Use of emotive images in politics discussion

turgon

I was going to PM OscarBravo directly on this but I said id hit the feedback forum instead.

Its become quite in vogue of late to be posting pictures of dead people and places being bombed on the Israel-Palestine discussion (politics forum). Examples:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58516303&postcount=1485
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58516303&postcount=1487
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58536947&postcount=1875
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58588728&postcount=2192

These photos serve one purpose: to introduce emotion into debate, some kind of ambiguous personalization of the discussion. People post them and just go yeah "Hamas is right" or "Israel should be allowed bomb" etc etc.

But this is a discussion board, with topics like this one being highly sensitive, and I think the use of evocative pictures should be prohibited. They do not contribute any form of evidence, if we want to prove people are dying we can link to a news story. All they do is stir up hatred. They dont contribute anything.

If someone thinks Hamas or Israel is wrong they should be burdened to present their case with some kind of rational debate, not some pictures of a baby having been burned.

It might be better still to PM the mods of the Politics forum as they would be the ones editing the Charter for the Politics Forum.

turgon

Ill do that. Apologies if posting here was the wrong thing to do.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

CuLT

If the moderators decide that it's a good idea to disable images, one of the Politics mods PM me and I'll get it sorted.

TIA.

GuanYin

It depends on the content. Personally, I like to see references for those photos that are posted, I've seen photos attributed to incidents that are in fact completely unrelated to the issue. In general, we don't allow irresponsible use of images, nor do we allow them to be used in a propaganda-like way.

Images, like articles can be discredited I've seen people in Politics turn around and claim that "noone has died" (in a previous Gaza thread come to think of it) because there is no proof and an article isn't sufficient.

Personally, I have no problem with images unless they are unreasonably gratuitous. At a cursory glance, I see only one image there that I immediately find distasteful. However, I'm only one voice in four so the others may disagree. We (The Politics Mods) will discuss the issue and decide based on that discussion.

These issues are emotive, but sometimes, one may suggest, that they ground the debate in a little reality which is often needed in the constant oneupmanship that Politics unfortunately brings out in people.

AckwelFoley

Personally i agree with the OPs point.

Imagery is very strong, most images im sure are of dead palestenian babies, so is it then worth posting a picture of a dead or injured Jewish child to balance the discussion? i think if what needs to be said cant be said through words posting a picture is somewhat of a cheap shot.

Ive seen this issue before on other fourms outside boards, and i personally objected to it. Im not at all "offended" ive arather high treashold for disturbing imagery, but its more to uphold the quality of the debate or discussion and keep the parameters within discussion and not let it decend into "picture wars"

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

GuanYin

I could be wrong but our rules are a little outdated in some areas.

That may have been written before several site upgrades allowed image embedding (or before it was turned on in Politics).

turgon

Well I suppose on reflection I dont have that much of a problem with the actual image, even though some of them are overly grotesque. My main concern is that these photos are only being used as a form of argument, as in "look how can you justify this?" which is totally wrong imo. Users should have even the lightest burden to back up their opinions with some form of explanation, and posting some photo of a dead person is not sufficient.

Its like starting a thread proposing the outlawing of guns and posting a YouTube video of the Matrix to back it up.

Reasonable discussion is always be the best way most of time in politics discussion, and external links should be primarily used as sources, methinks.

Ludo

turgon wrote: »

Its like starting a thread proposing the outlawing of guns and posting a YouTube video of the Matrix to back it up.

ermm..at the risk of offending hundreds of people here, The Matrix is NOT reality so that is not really a valid comparison to make. Unfortunately, these pictures are so they are indeed relevant to the discussion.

I do think that people should back up pictures and at least pass some comment as to why they think the particular picture they post are relevant.

I'm not easily shocked but I must admit that there were one or two of them that I could really have done without seeing. Unfortunately these pictures do bring home the reality of war. A lot of people have become immune to the effects of war due to seeing the sanitized version we are usually exposed to of precision bomb strikes taken from the plane.
They are a not very nice reality check for people.

Nick_oliveri

So, there should be politics wtihout the reality of the decisions made?

Would i be correct in assuming that you were arguing pro-Israel? Would you object to me posting images of dead Israelis?

As GuanYin has said, its not emotive, its reality. Although I can see how it would be bad if the only argument the poster had was the images without giving an opinion on the politics. It saddens me that you have requested this, it would be a bad step if we werent all shown the realities of these decisions, only the words.

turgon

Ludo wrote: »

ermm..at the risk of offending hundreds of people here, The Matrix is NOT reality so that is not really a valid comparison to make.

Exactly my point

Ludo wrote: »

Unfortunately, these pictures are so they are indeed relevant to the discussion.

Obviously they are relevant, in that they concern the issue being discussed. However, why are they necessary? What do they contribute? They just get up peoples backs with hatred which clouds peoples judgment.

You see the problem with this war as a whole is that people get too caught up in emotions, like the posters here. Its always better if you can view the whole issue rationally and logically.

And additionally photos are inherently one-sided. Theyre often times posted by people who do not want to take on both sides of the story.

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

Would i be correct in assuming that you were arguing pro-Israel?

No, I was trying being objective and because most people were screaming hell about Israel's actions I was trying to prod some even-sided discussion out. I support neither side. Anyway I abandoned that thread soon after those pictures were posted, it stopped being a discussion and more like a rant. I was putting out these proper questions and was not surprised when only one of the next 10 or 20 posts addressed it, the rest were just crying shame and all that. Its just not a proper way to have a political discussion.

Nick_oliveri

Tbh, what did you expect? It grinds my gears when no one responds to my points or questions or even quotes me on any forum, its just the nature of things. And its a rant, because a lot of people are pissed off about the loss of life, something im proud of them for. The thread will die and you will see less of the rant, same with Iraq. That continues.

Time Magazine

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

It grinds my gears when no one responds to my points or questions or even quotes me on any forum

Gotta wonder why :pac:

And its a rant, because a lot of people are pissed off about the loss of life, something im proud of them for.

Palestinian civilians dead since December 27: about 700.
Number of children dead (primarily in sub-Saharan Africa) because of inadequate water supply since December 27: about 100,000.

Welcome to Apathy.

Hobbes

Let me start by saying there are a serious number of fuk'ed up people on both side of this and a hell of a lot of innocent people getting hurt on both sides.

That said pictures are just another form of medium as is text and audio. If the pictures are marked as NSFW (which they would be), are in context and factual to the subject matter then I say let them be.

I know some people see it as emotive/graphic but that is the crap that is going on NOW. It better to see what is going on rather then living in your watered down page3omgbrittneydidwat kind of world.

However if it is for just general protesting, etc then politics forum is probably not the place for you to do it. Use a blog.

I'm also not a politics mod.