. What is Ethics. In Ethics and the Media . Cambridge University Press.
Lauren, W. C. (2014, August 21). The Ethics Of Banning A Brutal Beheading Video. Retrieved from Think progress: http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/08/21/3473831/ethics-behind-blocking-foley-beheading-video/http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/08/21/3473831/ethics-behind-blocking-foley-beheading-video/
Singer, P., & Brooking, E. (n.d.). Terror on Twitter. Retrieved from Popular Science : http://www.popsci.com/terror-on-twitter-how-isis-is-taking-war-to-social-media
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