Digital degradation

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. In this era of social media and the sheer proliferation of information that comes with it, I'm inclined to think the old adage applies more than ever.

Social media has become the modern day equivalent of the Colosseum.

Kathryn McConnachie, journalist, ITWeb

In ancient Rome, people used to gather by the hundreds and thousands to witness the most gruesome and horrific death matches between gladiators, criminals, slaves and wild animals.

The Romans were obsessed with death. It was the equivalent of the modern day X-Factor or MasterChef.

Death was entertainment. It was a means of escapism for the Roman plebeians, as the emperors sought to keep them occupied and stop their minds from wondering towards revolt.

The masses were enthralled by witnessing people and animals fight for their lives. And possibly even more enthralled by the idea that they could hold some sway over who could live or die.

I'm sure we'd like to think that in 2011 we've come a long way from finding extreme suffering and desperation “entertaining”. And yet here we are.

In the era of YouTube and multitudes of social media platforms, we can choose to view deep philosophical debates about the meaning of life, but we can also still choose to watch footage of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's last few moments alive, and view for ourselves the graphic images of his lifeless body.

Shortly after he was killed, images started to surface on social media sites, and they spread like wildfire. The majority of posts, especially from Libyans, but from around the world too, expressed joy over Gaddafi's gruesome fate.

Facebook statuses emerged with a “hit-list” featuring checked boxes next to the names of Bin Laden, Alwaki and Gaddafi. Unchecked boxes then followed with the names of Julius Malema and, in some cases, Justin Bieber.

Libyans queued by the hundreds to view Gaddafi's body and to see for themselves that the dictator was indeed dead. They came armed with their cellphones in order to capture an image of his bloodied body for themselves, and then triumphantly tweeted them to the world.

When Osama bin Laden was killed, in an operation conducted by the US, the decision was made not to publish the images of his body. That decision, however, didn't stop millions of people around the world from trying to find any kind of graphic footage of the raid on Bin Laden's compound online.

Even cyber criminals saw opportunity in people's morbid fascination with death, creating fake links to supposed footage of Bin Laden being killed.

In the week following his death, my Facebook news feed become almost solely filled with endless spam relating to Bin Laden's death, as a result of my curious friends clicking on the links.

In the case of Gaddafi, I have had numerous friends actually post links to images of his body and footage of his death. I don't think I have a particularly mean-spirited or violent group of friends, and yet there everyone was, revelling in the death of a dictator.

It's not only the death of controversial public figures that seems to fascinate us though. Even the simplest of YouTube searches can yield the most base and horrifying results.

Social media has become, in many respects, the modern day equivalent of the Colosseum. It's where we can view content to satisfy a latent, morbid interest in death, retribution and punishment.

The most viewed or “most popular” content online serves only to confirm this. The stories that were getting all the hits on news sites were those that referred to the graphic footage of Gaddafi's death.

Some may argue that as a society we've become desensitised to content that should be deeply disturbing, through the sheer proliferation of it. On the other hand though, the popularity of the content could just speak to the same base interests that made the events at the Colosseum so enthralling for the Romans.

Perhaps the rise of social media has simultaneously evolved and degraded our interests.

Maybe we feel the slightly removed, second-hand nature of viewing disturbing content online makes us less involved than sitting in the stands at a death match.

Or perhaps the veil of anonymity simply allows our curiosity to get the better of us.

While the online space can be a minefield of unwanted content, we still have control over where to point the mouse and where to click. The onus is still on us to decide what is acceptable and what isn't.

Regardless of how passive our viewing may be, the content we choose to consume still says something about us. Choosing to view content as disturbing as the dying pleas of another human being, irrespective of who that human being is or what he has done, says something about our sense of human dignity, or lack thereof.