DONT BLAME THE INTERNET FOR VIOLENCE AS ENTERTAINMENT

HERE IS A LIST OF REASONS AS TO WHY I BELIEVE THAT ALTHOUGH THE INTERNET MAKES VIOLENCE AS ENTERTAINMENT MORE ACCESSIBLE, IT IS NOT THE ROOT CAUSE FOR VIOLENT ENTERTAINMENT'S POPULARITY.

I HAVE FURTHER EXPLAINED SOME OF THESE REASONS IN POSTS BELOW

• Violence has been used as entertainment since humans first started keeping records. It has been used in myths & legends, as public sacrfices, at the colloseums of Rome, in ancient Egyptian plays that retold tales of murder. Today public executions still take place infront of thousands of eager onlookers.
• Vladimir Prop believed that violence should have a place in all plays.
• Humans often have a fascination for taboo and things that are deemed as morally wrong. Big fusses are always made about banned books and films such as "A Clockwork Orange," "The Exorcist" and "The Last House On The Left."
• The internet is one of the only ways in which people are granted the freedom of speech. If we were to take violent footage off of it, we would end up censoring everything and this could lead to a 1984 society.
• We have an individual responsibility to be aware of offensive material on the net and steer clear from it. We shouldnt have to intervene to stop people from watching it.
• Humans have a natural desire to break boundaries- especially since the 1960's. Violence on the internet is there to shock, it is not necessarily any more harmful than that.
• If any form of media should be blamed for glorifying violence, it should be film and television. The amount of brutality that we see through these forms of medium desensitize us and blur our reality/fiction perception.
• Consumerism & capitalism have made us into a selfish society where our lives are driven by the want for money, beauty and popularity. We become numb. Shocking entertainment kicks people in the teeth and reminds them about the world outside of the one that they live in.
• Not all violent footage is bad. People watch violence for many different reasons, only a very small percentage watch real violence for light-hearted entertainment.
• Some humans have an innate fascination with violence. If we ban violence on the internet, they may look for it elsewhere which could have far worse consequences.
• Lad's magazines glorify violence by suggesting that it is macho to gain pleasure from looking at it.

NOT ALL VIOLENCE OR HORRIFIC FOOTAGE IS BAD

Vietnam and Cambodia have seen some of the worst atrocities that have ever happened. Millions of people in these countries were brutally killed and murdered in the Vietnam War and also in the Khmer Rouge’s dictatorship regime. The museums that are dedicated to the country’s violent history are completely uncensored and the images that they have on display are as graphic as anything you would find on the internet. I saw these images by choice, and so did many other people. But we did not view them from morbid fascination; we wanted to see them to form some idea of what the people of these country’s had been through, to form a better idea of what happened to the people, and to ensure that the victims of these awful crimes were remembered. Although I found the images upsetting and sickening, I wanted to know. I didn’t want to be ignorant. Viewing violent images does not necessarily have to be something to be condemned.

BLURRING REALITY

If any form of media is to blame for glorifying violence, then I believe this should be television. Through TV and film we see brutal stabbings, suffocations, rape, poisoning, shootings, torture and various other fictional footage that are deemed as violent every single day. We don’t think twice about them. Seeing fictional footage of violence desensitizes us and the line between reality and fiction blurs. This means that when we see real grotesque footage on the internet, our brain refuses to believe it is real. This is why some people can look at horrific websites showing real corpses and be un-phased. This is also why other people find real images of violence on the internet impenetrably sadistic, because their reality lines have not been so blurred.

THE INTERNET IS A SCAPEGOAT FOR THE BLAME OF VIOLENCE AS ENTERTAINMENT. SO WHERE SHOULD THE BLAME REALLY LIE?

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CENSORSHIP/PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.” A. Whitney Griswold

"Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real. Somewhere in their upbringing they were shielded against the total facts of our experience. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.” Charles Bukowski

"Censorship always protects and perpetuates every horror of the prevailing forms of oppression. With us, its subtle disguises increase its evils by creating delusions of safety, liberty and democracy. It precludes that intelligence which is necessary to hasten wholesome and natural social evolution.” Theodore Schroeder

If we were to start censoring explicit images of a violent nature, would we not be infringing on human rights? If violence happens, why should we play ignorant and not allow people to view it online if they so wish? Does ignorance automatically give us more moral high-ground than acknowledging that violence exists and some humans have a fascination with it?

