My Two Cents: On Social Media Nasties

Chilling clips of victims being battered to within an inch of their lives are far worse than the video nasties banned in the 1980s.

Am I the only one sick to death of receiving social media clips of people being beaten to a pulp or other nasty, explicit and sexiest images on WhatsApp?

It’s sickening how social media platforms like TikTok are egging on everyone to laugh at the pain and suffering of others. These so-called hilarious clips are not only mostly recorded either by a naive fool who ends up hurting themselves as a result, or behind the injured parties’ backs… and, more often than not, when they’re sprawled out flat on their backsides, too.

There’s this macabre ritual now almost ingrained in our culture for bystanders to automatically reach for their smartphone and record someone in danger, rather than rushing to their aid.

Granted, it’s not always going to be safe to intervene in violent situations and the footage will assist the cops. Yet you’d even have to wonder how many eyewitnesses even bother their arse to bring it into their local police station? Instead, they gleefully share it first to their WhatsApp group.   

There should be a new law to make it illegal to knowingly share any acts of violence or tragic deaths, akin to Coco’s Law which makes it punishable to share intimate images and footage of former partners without mutual consent in a childish act of revenge. Why can’t people get it into their thick skulls that it is deeply distressing to the dead victim’s family for them to discover gruesome images of the tragedy circulating on social media?

We look back on the Romans as being barbaric with their Bread and Circuses routines. But these chilling clips of victims being battered to within an inch of their lives are nothing better than a watered-down version of ancient Rome’s bloodthirsty gladiators. And they’re far worse than the video nasties Cannibal Holocaust and I Spit On Your Grave banned not so long ago, in the 1980s.

I would never advocate the censorship of anything made in the name of art or entertainment – including those stomach-churning 1970s Naziplotation movies.

However, in recent years, social media has long crossed the Rubicon. They should not be allowing career criminals to use their platforms to upload videos that are designed to spread fear.

These “scumbags” - sorry, there’s no other appropriate word for them - often circulate videos of junkies getting mauled like wild animals over their unpaid debts as a sinister warning to others.

A so-called civilised society should not tolerate these social media giants facilitating what the dictionary describes as “enjoyment from seeing the pain or distress of others” – ie voyeurism. No good can come out of this modern version of voyeurism being brought to us in 4K.

What about the long-term damage to society at large? It can only warps minds and encourages copycats. It’s disconcerting how people don’t even blink twice anymore at half of these “Social Media Nasties”.

Social media needs to be regulated in the same way as any other broadcaster. We all also need to think twice before we impulsively forward anything questionable.

I ended up blocking one friend on WhatsApp who kept sending me the type of sexiest garbage that would make even Benny Hill blush. He might see it all as just being harmless laddish fun, but what if such sexually explicit material ended up being accidentally forwarded to a minor?

Forget Six Degrees of Separation – kids today are less than a half-dozen clicks away from viewing something that could scar them for life.

I’d bet Phileas Fogg, if alive today, would be making wagers to see if he could get his TikTok videos shared around the world in 80 seconds. He’d easily win too, if it involved footage of free-for-all fisticuffs breaking out at his posh private members’ club.

I reckon future historians will be horrified when they look back at our unregulated approach to the Internet. The World Wide Web is the Wild West of our times – it’s full of cowboys.

We need a digital sheriff to keep us safe.