YouTube has recently become one of the most popular mediums for spreading the word about human rights violations around the globe, from the death of female protester Neda Agha-Soltan after last year’s election in Iran to police brutality in Zanzibar and human rights abuses in Russian prisons. But while this influx of amateur footage of human rights violations is certainly giving us a better idea of the inhumanity going on in other parts of the world, I can’t help but wonder whether these snuff-like videos aren’t desensitizing us to these atrocities. The more videos we see of people being killed, beaten and treated like animals the less shocking it is. Is human rights citizen journalism desensitizing us?
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