[Closed] Pictures of dead children (no pictures of dead children within)

I think we in the western world could quite frankly do with more shocking images of just how good we have it.

Because people love tragedy/grief/outrage porn. Sad but true state of modern social media.

Bloody immigrants, dying at sea. Washing up on our beaches. Ruining our holidays. Delaying our chunnel. Being dead on our social media. Trying to come over here and build our buildings, clean our toilets, serve our fast food. Trying to escape fallout from wars our government created. Britain First!

Wait until you see death in car accidents or accidents, violence, people face smashed up, brain splattered all over, leg chop off, arms in pieces, head chop off, body in pieces etc. They are all over the interweb ...

Makes me think that death is just right in front of us.

If you cannot look at them then you don't know how to live.

Death is part of our life and how you died depends on how you live.

A few years back I spent a few months in Central America. Just about every newspaper had a page 3 Corpse of the day- road accident, gang shooting, etc. This page was usually in full colour while the rest of the paper was black and white...

jimjam and joshvegas, I promise you I'm not talking about this because I find it an inconvenience to my life, I'm not ignorant to suffering and abuse and I'm not denying it doesn't exist. I'm happy to openly debate such things. What I am unhappy about is the use of such graphic images and videos to 'highlight' the issue.
I can't think of a single person on my Facebook friends list, for example,who is going to look at those pictures of dead children and go ' oh you know, those poor immigrants, maybe I was wrong about them being scroungers, they're ok really, let's cut them some slack'.
In the same was that when those 2 journalists were murdered on live TV in America the videos were circulating on social media and even on main stream TV where a UK news programme showed the moment the woman was shot dead.
Now I'm all for tighter gun control, but I live in the UK where gun laws are wholly different and I don't need to be seeing a woman getting shot and killed on TV to make up my mind on gun laws in a foreign country.

To me, showing death and the moment of death is a step too far. Unfortunately you just can't escape it if you are online in any capacity.

I'm with you Peter. It's there, if people want to see it all they need do is google. Plastering it about without care for who will view it, is crass to say the least.

As for death, I've seen enough torn bodies over 19 years in the military that I'm happy to never see another. It's emotionally draining and at some point it will catch up with you.

peter1979 - Member
To me, showing death and the moment of death is a step too far.

Not me coz death help me understand the nature of being human good or bad.

I think we in the western world could quite frankly do with more shocking images of just how good we have it.

surely by doing so you just desensitise people to it?

I seem to manage to avoid it quite nicely. Avoiding Facebook, twitter and the Daily Mail makes for a quite pleasant time. I use the web a lot and seldom am scandalised.

comment on that pic something like 'nice, while I'm eating my cornflakes' or just simply don't follow their newsfeed or block them. I agree, who wants to see that.

I'm with joshvegas we need to see more and on the mainstream news and have it rammed down peoples throats - perhaps that will motivate our useless politicians to do something (what I don't know). I don't often feel proper despair but I woke up yesterday morning to the news of those 70 people in the back of that truck and more fatalities off the Libyan coast the room became suddenly a bit dusty.

ninfan - Member

I think we in the western world could quite frankly do with more shocking images of just how good we have it.

surely by doing so you just desensitise people to it?

It's part of all of us so why not? We live and we die albeit horribly sometimes but we are Guaranteed to die. That I can be 100% sure. Fact!

peter1979 - Member

jimjam and joshvegas, I promise you I'm not talking about this because I find it an inconvenience to my life, I'm not ignorant to suffering and abuse and I'm not denying it doesn't exist.

I didn't think you were. I just think Facebook, social media and the web in general is the bloody wild west, people just dumping their synaptic diarrhea all over it and expecting people to react.

I was greeted by an equally disgusting video (in a different way) of Britain first coming to Northern Ireland and "exposing a giant stealth mosque" outside Belfast, then standing by a statue of Paddy Mayne and explaing to their pigshit*******minded followers how they need to stand up now and defend themselves against Islam. Suffice to my comments were not of the friendly variety, and the poster has yet to comment.

Thanks very much Britain first but we have our own ultra xenophobic white supremacist scum over here and they like to anally rape, crucify and dismember people who disagree with their politics and their own specific brand of Christianity. You are amateurs.

With regards your pics, and your news feed, I empathize as it seems a disproportionate number of my FB "friends" like to post pictures of mutilated animals, animal cruelty and misappropriated pictures and videos of gay russian men being savagely beaten under the lie that they are animal harmers who have been caught and punished by PETA. Honestly.

I think our mainstream news media outlets do need to show us more realistic and more graphic images of what is actually happening. We are too cosseted, but there's a time and a place.

Facebook probably isn't it. But then you have to ask yourself, do many people watch the news any more? Do they care more about Channel 4 news or Facebook? Hmmmmmm.

jimjam

'synaptic diarrhoea'

I'm nicking that. Bloody brilliant.

Choose your FB friends more wisely?

footflaps - Member

Choose your FB friends more wisely?

Few points about that. You can't agree with everyone on everything. A lot of people will be much more outspoken on social media than they are in real life. Also, it's interesting to see just how extreme people's political views are, or indeed how stupid they are.

Thanks moose.

jimjam - Member
Also, it's interesting to see just how extreme people's political views are, or indeed how stupid they are.

That's the true nature of human being where one sees one's view as superior to others.

Also, it's interesting to see just how extreme people's political views are, or indeed how stupid they are.

Personally, one post from Britain First and I'd block them and probably never speak to them again in real life. Life is too short to tolerate racist morons.

ninfan - Member
I think we in the western world could quite frankly do with more shocking images of just how good we have it.
surely by doing so you just desensitise people to it?

