Social Media and Normalization of Violence

What happened in Las Vegas, Orlando, Southerland Springs, Aurora, Charleston, Sandy Hook, name them, is a worrying trend that leaves a lot to be desired. Sadly, the butchery of innocent souls has been folded into a neat phrase that refer to it as “mass shooting” enabling the society to categorize one senseless act of bloodshed after another and filing it away on the shelves of recent history before moving on. The worst part of it is how this violence is celebrated in social media. We have seen various cases in which people stream violent acts on social media live in real time. While scrolling down my Facebook page, I have occasionally come across shot amateur videos that film two people engaged in a fist fight. Still, I do not find filming and posting the video on social media the normal and most acceptable way of doing things in such a scenario.

Another way of looking at this question is that social media has limited control over the rampant glorification of violence seen on these platforms. For instance, while its terms and use on content prohibits videos with violent content, Facebook has, until recently, only largely depended on its users to flag content deemed objectionable (Mahatani and Seetharaman). Its efforts to innovate and use artificial intelligence to automatically detect violent videos have born some fruits. Today, Facebook has the ability to cover a violent video and only ask for your consent to uncover and watch it. ’s murder went viral, he was nowhere to experience the depression. However, his family members were even at a greater pain since besides mourning death of the innocent old man murdered in cold blood, they had to put up with viral sharing of the video for three days before Facebook pulled it down.

Another effect of violence normalization is that it increases the risk for violent behavior. The same research formulation study that was conducted by Ng-Mak Daisy, Salzinger Suzanne and Stueve states that young adults morally disengage from violence as a way of protecting themselves psychologically from it. In the process, this moral disengagement “prompts them to be aggressive” (98). Due to these lapses, social media users are left with the responsibility to protect themselves. Solon Olivia provides some suggestions in her article “A normalization of Violence: How Cyberbullying Began and How to Fight it; Everyday on the Internet, People -- Disproportionately Women, People of Color and Queer People -- Are Abused. How did we get Here and What can we Do about it?” that was published in The Guardian. According to Solon, showing solidarity can help in curbing normalized social media violence.

She says that everyone can help by taking a stand and saying “this is not acceptable. ” While talking specifically about disproportionate online bullying of queer people, women and people of color, Solon suggests that this is a culture that should be gotten rid of. In the end, normalization of violence by the social media is a serious problem that seems not to receive the much attention it requires. What was initially discovered to be used for our good is causing harm to ourselves. People have taken the social media to be a platform for broadcasting violent videos in the name of citizen journalism. Such videos are shared widely, making it a norm to have violence in the society. oclc. org/login?url=https://search-proquest-com. montgomerycollege. idm. oclc. oclc. org/login?url=https://search.

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