08
Nov
2009
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Are there any red lines in social media?

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Today, I read a rather thought-provoking article at TechCrunch by Paul Carr. I encourage you to read it first before continuing with this post. Paul’s article reminded me of an incident that most of us can never forget: the stoning of Du’a Khalil Aswad, which you can read about here. Videos and photos of her being stoned were viewed millions of times, but few of those times did people notice the troubling fact that not a single man from the dozens of people who were filming the incident came to her aid, or uttered a word in her favor while the crowd was shouting “kill her, kill her!”

Some watched, and let it happen, others filmed it, but no one helped her. She just layed there, getting stoned, and eventually died from those wounds, while people went home to upload the video into YouTube (and was that to help her, or to get more subscribers?)

I’m not here to question the intentions of those who took videos, but instead I wish to raise a discussion about Paul Carr’s point. Are there any red lines in social media?

When taking a video of an incident like this, it can be so effective and helpful beyond what most people expect. For example, Du’a's video alone did wonders to the activist movements dedicated to eliminating honor crimes and helping victims at risk. If no one had taken that video, Du’a would be largely unknown, amongst the millions of victims whose stories are to this day unexposed or forgotten, and there would be no major outcry calling for justice and an end to honor crimes.

That is the positive side of sharing the video: the awareness it raises, the level of activism it can inspire, and eventually the action it can lead to.

The negative side is what was implied earlier: the fact that these people filmed her, but no one stepped in and at least attempted to save her life. How did she feel? How would you feel? If you were getting stoned and all you can see in your last moments of life, is people pointing their mobile phones at you, snapping away at your death, without helping, without stopping anyone from attacking you?

To try and define your stance on the responsibility of using social media, the question to ask yourself is this – which would you be most disgusted by when watching this video?

1) The fact that a young girl was getting brutally stoned to death?
2) The fact that no one from the huge crowd attempted to help her?

What in your opinion is more terrifying?

I am in favor of documenting these incidents, and definitely in favor of using social media for causes like these. But we need limits. What are they? Where is our humanity indeed when “sharing” comes before taking action in an urgent situation, when someone’s life is at serious risk?

I think Paul used the wrong example in his article when concluding it with the video of Neda Agha Soltan’s tragic death, requesting to know why the person opted to take a video instead of helping her. I agree with what this commenter correctly pointed out, and conclude that the person who shot the video didn’t necessarily do anything wrong:

People were crowded around her trying to help. Entering the equation would actually be not helpful (read: hurting) in that case, unless the camera person can push everyone aside and perform ‘magic powers’ on her. The camera served to capture critical events that informed people in the outside world — outside the gates of Iran’s media lockdown — of reality. People should be praising the camera person, who, in fact, helped a lot.

This I can agree with. No lines were crossed here, in my opinion. There was nothing the person can do except to make the world aware of the grave injustice that took place.

But, what about Du’a? No one was crowding her to help. People crowded her either to watch, take videos, or to simply join the violence and stone her themselves.

Personally, I think that’s where the red line is.