People filming distressing incidents

[Stolenyouth]

Saw this on the BBC today about the terrible impact of the filming and sharing of other people’s worst moments.
As medics worked to save my dad, people shared photos online https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07ddyv15gzo
It’s left me so upset. Happened to a dear friend of mine who was filmed in the immediate aftermath of an accident. Her dress was half ripped off. That feeling of powerlessness to stop moronic people whipping their phones out every time they see the slightest thing of interest. I really hope the campaign takes off.
I’ve seen footage of people on YouTube that I feel bad to have witnessed. Some of the comments will be expressing disgust that the footage has been shared but that just helps the algorithm.
Don’t know what we can do about it except support this campaign and be that person who speaks up when these shitty people whip out their phones.
My friend’s son is a new Police Officer and happens to be very good looking and works in Central London. Almost every day he gets tourists taking his picture and asking for selfies. Even when he’s trying to deal with difficult situations. Why do we not respect these human beings who work in emergency services? Why are they not seen as humans with a right to privacy and dignity?
Why can’t people go through their day without their bloody phone recording every little thing? Can we all step in when we see it?

I think it's disgusting because everyone deserves dignity in death and it's distressing for a victims loved ones.

People want the likes though and will argue that the footage may help solve a crime but you can hand it over to police without tweeting it....

Maybe film them filming and asking why? people are often uncomfortable when the lens is shifted to them.

This has happened to me before. I was in a really bad car crash, and someone took a picture of it and posted it on all the local facebook groups telling people to avoid the road. Some of my family members saw it on facebook before the police had even been able to get in contact with them

I saw someone do it on Twitter yesterday too. It was something to do with a woman falling over and her going to help, then talking about the NHS failing. But for some reason she thought it was acceptable to take a photo of the woman lying on the floor and used that on her post

It’s not just adults. I work in a school and the stuff children fun and share is quite often revolting. I despair as it seems to normalise this kind of behaviour that violence or distress is some kind of live entertainment.

It’s awful, just flat out unacceptable. “Rubbernecking” used to be something that decent people didn’t do and didn’t want to be seen doing. I understand that some events need witnessing or recording for truth and legal reasons, but the posting of these things online is unconscionable. The worst thing I have ever seen in my life is the footage of that lady burning to death on a New York subway car that got shared all over social media to the point that it was popping up without asking for it and I had no idea what I was seeing until it was already playing, and the horror of it will never leave me. The stuff of horror movies just right there in reality — especially the public reaction to it.

I don’t know what the solution is. I think people are just getting densensitised to tragedy and losing sight of decent human behaviour. Recently an air ambulance landed in my neighbourhood opposite my house, because a man living in the street was having a massive heart attack (he died, very sadly). You’d have thought it was an air show — the whole estate came out to watch the air ambulance with their kids AND SNACKS! His family were weeping in the street and shouting at people, asking them to go away, and there was still an audience of about 200 people just out to rubberneck. I do not know what any of them were thinking. Monstrous, just monstrous.

This expectation of seeing things like this in pictures was started by the press, as press photographers get paid for pictures of car accidents, ambulance crews doing CPR etc. Look at some of the terrible photos coming out of Palestine atm and ask whether those people consented to their photos being taken. You don't have to sign releases if the photos/videos are for news reporting. A lot of the time if there isn't a picture of the grim details in a news article, it's not out of respect, it's because no press photographer got out to a scene quick enough.

People don't see anything wrong with it because they're used to reading news articles with all the gory pictures included. They're used to people's worst moments being treated as a commodity for all to gawp at. If we want people to stop doing this, we need to stop consuming all these gory photos and videos courtesy of the press because the line between news and social media content is increasingly blurred and oftentimes these days the news outlets encourage this sort of thing. How many articles on news sites (including the BBC) finish with "were you there? Call us to tell us about it/send us your videos/photos."

It's all ghoulish.

It doesn’t help with all the professional versions of this on TV such as 24 hours in A&E. It’s changed peoples mindset as to what is appropriate and what is private.

I agree with this, I think those programmes are exploitative and intrusive.

But if it’s a news media outlet they will have SOME standards and a code of conduct and can be taken to task. Not so for the masses who put everything unfiltered straight on to SM.
We can’t police the whole internet but we might be able to sway public opinion and cultivate a sense of shame.

i like the idea of filming people filming and asking them how they feel about it? I hope the campaign helps make people think twice about it. And have some decency… some people are just plain thoughtless and haven’t honestly even considered the feelings of others. Other people are scum. And don’t care.

That incident with the helicopter and all those people is awful. It's akin to the crowds surrounding the guillotine and taking their children to watch, knitting etc. whilst some poor soul was being executed.

Completely agree.

This makes me so angry. As I said on another thread, if I saw someone filming while paramedics were working on some poor person, I think they'd be needing a new phone screen!

People need to learn to restrain themselves with phone cameras in general. In addition to this there's the whole phenomenon of filming someone for the purpose of public (sometimes global) shaming. And the less serious but still invasive practice of taking over beauty spots etc filming reels. Everyone is a main character now and tragedies, crises, public amenities, art, music and culture are all just backdrops in the great incessantly recorded drama of their lives.

It's absolutely awful. I've just redone a first aid qualification and we had a bit in there about people filming and protecting a casualties dignity to avoid things being filmed. Makes me fume as if these morons were first aid trained and their first response was to jump in and help rather whip out their phone then how many lives could potentially have been saved?

Town near me is awful for this. Some of the local unemployed dingbats consider this their full time job and roam around the town making tiktok videos, they try to rage bait other numpties, homeless people, people with mental health issues, people minding their own business who object to a camera being shoved in their face, the police.

All to try and get something to kick off so they can start screeching and filming it. The main culprit now employs two “security guards” to be his minders as he winds people up so much and gets grief while out and about. One of the minders kung fu kicked some teenager to the ground the other day as apparently he felt threatened. All for social media likes. He probably does make a load of money as I think he has a lot of followers.

stabbing in McDonald’s today, was getting filmed live by a tiktokker outside who was asking some poor police officer a load of inane questions while she’s trying to do her job.

And I see videos where people have been asked to stop filming due to trying to protect a casualty’s dignity and they just refuse. They start shouting it’s perfectly legal to film.

If they reintroduced Roman gladiator games with people being ripped apart by lions etc, people would definately go to watch. We like to think society has changed for the better, but we are still the same.

I can't imagine filming someone's final moments, why would you want that on your phone along with snaps of your kids on the beach, weird.

Then when it's their family member they threaten to knock you out sort of people? Yes they are vile.

The difference is that the producers do obtain consent I believe.

I wish there could be consequences. Losing your mobile phone number and having to tell everyone a new one could be a start.

I think that filming these tragedies should be illegal unless there is a really good reason, e.g. the killing of George Floyd by police officers. And sharing this kind of footage online should always be illegal without the consent of the family concerned. Imagine finding out that your relative has died from someone who knocks at your door to offer condolences because they've seen the footage on TikTok.

I cannot relate to half the population these days.

Just who the hell sees something like this amd thinks "yep ill film that amd pop it on my insta feed"

I just despair...

Absolutely disgusting. What the fuck is wrong with people?

I really hate this. A friend of mine was in a vehicle accident about a decade ago, which resulted in him having part of his leg amputated.

A passerby passed posted some photos on facebook of him in a distressing position/receiving care from paramedics.

I messaged them on my friends behalf asking if they could remove the photos for my friends privacy and their response was "no, i'm just trying to raise awareness". Except they weren't, they were just after some likes and 5 minutes attention.