I wonder if Facebook Twitter etc. banning violent and bloody content has prevented the public from protesting these things more widely. It is well known that TV broadcasts of Vietnam led to outrage growing against that war.
In both cases, as much as I like to think facts are what sway my opinion, an emotional connection is far likelier to motivate action.
In one I recently saw, they interview some very sick patients. They have to use walkie-talkies to speak to them from outside the room. Some of them are having a lot of trouble breathing but still say they don't regret getting the vaccine as they don't trust it.
Videos like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu2J8zRftJE
This particular one is closer to the start of the pandemic but there are numerous others.
The 9/11 attacks were awful, but I think part of the reason there was such a strong emotional response was simply because for the most part the media showed us exactly what happened. We saw people dead and others desperately trying to escape. We saw the sacrifices emergency responders had to make. We heard from the heartbroken parents who would never see their child again... So yeah, I think you're right, and I'd even go further to say I think it's probably a duty to watch content like this and does us a disservice when the media sanitises terror attacks (such as the ones which have happened in Europe more recently) when they report on them. As awful as it sounds you need to see parents looking at their now deceased and blooded child to even begin to understand the unbelievable suffering involved in these events. Whenever someone says to me something like "terror attacks aren't a big problems, it's just x number of deaths" you know they're saying that because they're getting sanitised information from the media because that isn't a possible any feeling human could have if they saw the suffering involved. I know a similar unemotional rationales are used in support of drone strikes, and I accept the arguments for against their use are complex, but at the very least there needs to be far more caution and accountability. If there is one thing videos of drone strikes have shown me is that there is currently a total disregard for the loss of innocent human lives by people who know there will be zero consequences for their actions.
Genuine question. The downside to fb/Twitter etc allowing bloody/violent content would be that you’d get gore trolls and it would turn into /b
The selective enforcement is much harder to prove than selective endorsement, and much sneakier at influencing the public opinion.
Journalism finds a way, like internet, and genetically modified dinosaurs.
That is the parent comment's point: there was more graphic coverage of the Vietnam available to a typical viewer, so the feeling against it was stronger.
Few care about the cost to Afghans. The cost to Westerners has been fairly well hidden from discussion.