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I am not the greatest fan of Facebook. The truth is that I find it quite boring, because if you don’t visit it for a few days, when you return you find the same videos or memes that get recirculated. But besides the number of visits I make to Mark Zuckerberg’s platform, I am alarmed by the growing number of violent crimes posted on Facebook in recent months. And there doesn’t seem to be a quick fix for
Facebook to curb that disturbing problem.

For example, cases such as that of Steve Stephens, the man who this April murdered his grandfather in cold blood in Ohio, USA, and decided to post it on Facebook minutes after; or crimes streamed LIVE on Facebook, such as the one the Chicago police reported in March of this year. According to the investigation, 40 people witnessed the live stream which showed a group of alleged gang members raping a 15-year-old minor, without reporting to the police. Also in Chicago several months ago, people watched another Facebook live stream featuring a young man who was tied down and being tortured by 4 people.

In most of these cases Facebook has denounced the crimes; but has also made it clear that they can only do something if users report them.

I asked my friend Claudia Delbaso who is currently working towards a Master Degree in Psychology at Mercel University in Atlanta: What can motivate a person to post that type of ill treatment through social media?

She believes they do it to feel exultant by demonstrating that they have the power and are in control of that violence; plus, the psychological impact they can cause on other Facebook users when they run into that post, who become used to that type of violence and it becomes “normalized”. It can also cause in other people symptoms of anxiety, since they no longer feel safe anywhere.

In my opinion, it’s quite clear that social media is changing the way we interact and communicate with each other. But as a society we cannot lose the sense of right and wrong; in particular when Facebook so often presents violent subject matters as if they were normal.

Michaelroanews