"First it was the nightmarish stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, as she sat on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, minding her own business. Then it was the horrifying shooting of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist, as he addressed a group of students at Utah Valley University. Both struck terror in countless Americans fearful for their own safety and for the safety of our public spaces and our democracy."
"The tragedies had something else in common, though: They both generated extremely graphic videos of the victims' last moments, detailed enough to show the second that metal struck flesh and wrought its awful damage. Since then, shared by many and further amplified by digital algorithms that favor intense emotions, these videos have been endlessly replayed across social media."
"In the nascent stages of social media, I was an optimist about unfiltered imagery. I thought, as did others, that unfiltered images from news events might make people more empathetic toward victims of natural disasters, repression or systemic violence. I also hoped raw reality from conflict zones would challenge the sanitized, cinematic version of war that too many people held or might force them to care about conflicts they were otherwise happy to ignore."
The stabbing of Iryna Zarutska and the shooting of Charlie Kirk produced extremely graphic videos capturing victims' final moments. Those videos were widely shared and amplified by algorithms that favor intense emotions, leading to endless replay across social platforms. Viewers have commented, zoomed, slowed, annotated and theorized about the footage, transforming violent incidents into repeated spectacle. Early hopes that unfiltered imagery would increase empathy and awareness have given way to a reality of saturation. More cameras and nonstop circulation now produce a flood of footage that can desensitize audiences and reduce tragedy to voyeuristic content.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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