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There’s always some pseudo-noble cause behind it. "This poor dog was starved and abused", "This old man was attacked and left to die in his own blood" and, most recently, "these poor people were killed in the recent Xenophobic attacks".
I understand the desire to raise awareness about an issue, but there are so many reasons not to do this by taking a social platform usually reserved for exchanging funny pictures of cats over morning coffee and using it to shove images of disembowelled corpses into people’s faces without their consent.
You don’t know who's on the other side of that screen
The last time I saw the sort of images I've been seeing recently on Facebook, it was because I had checked one of the more disgusting websites on the Internet, known for hosting such things as targeted harassment campaigns, open and practicing paedophiles, and real-life gore.
You expect to see horrifying images in a place like that, and are able to prepare for it mentally and emotionally. You don’t expect to see them on Facebook.
Posting graphic images of gore in a place where anyone, including children, can see it, is irresponsible, plain and simple.
A 12 year-old child, far too young to understand the "awareness" you are trying to raise, but old enough to be on Facebook, will only be scarred, possibly traumatized by the sight of mangled, dead bodies.
Even adults can be triggered or traumatized, especially if the images remind them of something they’ve gone through personally.
It's useless slacktivism
Some issues need to be solved by raising awareness. When people are often thoughtlessly sexist or racist, for example, it’s conversations in public places that can bring awareness to these things and help people to change their minds and approach.
Trying to be the most outraged person with the most graphically disturbing image to post, on the other hand, does little for victims of the sort of violence that’s shared on Facebook.
A dying child in Syria needs a lot more than to have their body trend on Facebook. Same goes for victims of the xenophobic attacks.
This doesn’t mean we should be silent about these issues, but the approach needs to change from "LOOK AT THIS SHOCKING PICTURE I’VE POSTED AND LOOK AT ME AND HOW SHOCKED I AM ABOUT IT" to something more useful, like donating to and raising awareness about charities who are actively helping the situation.
(On that note, Gift of the Givers is a charity helping those affected by the xenophobic attacks. More information is about them, the work they’re doing, and how you can help, here.)
People deserve dignity in death
Instead, their corpses (and even their deaths in the case of the beheading video, or the man being flung out of his car at full speed, that were doing the rounds) are paraded about in public for the whole world to gawp and gaze at.
Once, our entertainment used to be watching men and animals being tortured and killed in the ancient Roman Circus. How different are we now?
Death is not a spectator’s sport. At least, it shouldn’t be.
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