Do you think Twitter, YouTube and other social media should remove images of grisly murders, such as the execution of U.S. journalist James Foley or the 7-year-old boy holding a severed head in Syria,

Yes. Or segregate them.

I go to Youtube to watch enjoyable stuff. If I were the kind of person who found beheadings enjoyable, there are other sites I could look at for that, or at least Youtube should segregate this stuff from search results and banner populating, and make me go to the segregated area to see it.

Youtube bans porn. Free expressions of love. But not beheadings and torture? Did they just not catch the stuff fast enough?

I saw this question on JT's Facebook page and the majority of readers there want to be able to see these videos if they so choose. Well, I have to ask what sort of a person would want to watch a video of a man being beheaded? How is it in the public interest to have such videos available to the public? I suppose those people want the right to watch snuff movies, as well.

Yes. like they censor lots of other kinds of image.

The mere existence of sites like YouTube and Facebook would appear to encourage morons like the ISIS to engage in increasingly outrageous behavior in the first place. Removing offensive material is not enough. The social media should be obliged to replace such material with a screen in English and Arabic denouncing the posters as the criminals they are, and vowing to work with authorities to track down the offenders and bring them to justice. Along with the offer of a substantial monetary reward for information leading to their arrest.

Even if twitter and you tube agreed to ban these videos they are just two players out of millions. You can't put the internet genie back in the bottle unfortunately. You tube bans porn but (as I am told) porn is freely available to anyone who wants to see it. A well intentioned idea but a decade or so too late.

This doesn't really have to be controversial. Social media sites have existing terms of use and policies, which are legally binding text. Those policies should be clear, unambiguous and open (and in most cases generally they are). It should be those terms & policies that dictate (in advance) what content is considered inappropriate for the social media site, rather than wondering about it once someone has posted 'objectionable' material. Therefore, if the policy says clearly 'no gore' or whatever, the site is not only allowed to, but possibly obligated to remove the content that is considered offensive.

If the terms/policies that users have to agree to in order to use the site are fuzzy, over-general or non-existent, then banning or removing certain videos would be a kind of censorship. These policies must be clear and detailed, and laid out in advance, because one person's disgusting gore is another person's entertainment. Which is also the reason why, if the site's terms and polices are clear, no user should claim offense at the postings of another user.

Without that, it's all just subjective and can never find a happy medium.

No, I want the truth. I can avoid it if I choose or I can keep my finger/mouse on the END button but I want access to all information and not just want some apologist or pundit thinks I need to know.

No, I want the truth. I can avoid it if I choose or I can keep my finger/mouse on the END button but I want access to all information and not just want some apologist or pundit thinks I need to know.

Great answer. We are not children, as adults we can make that call ourselves.

These scum do and video these horrific acts for the sensationalist shock factor, the media exposure and the glory, why give them what they seek, instead of asking whether or not to take down these videos how about just taking down these scum for real.

Why let this filth have their 15 minutes of fame? Especially at some one else's expense literally ?

I find them disgusting and disturbing and I hope the person who did this is caught or yet better not caught but wounded badly in battle and receives no medical treatment while the fire fight around them continues, I hope they bleed out in agony with sand in their wounds.

There are dedicated sites for that type of material.

Thumbs down? I am sure if it was a member of your family who was butchered on youtube you would change your thinking.

Not sure in regards to the question, but I really wish the media wouldn't refer to murders like this as "executions".

(And I say this as someone completely opposed to the death penalty).

Of course they should - images like this only pander to the lowest common denominator of society. Anyone who can actually view this material without revulsion is either a ghoul or as bad as those who uploaded them. Images like this should never appear on the internet, let alone social media sites... and why are terrorist organisations allowed social media accounts anyway?

In two minds about it.

The feelings of friends and families have to be considered and in some places at sometimes that kind of material is just not appropriate at all.

However censorship is one issue, yes I agree there isn't probably a great need to see specific graphic images about one person, but could that argument be extended we don't need to hear about these things, than news isn't free or public domain but only what can be considered "OK" by whoever decided what is "OK" is made publicly available could lead to the kinds of media control most of us do not want.

The other thing is, we should be rightly outraged at both of the cases pointed out in this article, many of us live in a fairly sheltered safe environment it can be too easy to be apathetic about issues when they seem so unreal and foreign to us.

Anyway just some thoughts on what I don't think is a completely black and white issue.

"Anyone who can actually view this material without revulsion is either a ghoul or as bad as those who uploaded them."

@Thunderbird. This is most over-reaching blanket statement I have read this year. You really owe some people an apology. Social media can stop grotesque injustices; a group of football players in Ohio were brought down by social media when they published photos of a girl that they gang raped, social media refused to let the IRS scandal die when those in power were proved to be bold-faced liars with their claims that it was only a few "rogue agents," and social media will give us the perfect response when Islam apologists resurface in a few months. Are the videos disgusting? Absolutely. Are they disturbing? Yes. But we need the truth. I wish YouTube was around during WWII; I bet if we could have seen human skeletons walking around Nazi concentration camps the world might have intervened earlier.

