'Turtle necking' at war through social media

 

I hate rubbernecking when others do it, especially if it blocks traffic, but I can’t help myself when I come across an accident. I know it’s macabre and hypocritical, but it’s also instinctive to want to see – with my own eyes – the scene of violence and destruction that must have just occurred. Maybe it has something to do with evolutionary biology, which would explain why humuns need to visually consume such graphic violence, the more realistic the better. All I know is that rubbernecking is something that everyone does yet condemn others for doing. It fits in perfectly with my favorite Korean saying: If I have an illicit affair, it’s romance; if someone else has an illicit affair, they are just cheaters.

Last week, I was visiting my octogenarian parents in New Jersey and enjoying a nice, relaxing breakfast when my father jumped up from his favorite spot on the sofa to break the news that Yoon Bok-hee, a famous Korean singer, had died. So, I asked where he heard this news from, and he replied that he heard it from one of his favorite YouTube channels. I knew this was not good. Korean YouTube is awash with fake news sites that target the elderly with made-up stories and conspiracy theories. So, I went on Naver, the ubiquitous Korean news portal site, to validate this news. Of course, there was nothing. In fact, all I could find about her was that she was performing in a musical that evening, which would have been miraculous if she had died.

Unsurprisingly, my father wasn’t the only one hoodwinked by this fake death. Even someone on Missy.com, the omnipresent website for Korean-American women, had posted the same news and was being castigated online for not checking the facts.

Fake news notwithstanding, death sells. Actually, anything violent sells. Take violence out of pop cultural entertainment and what’s left? Rom-coms and Tetris? Take crimes and war out of the news and what’s left? Inflation and local firemen saving cats from trees? As much as we humans condemn violence, we seem to revel in it, especially if it’s happening to someone else. Even if it’s fake.

Such human tendencies are greatly amplified on social media, which enables immediate access to such scenes of violence to anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection. Whenever there’s a war, of course, social media does its best to supply all the "drugs" it can to feed into this collective, human addiction. It doesn’t really matter whether the news or footage is real as long as it draws more views or clicks.

This is what’s happening with the Hamas surprise attack last weekend and Israel’s fierce counterattack. The level of shock, audacity and inhumaneness of Hamas’ attack in one of the most divisive, emotional, and visceral conflicts in the world, cannot be overstated. What’s happening in Ukraine has receded into the background, both in the mainstream media and social media, replaced by the latest war.

In a way, we are no longer rubbernecking. We are being rubbernecked. Violent images are coming to us at astonishing speed in overwhelming numbers. All for free. On top of the access, we now have to deal with deep fake videos and imagery that are increasingly on par with the real thing. Actually, even better. The conflict in Israel already provides the narrative context of the images, so we are even more primed to be looking to feed our addiction.

According to Rolling Stone, “One clip, depicting a helicopter being shot down by shoulder-fired missiles, received over 2.5 million impressions on X. 'NEW VIDEO: Hamas fighters shooting down Israel war helicopter in Gaza,' the user caption read. Another Arma 3 clip depicting helicopters being shot down garnered over 8.5 million impressions.” Arma 3 is a hyperrealistic, scenario-based combat video game. The video game footage has millions of views across multiple social media platforms.

As with all things, money is a huge driver of fake news. As views or clicks are monetized by social media platforms, there is a financial incentive to publish the most violent, controversial and graphic content available. Moderators can’t keep up with the millions of posts every day. AI-driven moderation is still in its infancy and seemingly outmatched by these events. The only mitigation that experts can prescribe is to not believe anything one watches on social media and only trust news from sources that can be trusted. Well, as we know from car accident rubbernecking, we’d rather see the destruction and pain in person and in real time than hear about it in a sanitized summary after the fact. We are also more than happy to spin whatever narrative we can come up with based on what we have just seen, in line with our preconceptions and biases.

As we hunch over and eagerly consume the violence, perhaps rubbernecking should be supplanted by "turtle necking," which is what Koreans call the development of the forward protruding head posture that we suffer from as a result of looking down on our phones all the time.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.