Live Streaming: Triumph or Tragedy?

Shia LaBeouf married actress Mia Goth this month. Thousands of people marry every day, and the fact that LaBeouf and Goth tied the knot isn’t unusual — except that TMZ live-streamed the ceremony from Las Vegas, Nevada.

LaBeouf explained to Ellen DeGeneres the wedding was meant to be a private affair — but the Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel unintentionally broadcast the event to TMZ. The couple wasn’t upset by the questionable “accident” — but perhaps they should have been.

“You can’t look away from compelling live video.”

Who knows what else will be streamed in the future? Live streaming now allows all sorts of people, many of them perfect strangers, a front-row seat at live events for which they’d normally need a special invitation to witness.

As the voyeurism ramps up, who, if anyone, should monitor content — and what’s too much to post or watch? Beyond pleasant events like weddings, more and more crimes in cold blood, and now even the war in Mosul, Iraq, are streamed live. We should be asking ourselves what’s over the line.

Also this month, Brenden Bickerstaff-Clark posted a Facebook video of himself telling his eight-year-old son that the boy’s mother had died of a heroin overdose. The video has more than 35 million views on Facebook — not to mention hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. Bickerstaff-Clark said he posted it to help other addicts see the serious hit to a child when he or she loses a parent to drugs.

Related: ‘Mommy Died of a Drug Overdose’

Though many encouraged his actions and thanked him for it, others chastised him.

“It strikes me as gratuitous and unjustifiable to videotape the most traumatic and personal moment in a child’s life and air it for the world’s commentary,” Gabe Fenigsohn told LifeZette.

Brooklyn-based Fenigsohn, who is involved in substance abuse treatment outreach efforts, added, “That video depicting a child’s anguish does not help people struggling with addiction. Evidence-based care and access to that care are what help people with addiction.”

“[Live streaming is] a powerful way to communicate because there’s no way to know what is going to happen next or whether something might go wrong,” Shayla Stern, a digital strategist at Minnesota marketing agency Fast Horse, told the Star Tribune. “You can’t look away from a compelling live video.”

[lz_ndn video=31495911]

Besides the compulsion to view videos, for some there is also the terrible compulsion to broadcast highly traumatic activities — even such crimes as rape or suicide.

Marina Lonina, age 18, streamed the rape of her 17-year-old friend on Facebook earlier this year. “I have never seen a case such as this where you would actually live stream a sexual assault,” prosecutor Ron O’Brien told NBC4i News. “Based on the video that I saw, it didn’t appear … that she was attempting to help the victim.”

O’Brien later told The New York Times, “For the most part she is just streaming it on the Periscope app and giggling and laughing.” The young woman was indicted on multiple charges.

“By posting a video, it elevates everyone’s mundane ‘like’ to something — I don’t know — special?”

It’s suspected that Lonina was seeking “likes” as she streamed the crime. Her lust for people’s social media approval, even in such a horrific situation, overpowered any concern for a friend. And the more such material is streamed and viewed, the more desensitized to rape and other crimes viewers and streamers become.

N.G. Berrill, a forensic psychologist and the executive director of the New York Center for Neuropsychology and Forensic Behavioral Science, told Broadly, “People don’t feel like there are any repercussions. In some sick way, there’s some satisfaction in having your ‘work’ be consumed by all these people, being told that they like it. Something terrible becomes another form of entertainment, even if it’s real and horrible.”

“There’s some weird sense of satisfaction,” Berrill added of those who post such things online. “Most people feel totally unfulfilled in their lives — unaccomplished, especially adolescents [and]young adults. By posting it, it elevates everyone’s mundane ‘like’ to something — I don’t know — special? Even if it’s pervertedly special.”

Despite the positive nature of live-streaming certain events, awful broadcasts such as those mentioned above make one wonder whether live streaming should even be allowed. Now that it’s a feature, however, there’s no turning back — though it seems social media is behind in its ethics.

Related: I’m Depressed — My Social Media Post Said So

“We should be talking about what is fair game for live streaming,” Shayla Stern added. “There are a lot of ethical — and potentially legal — ramifications to live-streaming events that one person perceives to be private and another sees as public. We’ve been struggling with this issue in terms of the photos we post to social media, but live video complicates it even further.”