Can they stoop any lower? Surely this is inhuman?

[Touchwood2654]

From The Washington Post

Livestreaming executions is getting too close to an Afghanistan style public executions in stadiums vibe. It's mad how the US can't see that they are getting closer in policy to the countries they consider backwards and medieval.
Plus the backslide in women's rights, lots of US women are concerned that states will soon gain the right to start restricting birth control. It's a dark picture.

I don't think it should be live streamed for a multitude of reasons - but you are aware that there are already many shootings, executions, and other deaths easily available to view on the internet, aren't you? If children want to see people being killed, that's already out there.

In WW1 my grandfather was put on duty to sit overnight with a man due to be shot at dawn, and to accompany him out.

He was deeply traumatised by it, more so than time in the trenches and shrapnel in his leg, I would say.

I just don't know where to begin with the US. This frankly appeals to the basset elements of humanity. It drags the US back to the middle ages and how dare they take the moral high ground over "over corrupt nations".

The end of the US Western leadership. What an absolute embarrassment, this poorly educated, poorly functioning man representing this failure of an administration is.

It's disgusting but unsurprising. They think that they are the more humane and developed country, I think not.

Of course.

Most people do their best to lockdown tech so this doesn't happen - or do you all shrug and say 'meh, its out there'?

This material is at least acknowledged as atrocities / crimes...this is a 'civilised' Western state , not criminals, terrorists, yeah, lets watch the leaders of the free world kill a human being.

It completely re-sets what is a horrible bar.

His crimes were an act of terrorism and he has expressed no remorse. However the death penalty is still barbaric and public execution of a high profile Islamic terrorist is likely to cause a backlash increasing radicalisation and inciting further incidents of terrorism

Disgusting behaviour but not surprising from an administration run by racists, alcoholics, crazy religious loons and rapists. The USA is the lowest of the low.

It's awful. Your poor grandfather.

How do public executions actually help the victims?

Abhorrent

I am firmly against the death-penatly anyway, so slightly swayed by that fact anyway, but live-streaming a murder? Really?

The US is creeping closer and closer to a Handmaids Tale/Hunger Games/Insert Dystopian Horror, future, whilst frighteningly retaining their firm belief that they still hold the moral high ground.

I find it quite frightening that today, Friday 8th October, such a headline is not completely mad and inconceivable.

No, I'm just pointing out that if the concern is an execution being leaked onto the internet and easily available to all and sundry, the horse has long since fled the barn. This material includes criminals being shot or otherwise killed by the police, accidents, or war criminals being hanged.

That doesn't mean live-streaming executions is a good idea, of course, but framing it as 'protecting children' from online material seems a little silly.

Frankly, I'd rather children saw the execution of a criminal than some of the pornography available online. It would be less disturbing.

I have done some research and have found out that this is not the first execution to be 'live-streamed'.
The execution of the Oklahoma Bomber, Timothy Mc Veigh, was live-streamed from the Prison Execution Room to a room in Oklahoma City where 230 relatives of the victims could see it in real time.

This was on June 11 2001

A total of 168 people (including19 children in the daycare centre) died as a result of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was on 19 April 1995.

It is possible to look at this horrific situation without declaring which side you're on and who you have most sympathy with. Virtue signalling doesn't get you any points. You can sympathise with the victims if violent crime and abhor those responsible without approving of public executions by firing squad.

This, if it happens, will end up all over social media of course. It normalises gun use and cheapens life even further. You think its ok for impressionable kids and others to be able to watch someone's violent death on their phones?

Just seen it on the news and also thought "can they not sink any lower". Sad sad times.

His "martyrdom" live will surely act as a recruiting film for more angry young men. A quiet grind in a prison for ever with no publicity would be better

Ok, maybe think about this.

If someone was hanged in 1650, then that was it. It was witnessed, and somebody maybe drew it.

Regardless of your position on the death penalty, do you think that it's a good idea to film it and place it online live, to be endlessly repeated and recorded and infinitum? That it might be seen live by children?

I'm horrified that that is considered acceptable.

The frightening thing for me is I saw a post on FB about this and all the Americans in the comments section, along the lines of "I'm getting the beer and popcorn in to watch this!"

😮

Of course what these people have done is horrific and they deserve to spend their lives behind bars.
But this is deriving gratification from violence and murder. It is abhorrent and belongs nowhere in civilised society.
It also contributes to the desensitisation of violence. Which leads nowhere good.
The whole thing is frankly sick

America is being run by a bunch of shithouses.

It isn't wrong for you to be killed once you have killed someone.

If you don't want to be killed then don't kill someone else.

Please don’t put words in my mouth. Where have I said I am really ok with it?

I am simply talking through some points. Whether capital punishment for murder is right or wrong, the most fundamental problem is that a conviction could bag the wrong person, and there is no going back from that.

Life imprisonment for murder (and really meaning that) is probably the default. I suppose then you have people who think that nobody should be imprisoned, even for murder, if that is the fall back. That is a difficult one for society. Either there is a social contract or not. If not, then it is free game for everyone. What are the alternatives. Exile won’t work as they can arrive back through any border at this stage, no bother. Blood money as they have in Muslim countries. Then the perpetrator gets to buy their way out of taking someone’s life. I don’t see where the justice is for the victim. I don’t know if there has to be a balance between punishment and rehabilitation. Not sure if that is feasible for radicalised murderers.

As to whether a limited public viewing area, or global reach streaming, is fundamentally different, I think they probably are. Someone could probably argue otherwise. However, in today’s world, where it can be recorded, and re streamed ad nauseam, that is different. I know there are people who sit in to watch executions. Some as witnesses and journalists, but I don’t know if they are allowed to record it.

🤦‍♀️

There are numbers here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/05/death-penalty-in-2025-facts-and-figures/

And yes, the US isn't the highest, but its in the top 5, with China, Saudi, Iran and Yemen sitting above them.
And only Afghanistan and Iran had public executions in 2025.