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?

Raise awareness of what, exactly?

I'm so sorry about your friend.

I've never understood why people would film these kinds of things. The thought of someone finding out their loved one has been in an accident via social media just is awful.

Obviously the subjects featured on 24 hours in A&E are fully consenting!! You can't seriously think otherwise?

How on earth does that compare with twats filming accidents on their phones and sharing online?

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

Well, yes, and that's also how they get to interview the loved ones at some length and do follow-up filming.

You'd have thought it would be 100% obvious.

Yanbu the laws need to change to protect people

The subjects consent to it being shown on TV but the cameras are in place all the time filming. However the idea of producing programs showing people being treated at the accident site and later in hospital would have been considered unacceptable until quite recently. People’s pain and misery shouldn’t be served up as entertainment (see also public hanging and Roman circus as previous posters have mentioned). If you want to learn about emergency first aid then a training course would be more useful. The fact that it’s ok on TV makes all these amateurs with their phones think a) it’s acceptable and b) someone’s going to watch it.

I also loathe those TV journalists who ask people who’ve been in, or witnessed an accident/tragedy/violent incident, ‘how they are feeling’. 🤬
How on earth do they think??

It's as if people can no longer distinguish between what they see on a screen and what is actually happening in front of them. I do worry that we're raising a less empathetic generation. Yes, people today are gushing and mawkish – you know, quicker to hug each other and cry and so on. But that's not the same as real, deep feeling. It's a superficial act that looks good on tiktok.

It's interesting to compare the modern generation to my grandparents (both born in 1922) and their friends (all dead now). I'm not looking back with rose-tinted specs. In some ways young people today are superior. They are less ignorant about the rest of the world, for example – less insular and provincial. The lives of women and gay people are vastly better. And we're also kinder to animals. But my grandparents seemed so much calmer and more softly spoken. They'd grown up in a world that was much quieter, emptier and slower moving. Their manners were more refined. They spoke in a politer, gentler, more civilized way. In comparison, people today seem so much louder and more aggressive. It isn't their fault of course. Their world is louder and more aggressive. The population of the UK is nearly treble what it was when my grandparents were born. We live in an overcrowded, hyper-competitive, noisy world in which you can never switch off or relax. Our nervous systems are burned out. We're overwhelmed with noise and stress and people and bad news, and it leaves a lot of us numb. This kind of behaviour is a symptom of that numbness.

They obtain consent to air, but the cameras are filming during periods when subjects are unconscious, or inapacitated, or distressed/shocked.

I think the way the programmes are produced is intrusive, exploitative and unethical.

I was at first on scene at an accident when a cyclist had ridden up the inside of an HGV and got crushed. I had to lay under the truck to confirm the injuries for the ambulance which hadn’t got there yet , which were fatal , and then basically crawl back out again . I was covered in blood . And when I stood up, the first thing I saw was about 20 people with their phones out .

Why ? What are you going to do with that ?

Very well said @Dappy777. And for those reasons I weep for this generation.

The “coverage” of the family reaction to the Indian air crash where there was 1 survivor….absolutely horrendous, the survivor lost his brother. And the family was being interviewed by the press 😡

I don’t understand why they couldn’t have left them the fuck alone 😡

It's like the "White Bear" episode of Black Mirror, where everyone is like a Zombie filming from behind their phone while a woman is chased down the street by a gunman.

I don't know what the answer is but I certainly would be confronting anyone I saw doing this. I love the idea of filming the filmer and asking them what the fuck they're doing and why they don't care about preserving dignity. See how they like it.

It's absolutely disgusting,vile behaviour. Happened to me recently
My poor beautiful dog fell from a third floor balcony onto a busy street. Whilst I was cradling her in my arms, and she was crying out in pain, some low life fuckers decided to film it, rather than, you know, see if I needed any help. My gorgeous girl had to be pts as her injuries were so severe 😔

It was like they just weren’t able to judge that yes it’s interesting for kids to see a helicopter land, but that it was completely inappropriate for them to be looking at this one like it was a day out. Like some kind of social sense was just missing.

I had gone outside to see what was happening, as the noise of a helicopter landing right next door is pretty startling, but as soon as I could see what was happening I went right back indoors. Not only is it not a social event, but the emergency services can’t possibly work properly if there is a crowd of people standing around! They had to have a police car attend to do crowd control for the takeoff afterwards. Honestly people should just have gone away and minded their own bloody business as soon as they saw it was an emergency situation.

Agree with a pp that we seem to have lost our sensitivity to others and sense of basic propriety in the modern world!

I am so sorry - what a devastating situation for you ❤️

A few years ago, I made an attempt on my life in a public place. Several people were filming me, and I was mentioned on local FB groups. It was like people were falling over each other to say they saw me and were there.

My DP is autistic and has been filmed when he has had meltdowns in public.

Someone took their own life at my local train station, and there were emergency vehicles outside. Someone was filming them, so I made the point of standing next to them and asked why they thought it was suitable to be filming this sort of stuff. They put their phone away after I ruined their video.

The shows like 999: What's Your Emergency... they film first then get consent later.
They filmed in my town, and the cops here said they were an utter pain in the arse. I was scared to death I would end up on TV in the middle of an MH crisis.

That’s awful. I’m so sorry you had to go through all that and people filmed it.

Absolutely agree OP
Can't understand why people can't see this is not right
And don't understand why people even do it

They do that, yeah

One of mum's friends was in hospital and they were filming and her daughter had to ask them to stop filming the mum. They said that they were going to ask for consent. But asking later is just pathetic.

I've mentioned this a few times here. A few years ago, I saw an interview with Richard Grannan and he said that people were going to stop being human and that they were going to become their avatars. I didn't really get it but a couple of years after he said it, I suddenly knew exactly what he meant. He was spot on.

My photo was put on the front page of a newspaper at my drat friends funeral. His death was in the press. It was awful. Traumatising. My photo ended up on the BBC.

@givingitupok yes all of that stuff shouldn't be allowed in my opinion

I did quite a lot of campaigning for a privacy law. But I was astounded at the amount of opposition I came across. People genuinely seem to believe that everyone has the right to take photographs all the time.

I lost friends in a terror attack and one thing I will say for the funerals, there was quite a lot of support provided in terms of getting in and out without being seen. But it was partly to do with security. There was a lot of security provided because it was considered that the funerals themselves were a high risk in terms of being targeted for another attack.

<cough> all the 20,000 gazillion Nicola Bulley threads on here <cough>

They walk amongst us

Oh my God, the number of times I complained about those

I really hope they've been taken down