Deaths should never be transmitted over the internet or TV... be they murders or accidents. Imagine you are watching the news of a plane crashing into the Twin Towers on 9/11. You have just seen every man, woman and child aboard that aircraft die. That footage is then transmitted around the world and played over and over again. Now imagine you have a relative aboard that aircraft... and you have just seen them die. That is something that the media don't flinch about. It's a plane... you can't see any bodies... but they have just died before your eyes.

I am against any transmission of people's deaths to the masses - be it this poor man murdered by a disgusting piece of scum with a British accent, or the mass deaths of people in a plane crash/train crash/hijacking... even a tank or AFV being destroyed by terrorists.

The question should really be "Do you agree that the transmission of deaths, by whatever means, singly or en masse should be banned across all visual media?" I would say yes. A person's last moments should never be splashed around like entertainment.

”The question should really be "Do you agree that the transmission of deaths, by whatever means, singly or en masse should be banned across all visual media?" I would say yes. A person's last moments should never be splashed around like entertainment."

Perhaps you see entertainment. I see information that might be useful in the future. Either way individuals should be allowed to decide for themselves in my opinion. And again your statement that people who watch these videos are ghouls was way off base.

I'm sorry SamWatters, but I can't justify the uploading of any material showing death and, as you mentioned, rape, or the viewing of same. Viewing and discussing the material is only giving the filthy effers what they want - publicity. That's what they crave... to insinuate themselves into our minds.

When those two b@stards murdered Lee Rigby last year there was an outcry that the video, even with the horrific scenes of what they had done blurred out was shown on the news all the time. These vermin need to be exterminated, not rewarded with discussion and musings on what it means etc. There is no meaning. They are evil, pure and simple. Their videos should never be shown... they should receive no publicity.

Report by all means, but do not allow the videos to be seen. Here in the UK there is speculation that even viewing the video could be a criminal offence.

I guess we' ll have to agree to disagree on the uploading part but I want to comment on a few points you made.

"...I can't justify the uploading of any material showing death and, as you mentioned, rape, or the viewing of same." I nor the rest of society needs your justification, permission, etc. However noble you deem your ideas to be you are arrogant boarding on reckless if you think you are so superior to control what others view or do not view.

"Here in the UK there is speculation that even viewing the video could be a criminal offence." If that is true then it is truly a sad day for a great country.

And again you ducked my claim that your ghoul statement was out of line. Your original post barely mentions the "effers" you ridicule in your last post but rather attacks the people who view them.

I say no. As terrible as it is, it's reality. People should see the reality of humans destroying each other. I watched a video today of innocent victims of Ukraines' bombing of a city in the east. Dead people everywhere. Heads blown off. A young couple laying dead in the park with the mother still holding her (at least) 8 month old child. It was very hard to watch and I skipped over a lot. Many here are referencing the beheading, and I agree, that's for show. But banning the reality of how much we love to kill each other would only make it worse.

Only a psychopath would get a kick out of watching real death and murder.

They should not feel, or be compelled to do so. If they want to, or their user base demands it, that's different. In general though, the more truth the better.

Truth is frequently not nice or pretty, and there's often an uncomfortable cost attached to it, but not acknowledging, or paying that cost is ultimately worse.

oh h*** no. If you believe in freedom of speech then you should believe that it apply as much as possible. I have no qualms about adding age restrictions on content (user-generated or not) but the ban hammer is used by people that really don't like people being able to speak their mind. Countries like China and Russia use things like this, to say "see you do it, too" and giving them rhetorical ammunition is horrible.

It should NOT be censored, but segregated.

You may put only happy pictures on the wall in your house, but social media as the wall of the world should reflect how horrible it actually is. Not the star spangled one people "wish" it to be, where unicorns roam the land and lions hug deers. Those of us in the "free" countries would rather be sheep and doped by watching cute cat videos, as long as I'm not offended ... right ? Such is typical selfish "I don't want to think about bad stuffs" attitude of self proclaim "free" society.

Absolutely. The dignity of the victim and that of his loved ones should be paramount. If it were not for social media, these blood-thirsty muderers would not have an outlet for their videos in the first place, as no reputable news outlet would show them. Any site that shows them is stooping to the lowest common denominator, which is exactly what these terrorists hope for.

Why would anyone want to see death and murder on their screens or smartphones? Who does it benefit? What does it achieve? Showing the truth? We all know the truth: these scum kill people... why do we need to see it? Why would any person voluntarily watch a man having his head cut off?

I just can't get into that mindset. I know it happens... I don't need to see it to know it happens. I don't want to be traumatised, have my nights filled with nightmare visions.

And yes, a crime in the UK to view and spread such videos... this from the police...

In a statement a (Metropolitan Police) spokesman said: “We would like to remind the public that viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Terrorism legislation.”

The main problem I have with execution videos is not the display of brutality, but the infringement of personality rights by degrading the victims and their family for a second time, now publicly for all to see. Blurring out the victims faces won't be enough though. After all videos of rape and child abuse are also not just blurred but generally illegal and servers hosting this material are taken down and uploaders punished. So since it is already possible to block such material from the net, it's best to punish uploaders and not viewers based on infringing personality rights.