"but it also reduces the public's access to information"
A) What information does it supposedly reduce? I'm pretty sure you can tell me that something happened without showing me a video. Did you know that there was a 3 car pileup on route 3? Why no I don't because I haven't seen a video of it!
B) Removing the video caused the information to proliferate more due to the Streisand Effect. I literally hadn't heard about the incident until all the fuss was raised about the removal of the video.
A) Don't even pretend that your response to seeing a beheading, and just hearing about it would be anywhere near the same. As the phrase goes, a picture's worth a thousand words, and this is a video.
B) You are clearly one of the few then, because it's been all over the news before the removal was mentioned.
A) Don't even pretend that your response to seeing a beheading, and just hearing about it would be anywhere near the same. As the phrase goes, a picture's worth a thousand words, and this is a video.
I'm sure you're right about that.
Some time ago this same debate came up on Slashdot about another beheading video. Someone who had seen the video replied "you don't understand, this wasn't just a simple beheading where, like a guillotine, a blade comes down and then the guy simply no longer has a head." He then went on to describe what was in the video in a fair amount of detail. I don't think he used a thousand words, maybe somewhere between 200 and 400, but he definitely painted a picture. At the end he said "sometimes you just wish you could unsee something."...and I believed him, because after reading his description, I wished I could unread it. Just his description of the video was far worse than anything I might have imagined being in the video, so I can only guess what actually watching it might have been like.
There's a huge difference between hearing that these people have cut someone's head off and realizing just how sick someone has to be to do something like that. I mean, in the description I read of that other video, there were so many aspects to it that, if I were the one cutting someone's head off, would have triggered my "jesus fucking christ what the hell am I doing" sense and forced me to stop....but they didn't stop, they kept right on doing it, and knowing that forces you to realize just how completely fucking insane these people are. Even in war, people take issue with killing the enemy when they find them defenseless, preferring to take them prisoner instead, and in that case you're talking about someone who was quite likely actively trying to kill you not too long ago. It's a whole different thing to pick a particularly painful method of execution for someone you know is innocent and then not even think twice about it as the reality of actually doing it gives you so many cues that it's just so wrong.
However, in this particular video, from what I hear, some people suspect the beheading occurred before the video was recorded, and the video just fakes it. Just judging from what I've heard people say is in this video vs. what I heard was in the other, I have to agree with that hypothesis, as it sounds like one of those quick and clean executions people tend to expect, like what they might see in a movie. Of course, if I've heard wrong, then that's more proof that just reading about it isn't the same thing as seeing it. Indeed, other than the one person's description of that older video that I read, I don't think anyone talked about what happened in the video any more than to say "cut his head off" and so I wouldn't be that surprised to hear that this video is actually much worse than what I've read about it so far.
If by "decreeses" you mean "increases", then yes (Score:5, Insightful)
A) What information does it supposedly reduce? I'm pretty sure you can tell me that something happened without showing me a video. Did you know that there was a 3 car pileup on route 3? Why no I don't because I haven't seen a video of it!
B) Removing the video caused the information to proliferate more due to the Streisand Effect. I literally hadn't heard about the incident until all the fuss was raised about the removal of the video.
Re: (Score:0)
A) Don't even pretend that your response to seeing a beheading, and just hearing about it would be anywhere near the same. As the phrase goes, a picture's worth a thousand words, and this is a video.
B) You are clearly one of the few then, because it's been all over the news before the removal was mentioned.
Re:If by "decreeses" you mean "increases", then ye (Score:3)
A) Don't even pretend that your response to seeing a beheading, and just hearing about it would be anywhere near the same. As the phrase goes, a picture's worth a thousand words, and this is a video.
I'm sure you're right about that.
Some time ago this same debate came up on Slashdot about another beheading video. Someone who had seen the video replied "you don't understand, this wasn't just a simple beheading where, like a guillotine, a blade comes down and then the guy simply no longer has a head." He then went on to describe what was in the video in a fair amount of detail. I don't think he used a thousand words, maybe somewhere between 200 and 400, but he definitely painted a picture. At the end he said "sometimes you just wish you could unsee something." ...and I believed him, because after reading his description, I wished I could unread it. Just his description of the video was far worse than anything I might have imagined being in the video, so I can only guess what actually watching it might have been like.
There's a huge difference between hearing that these people have cut someone's head off and realizing just how sick someone has to be to do something like that. I mean, in the description I read of that other video, there were so many aspects to it that, if I were the one cutting someone's head off, would have triggered my "jesus fucking christ what the hell am I doing" sense and forced me to stop. ...but they didn't stop, they kept right on doing it, and knowing that forces you to realize just how completely fucking insane these people are. Even in war, people take issue with killing the enemy when they find them defenseless, preferring to take them prisoner instead, and in that case you're talking about someone who was quite likely actively trying to kill you not too long ago. It's a whole different thing to pick a particularly painful method of execution for someone you know is innocent and then not even think twice about it as the reality of actually doing it gives you so many cues that it's just so wrong.
However, in this particular video, from what I hear, some people suspect the beheading occurred before the video was recorded, and the video just fakes it. Just judging from what I've heard people say is in this video vs. what I heard was in the other, I have to agree with that hypothesis, as it sounds like one of those quick and clean executions people tend to expect, like what they might see in a movie. Of course, if I've heard wrong, then that's more proof that just reading about it isn't the same thing as seeing it. Indeed, other than the one person's description of that older video that I read, I don't think anyone talked about what happened in the video any more than to say "cut his head off" and so I wouldn't be that surprised to hear that this video is actually much worse than what I've read about it so far.