Open Discussion:
This morning a man opened fire upon a former coworker he had been disputing with. He shot and killed the former coworker.
He then left the scene and engaged in a shootout with police in front of the Empire State Building where at least 8 others were shot, some perhaps by police in crossfire.
The question at hand here is about a photo that a photographer posted on Instagram of a man with copious blood around him, being attended to by a woman. The photo is graphic and has a caption which many found to be flippant and disrespectful, and even allegedly wrote “Cha-ching” on his Facebook page about cashing in on the photo (he later admitted that he will give the photo away for free). Newser explains:
Turns out [the photo] was shot by local photographer Muhammad Malik, who immediately uploaded it to Instagram with this not-so-sensitive caption, a play off of lyrics by Nas: “They shoot, aw made you look! No really tho. Dude got popped!” That drew plenty of online criticism, as did his Facebook boasts (complete with hashtag #chaching) about cashing in on the photo.
“Let’s be clear everyone, I didn’t shoot anyone, I just took a photo, don’t hate me, hate the actions that caused me to get a picture like that,” he wrote in response. “It’s cameras that allow all of us to see what’s going on in parts that we would never venture into or otherwise wouldn’t think twice about.”
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So what do you think? Was Malik’s photo disrespectful? How about the caption on it, or on his Facebook page?
Is he right that these cameras bring us to street-level on every street in America? Do these cameras ultimately make us safer, or simply more voyeuristic?
Out of respect for those who were victims in this shooting, we have chosen not to reprint the image Muhammad Malik uploaded.
AP Photo
I think they just make us more voyeuristic. I was at a queer space recently, and there wer big signs saying “Do not photograph, tag, or otherwise post on social media.” we shouldn’t have to have signs like that.
I’m more upset, though, about Malik’s Non-apology. “the actions that caused that photograph” did not cause him to post it everywhere, nor to make hs asinine comment.
What is wrong with showing blood? Oh I know that’s how we ended up leaving Viet Nam. I suspect that James Holmes, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were astounded when there was real blood. People bleed an awful lot at the littlest injuries. https://goodmenproject.com/guy-talk/my-last-fight/ DKR was a travesty- hundreds of gunshot wounds, clubbings and punches and no blood. In Canada after 9/11 i was amazed that hours of news footage of people jumping to their deaths was shown on broadcast TV and Canada has crime rates that would unemploy 1/2the cops in the US. I wish there were video showing… Read more »
The victim’s family will know who it was. Any clown with half the brains of a planaria would have had the grace not to do this.
Hm. Grace. Am I in the wrong century?
Whenever somebody does something stupid using new technology, there’s a line of debate where people ask, “Did the new technology cause this?” In some cases technology does make us dumber or more insensitive or (as in this case) more voyeuristic, but a lot of the time we already had those qualities, and the new technology just allows us to express those qualities in novel ways. I suspect that this case is an example of the latter. Malik’s post was crass and insensitive, but I doubt that had anything to do with the camera. There have been plenty of instances of… Read more »
@Morgan in re “I have a hunch that cellphone cameras are probably doing as much, if not more, to keep people safe as video surveillance cameras.”
You are absolutely correct- several times in the past 2 years when parents were going nuts at childrens’ games, I’ve chilled out idiots by telling them “keep it up, there are 1/2 a dozen people filing this with their phones and it will be on YouTube in 15 minutes.”
If this threat doesn’t chill out a knucklehead, hit him or run.
I don’t think it woud have helped in this case…