My must read of the day is "James Foley: How social media is fighting back against Isis propaganda," in the Guardian:
The video, entitled A Message to America and directly addressing U.S. President Barack Obama, was initially uploaded to YouTube and has been widely circulated over social media; spreading across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. Screenshots from the video have also circulated. Trending terms on Twitter were #Isis, #James Foley and #Islamic State.
The widespread distribution of the five-minute clip has sparked much debate about the ethics of sharing a man’s death at the hands of a terrorist organization, with many users making vocal their objections to widening the audience of Isis’ message and the upset caused to Foley’s and [Steven] Sotloff’s families.
There are very valid concerns and reasons to call for the removal of this video, and posting it even in a news capacity raises a host of ethical questions.
Still, I can't help but wonder if the murder of James Foley would have had the same impact if fewer people saw the horrific stills or the video itself.
We live in an increasingly visual world that's dictated by quick snippets of information. Everyone wants to know something, but know it quickly. It's easy for news to get lost entirely or fade from relevancy as quickly as it showed up.
As horrific as it is, the video serves as a wake up call that shows people who ISIS is.
We shouldn't watch this video or look at stills for sport, and there's no reason to generate traffic for ISIS's propaganda, but recognizing this type of evil is important. People don't always grasp it in words, and words can be easily ignored—an image can't.