Youtube is one of the websites which gets the most blame for violence being made and viewed for entertainment purposes. However, even this website has a strict guideline or what it does and does not tolerate:

1. YouTube is not for pornography or sexually explicit content. If this describes your video, even if it's a video of yourself, don't post it on YouTube. Also, be advised that we work closely with law enforcement and we report child exploitation. Please read our Safety Tips and stay safe on YouTube.
2. Don't post videos showing bad stuff like animal abuse, drug abuse, or bomb making.
   Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don't post it.
3. Youtube is not a shock site. Don't post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies and similar things.
4. We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech, which is content intended to attack or demean a particular gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnic origin, veteran status, color, age, disability or nationality.
5. There is zero tolerance for predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, invading privacy, or the revealing of other members' personal information. Anyone caught doing these things may be permanently banned from YouTube.
6. You may not like everything you see. Some of the content here may offend you—if you find that it violates our Terms of Use, then click "Flag as Inappropriate" under the video you're watching to submit it for review by YouTube staff. If it doesn't, then consider just clicking on something else—why waste time watching videos you don't like?
   
   Human beings are the most socially and intellectually intelligent creatures to have ever graced the planet. Do we not at least have a personal responsibility to stay aware from offensive internet footage? Are we so incapable of self-control that we would have to go to the extreme of banning websites?What would happen if we did start censoring certain websites and images that contained violent images? Who would decide where the boundary lies between the acceptable and the unacceptable? Wouldn’t we start to live in a ‘1984’ society where freedom of speech and freedom of thought no longer exists and every member of society has to think like the state wants them to?

Violence as entertainment throughout history

Violence has been a fascination for the human race since we first established ourselves on earth. The internet has not caused this problem, it could be argued that it is inherent in human nature to find violence entertaining. The earliest recordings of violence as a sport date back to the ancient greeks/egyptians/aztecs/incas and the romans who are probably the most notorious for this. The romans used gladiator fights (in which 50% of participants died), animal baiting (5000 animals met their bloody ends at the opening day of Rome's colloseum), and real death on stage to entertain upto 50,000 people."Don't forget, there's a big gladiator show coming up the day after tomorrow. Not the same old fighters either. They've got a fresh shipment in. There's not a slave in that batch. Just wait. There'll be cold steel for the crowd, no quarter and the amphitheatre will end up looking like a slaughterhouse. There's even a girl who fights from a chariot." Petronius in AD 60.
"The wild beast hunts, two a day for five days, are magnificent. There is no denying it..." Cicero in 50 BCViolence has continued as a form of entertainment ever since ancient civilisation. John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" which was first performed in 1614 was often slated by modern critics for it's excessive violence. Shakespeare's revenge tragedies such as "King Lear" and "Hamlet" revelled in eyeball gouging and limb losing. In modern theatre, Edward Bond's pre-digital era play "Saved" written in 1965 caused public outcry because of it's violent content. 'Saved' tells the story of youths, who, suppressed by a brutal economic system, become monsters."I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners," Edward Bond confessed. "Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future. People who do not want writers to write about violence want to stop them writing about us and our time. It would be immoral not to write about violence." In the middle-east, particularly in Iran & Iraq, criminals are still publicly tortured or hanged in front of large audiences. On August 15th a 16 year old girl was publicly hanged in Iran for her 'sharp tongue.' In 2002 it was thought as many as 5000 people watched 5 men who had been accused of rape being hanged from 2 cranes in Iran. Women are still publicly stoned to death for adultery. Although people might not go to view hangings for pure entertainment, there is still a morbid fascination with death and violence. This has been around long before the internet made violent images more accessible. I am not saying that it is right that people do view other people's pain as entertainment, I am simply stating that it would be very naive if we assummed that annhilating all violent images on the internet would lead to less violence being used as entertainment.

The argument that the internet does contribute towards violence as entertainment:

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