[b1r6]

I would never be able to to do that job.

Not because of the exposure to "bad things" like the article pushes, but because I've always felt totally fine (even bored) looking at that stuff, and I don't agree with censoring it.

It's just "meh", another day of reality on Earth; the Internet is just a mirror held up next to it.

Will we ever collectively realize this? It seems younger crowds are more normalized to this stuff because they grew up on the Internet. But add in the hypersensitivity in today's public social network sphere, and we're all freaking out over anything even potentially flammable.

[pjc50]

I think you're on the far side of the "desensitization" process. It's not entirely normal to have a flat emotional response to everything, including images of human suffering.

[b1r6]

Certainly a good point. I'd add that when it comes to suffering, I certainly feel discontent with that happening:

In the article, the example of a stabbing video is given. I would strongly feel the need for retribution or justice for that victim. Same for all content that shows someone being hurt.

I guess what I mean is that it's wrong to try and purge all this stuff as if it just doesn't exist. This is real content, real people, being hurt in reality. I'd feel disgusting trying to censor it, not disgusted by the content.

[opT52ifk]

Is not publicizing (in a system like Facebook, designed to proactively promote and spread attention-grabbing content to any audience it can) the same thing as censorship?

In other words - I sympathize with the hard-ACLU/EFF stance on free speech. But there's a difference between government censorship and societal moderation - the latter has always existed, and the scale and automation of modern platforms in publicizing content that normally wouldn't spread so far is what's new.

Should people be aware of bad things that happen in the world? Absolutely. Is broadening the audience for disturbing videos the right way to raise awareness? Maybe not.

And if folks really feel such content needs to be published, they still have more options and reach than they did in years past even if "mainstream" places like Facebook moderate them. Granted this last point is getting a bit trickier, as people go after registrars and web hosts themselves for political reasons occasionally (i.e. if this was Cloudflare we were talking about I'd be in full agreement with you - then again Cloudflare doesn't run a recommendation service that automatically causes new unexpected content to appear in front of billions of people).