Sunday, August 23, 2026

How Televised Cruelty is Desensitizing Us to Our Own Destruction

This post was written by AI Deepseek, including the title. For more than 15 years, I've been victim of systematic daily bullying on TV. I know that is difficult to gather evidences about this bullying, because this cowardice is made by nicknames, and always wanting to disqualify the victim and to diminish the destructive consequences of the violations. We can't never normalize the bullying, the suffering of the victims and the violations. We can't be afraid of demanding justice.   I have a YouTube channel, here is the link.   https://www.youtube.com/@lucianofietto4773/videos. Since the creation of this channel its visualization counter doesn't work, the same has been happening with the counter of this blog since its creation in 2010. Never a human rights defender has had so many rights violated for so long time.

In the modern media landscape, a new form of entertainment has silently metastasized into the core of our daily programming. It is not confined to late-night cable or the dark corners of the internet; it is broadcast in the stark light of day, during the hours when families eat breakfast and the elderly sit alone in their living rooms. We have become a culture of spectators to a very specific, insidious form of violence: the systemic, daily bullying of human rights violation victims on television. From sensationalist courtroom shows to exploitative talk shows, from "gotcha" journalism to the endless cycle of punditry that dissects leaked personal data, we have normalized the public evisceration of private citizens. We sit back, and watch as individuals who have suffered hacks, leaks, or the unauthorized exposure of their most intimate moments are stripped bare for our amusement. The danger of this dynamic lies not merely in the suffering of the individual victims, though that suffering is profound and often life-destroying, but in the chemical reaction it triggers within the collective psyche of the audience. By consuming this content daily, we are not just observing cruelty; we are undergoing a process of mass desensitization that threatens the very fabric of our societal empathy and, ultimately, our own safety. Desensitization is a psychological phenomenon where emotional responsiveness to a negative stimulus diminishes after repeated exposure. We know this happens with violent video games or graphic movies. However, we rarely apply this logic to the more subtle, verbal, and psychological violence displayed on TV. When we are repeatedly shown images of a hacked celebrity crying over leaked photos, or a private citizen’s medical records being read aloud on a panel show, our initial reaction may be shock or sympathy. But by the tenth time, the hundredth time, the thousandth time, that shock fades. It is replaced by a sense of normalcy. We begin to see the violation not as a devastating tragedy, but as a narrative arc, a plot point in the soap opera of the news cycle. This normalization has a terrifying consequence: it redefines the social contract of consent. Historically, privacy has been considered a fundamental human right, a sanctuary for the self. But when we watch, day after day, as this sanctuary is breached without consequence. We begin to subconsciously accept that our basic human rights are luxury, not rights to a dignified life. We start to believe that if someone is "interesting" enough, or if they are simply unlucky, their humiliation is fair game. We are taught, that the victim is the author of their own misfortune. In a total inversion of values. The producers who orchestrate these spectacles are masters of cognitive dissonance. They frame the bullying as "holding people accountable" or "starting a conversation." But the conversation is rarely about the perpetrator of the violation, the hacker, the violators. The conversation is almost always about the victim’s body, their finances and their relationships. The most profound danger of this desensitization is not that we will become cruel, but that we will become indifferent. A desensitized population is a passive population. If we are trained to view the public destruction of a public figure as entertainment, we lose the moral vocabulary to protest when it happens to our neighbor or to ourselves. If we laugh along with a host who mocks a data breach victim for having a "stupid password," we are less likely to feel outrage when a corporation sells our data. This creates a culture of victim-blaming that extends far beyond the television screen. It seeps into our courtrooms, where juries may subconsciously view a plaintiff’s trauma as less severe because they have seen similar trauma laughed at on TV. It seeps into our workplaces, where an employee who complains about a privacy breach might be seen as "too sensitive" rather than legitimately harmed. It seeps into our homes, where children and teenagers learn that the response to someone else’s pain is not compassion, but mockery. And here is the ultimate irony: the population that consumes this cruelty believes it is safe. We watch with the comfortable distance of the spectator, thinking, *That could never happen to me.* But this is a grand delusion. The desensitization we are experiencing is actively weakening the social guardrails that protect everyone. By tolerating, and even enjoying, the public bullying of victims, we are voting for a society where no one’s secrets are safe, where everyone’s mistakes can be weaponized, and where the only difference between the audience and the victim is time. The audience is not separate from the spectacle. Unless we consciously reject the premise of these shows, question the narrative, and rediscover our capacity for outrage, we are complicit in building a world where cruelty is prime-time entertainment and empathy is a canceled show. The atrocity we watch daily is not just ruining the lives of the victims, it is eroding the soul of the society, preparing us all to be the next guest on a show we never agreed to join.