Valid point but exposure and desensitisation or total isolation from the harsh reality which is going to change attitudes of some.

I wasn't really having a dig at you OP.

footflaps

Personally, one post from Britain First and I'd block them and probably never speak to them again in real life. Life is too short to tolerate racist morons.

I think I would if I used FB as a family communication tool, but for me it's almost entirely bike-centric. I'm not connected with any of my close or immediate family, it's more a wider group of mountain biking friends and acquaintances, so some leeway is given and stupidity tolerated. I think I am curious to see what these people post from a sociological point of view, in the same way David Attenborough enjoys watching chimps.

Of course non of this comes out in public chat in the real world.

valid point but exposure and desensitisation or total isolation from the harsh reality which is going to change attitudes of some.

True, but as pointed out

do something (what I don't know).

This is the big problem - without a cohesive message, without an answer, the 'shock' tactic isn't going to work

I like dead children but I couldn't eat a whole one

When i read some of the dailymailesque comments about those who are dying to flee war zones I do see a need to have the true horror of the situation rammed down certain people's throats.

Simple rule re Britain First posting on Facebook one friendly warning coupled with an explinitory link then next offence defriend .

I don't have or use Facebook ... 🙄

Well you deserve a cookie.

I get stacks of anti-immigrant bollocks on facebook, most of it not of the high-grade racist awful variant, but of the low-end uninformed/kneejerk variant. I figure they could do with seeing some dead babies, it might help convince them that not all immigrants fly here in a learjet and instantly get given a mansion, or whatever the hell it is you have to think to post all that shite.

Northwind - Member
I get stacks of anti-immigrant bollocks on facebook, most of it not of the high-grade racist awful variant, but of the low-end uninformed/kneejerk variant. I figure they could do with seeing some dead babies, it might help convince them that not all immigrants fly here in a learjet and instantly get given a mansion, or whatever the hell it is you have [b]to think[/b] to post all that shite.

My bold; the lack of that is the issue!

Christ! Perish the thought that the cold, harsh brutal reality of the misery of some peoples real lives, and subsequent deaths, might intrude on our cozy cosseted western existence?

Don't worry over it too much though.... X Factor starts again this evening. So it'll be back to the usual 'News' on the front pages, and Facebook feeds tomorrow

Do you have to watch videos of every horrible thing that happens in the world to have sympathy for the people suffering? Will watching beheading videos, child porn and graphic road accidents make you a more caring person?

I highly, highly doubt it.

Maybe I just have a vivid imagination, but I don't need to see the decomposing bodies to be able to imagine the terror of dying crammed in the back of a lorry.

We, like the USA, are developing a death fetish. The pictures I want to see, that bring tears to the eyes, are the Syrian father carrying his sleeping child, the young family crawling under a barbed wire fence with the adults holding the wire up for the children, the German town where the population turned out to welcome a busload of refuges with food and toys.

I don't need to see dead people to want to help the living.

bencooper - Member
Do you have to watch videos of every horrible thing that happens in the world to have sympathy for the people suffering? Will watching beheading videos, child porn and graphic road accidents make you a more caring person?

I highly, highly doubt it.

Maybe I just have a vivid imagination, but I don't need to see the decomposing bodies to be able to imagine the terror of dying crammed in the back of a lorry.

We, like the USA, are developing a death fetish. The pictures I want to see, that bring tears to the eyes, are the Syrian father carrying his sleeping child, the young family crawling under a barbed wire fence with the adults holding the wire up for the children, the German town where the population turned out to welcome a busload of refuges with food and toys.

I don't need to see dead people to want to help the living.

POSTED 7 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Very much this.

Binners - thats a really pointless post. I know this stuff goes on, i can imagine it, I hear about it all day through the media, i see the headlines in the news. What I dont need is graphical sensationalism of it rammed down my throat. How about if someone stuffs pictures of babies being raped, children who have starved to death or maybe woman who have been hung to death in the Middle East through someones post box because I feel they need to see this to believe its happening?

Like Bencooper has said, 'I don't need to see dead people to want to help the living'.

The X-Factor thing was s step too far Binners.

I wouldn't want anyone "sharing" those images on my FB feed either. Two strikes and they're blocked 🙂

The reality is that most of the people being glib about this subject have never experienced anything more horrifying than a splinter I would expect. Very easy to be a cocky troll when you've never had to deal with wounded and maimed people. But also supremely arrogant to suggest weakness or that someone is less of a person for not. The things I have had to witness I would wish on no man. To do so would be cruel and inhumane. People do not need to see that kind of horror to have empathy and sympathy for others suffering.

It's used as a cheap trick to shock, but it won't change the minds of people. And those who think that not watching it is some kind of denial of reality, well I don't see you volunteering with an aid relief organisation to go and help?

bencooper - Member

Do you have to watch videos of every horrible thing that happens in the world to have sympathy for the people suffering?

I don't, but I'm not everyone. Videos of starving kids get people to donate to charity, we know this. Same thing imo.

This sort of thing has a lot more of an effect on me than pictures of dead bodies...

But I don't think I have any Facebook friends that would be so insensitive as to post really graphic stuff.

Back during the Rwanda genocide, I was working at Amnesty International seeing stacks of pictures every day. Pictures that weren't published - partly because they were beyond comprehension and partly because there were just too many.

We argued about how much we could and should publish - there's such a fine line between being shocked enough to do something and being desensitised.

Thinking about it now, a younger me would probably show more graphic pictures - but an older me has seen enough to know - without seeing bodies in the sea - that what those people are fleeing from is bad enough for them to deserve our help and respect.

Seen enough bodies. I found those pics of the kids distressing.

And then forwarded them to my MP.