JEDDAH: Many people are becoming increasingly desensitized to cruel and dangerous videos circulating on the Internet, which is a worrying trend and requires greater public education and awareness campaigns.

This is the view of Maha Al-Muneef, the executive director of the National Family Safety program (NFSP), who said that people watching these videos appear to have little emotional response to them.

In an interview published by a local publication on Thursday, Al-Muneef was quoted as saying that while she had not personally watched these videos, she was concerned about the “poor” manner in which some Saudis had reacted to them.

She said the sensation and attention garnered by these videos showed that there was little public awareness about the harm they can cause. She cited the responses to the Uncle Muadh video, which showed a man beating his young relatives for playing with a ball inside their family house.

She said Saudis were responding with insensitive remarks and apathy to many videos. “A large number of viewers watching scenes of decapitation and other horrible practices do not move a muscle. This means they have reached a point where their feelings have been numbed.”

In the report, lawyer Fahd Al-Shlowi warned that the country’s cyber laws criminalizes videos contravening the country’s customs and religious laws. If children are involved, their parents and guardians can be penalized, he said.

He cited as an example a 9-minute video uploaded by a child under 12, who had taken his brother’s car and driven it to another part of their neighborhood. He had then gone to his brother and claimed the car was stolen. The child had recorded the entire episode, including his brother’s angry reactions, garnering more than 4 million viewers of all age groups.

“This represents a real threat to adolescents who might be motivated by these scenes to try something dangerous. Monitoring such videos falls within the jurisdiction of the General Commission for Audiovisual Media and the Ministry of Culture and Information,” he said.

Al-Shlowi said the child had also filmed other dangerous activities including drifting and car theft, resulting in calls from some people on Twitter for action to be taken against him. The traffic authorities should intervene in the matter, he said.