Sunday, August 16, 2026

20th Anniversary of the U.N. Human Rights Council

                   5 months ago the U.N. Human Rights Council completed 20 years-old. Precisely on 15th of Match. Once again I'd like to thank everybody participating and sharing this worldwide movement for justice and my political rights. Unfortunately this year for the third time, some people didn't allow me to be a candidate, but the worldwide movement carry on, because for while I haven't had any justice I need and deserve and neither my political rights respected. And the world fairly thinks that this worldwide movement must carry on.  This post is a summary of two articles. The first was published at https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/8124-un-human-rights-council-at-20-rights-and-civil-society-under-attack. The second was published at https://genevasolutions.news/human-rights/20-years-on-the-human-rights-council-wrestles-with-old-dilemmas

                    As its 20th anniversary dawns,  amid declining UN commitment to human rights and a crisis in multilateral cooperation. The global civil society alliance is calling for stronger and sustained Council action to prevent human rights violations and abuses. It calls for stepping up efforts to address unfolding crises, from Iran to Venezuela, where some of the most egregious violations are taking place. Following recent UN budget cuts, over 100 staff positions at the UN Human Rights Office will be lost. The UN human rights pillar accounts for only 5% of the total UN regular budget. The culling of rights spending reduces its ability to monitor abuses, protect civil society, and help states strengthen human rights systems. "Citizens and activists, including victims and survivors of grave rights violations, should be given a stronger voice at the UN. They must not be silenced in the name of efficiency due to ongoing financial crises. Defending human rights and civic space is a priority, " said Sigrid Lipott, UN Advisor at CIVICUS. Civil society must be involved in creating a new human rights system. A lack of involvement may weaken accountability instead of reinforcing human rights standards, narratives and partners. Civil society must be able to hold states accountable safely and amplify local voices. Polarisation is increasing between States that support or oppose human rights funding, civic space, and multilateralism. 

The UN Huamn Rights Council has forged a reputation as the world's top authority on human rights. Its 20th anniversary this year arrives at its most challenging time yet, Squeezed between political and financial crises, the Geneva-based body has not only been affected by budget restrictions but also increasingly weighed down by accusations of political bias, double standards and inefficiency. Those accused of human rights abuses accuse it of targeting them unfairly, while others lambast it for allowing autocratic states where abuses are rife to hold one of its prized 47 seats. The Human Rights Commission had been around since 1946. But over the years, it became synonymous with polarisation and paralysis. "The commission sessions were marathon-like and had become very aggressive. Groups formed and were very consolidated," remembers Luis Alfonso de Alba. "The average time to adopt a document was 10 years, anyone could veto anything," he says. Civil society participation was merely symbolic. De Alba recalls victims coming for the single day of the commission single session in the year when civil society was allowed to speak. The council was meant to correct those failures. De Alba, who was appointed as the council's first president and is credited with being one of its main architects, knew what had to change for that to be possible. Among his first acts was kicked out regional groups from the council bureau and invited civil society to all sessions, reserving them a slot to speak. Accusations of bias followed the council from the start. Hassan Shire director of the Uganda-based NGO Defend Defenders thinks that countries playing politics have distracted the council from its primary mission: addressing human rights issues and preventing them from becoming crises. Bloc politics have also re-emerged, with regional groups and political alliances coordinating positions and providing cover for each other. Twenty years on, the council remains a paradox. While it is more flexible and inclusive than its predecessor, it continues to operate within the same logic of bloc politics, double standards and heavy bureaucracy. For now, countries have made their bets: at its most recent review last month, they agreed that it should remain for the next five years.