It starts with a message. You haven’t opened it, but you already know: a crash, a death, a private moment turned public. One image. Maybe several. Then it spreads — fast. And there’s no stopping it.We live on a steady supply of content, an essential category of which includes the most tragic, intimate, or shameful moments of people’s lives. Photos of bloodied bodies, videos of suicide victims, grainy sex tapes, CCTV footage of someone’s worst day — all “forwarded many times.”We might shake our heads and say it’s terrible – then forward it anyway. And honestly, that’s normal. We’re wired to seek information, especially the kind that’s hard to come by. That’s why this content spreads so fast. We want to see others caught in private acts – things we all do, and are probably a little ashamed of, but have never been unlucky enough to be seen doing. Fights, accidents, even the recent photos of the decapitated motorcyclist – these aren’t things we usually witness. So we look. Out of curiosity.In the face of this reality, the formal media operates in a different register. Papers report the basic facts. Journalists often tiptoe around what everyone already knows. Media platforms pretend they haven’t seen the video already on half the country’s phones. I’m not saying they should do otherwise. This isn’t a call for every viral video to be published without hesitation. It’s just a reflection of two information highways running in parallel – the official one, and the underground one. One sanitised, verified, cautious. The other raw, immediate, and unfiltered.Both are real, both are needed. It also isn’t unique to any one country. But in small countries, where people’s lives are deeply intertwined, the impact is amplified. The victim is never a stranger. They’re someone’s cousin, classmate, ex, or neighbour. But what we’re dealing with isn’t just a question of size or culture — it’s a question of design.WhatsApp and apps like it were built for closeness. They are the product of a time when what we wanted from digital tech was connectivity. They provided it, and we loved it. Soon after, we began dumping all our deepest, darkest secrets into them. This naturally made privacy a major concern. Enter encryption, private chats, and safety from the public eye. But life teaches us there are two sides to every coin.The same technology that allows us to feel safe telling our closest friend about something we wouldn’t share with anyone else also gives us the comfort of knowing that any message we might share can’t be traced back to us — as long as we’re not the first sharing it.This dynamic runs through every part of our digital lives. With each passing year, it becomes less a question of morality and more a reflection of the information reality we inhabit. Recording and sharing has never been easier. Once, passing on sensitive information meant meeting under a bridge at night. Today, you can send gigabytes of it—untraceable—from almost anywhere.What’s changed is the moral calculus. Not long ago, exposing someone’s private moment meant owning the act—either by choice or because it could easily be traced back to you. It was a clear moral decision: Do I want to be the person responsible for someone else’s misfortune?Now, we all use WhatsApp. More crucially, we’re all in multiple threads. We joke about having a thread for everything, and it’s true. They’re a convenient way to talk to different groups without ever being in the same room. And they mean that any of us can share something with nearly everyone we know—in five messages or less.Once that first message is sent, the chain reaction begins. We don’t have exact numbers, but based on this latest round of image sharing — and many before it — I’m sure tens of thousands saw it within hours. In the more salacious cases, I’d guess a comfortable majority of the population eventually saw it, either directly or over someone’s shoulder.And that’s what shifts the moral dilemma. What used to be a personal decision — do I want to be the one to expose this? — has become a question of whether or not to participate in something that feels inevitable. But paradoxically, without each of us sharing, there would be no spread. It’s like standing up and shouting during a silent concert — or joining a Mexican wave in a packed stadium. It only works if we all play along.At some point, WhatsApp noticed. In 2019, it began flagging messages that had been forwarded many times. The label – “Forwarded many times” – was designed to create hesitation. A little friction. A moment to think. At best, it’s ignored. At worst, it makes people feel just guilty enough to share it anyway.But the label is telling. It shows that even the platforms know what’s happening — and that they don’t really know how to stop it. I guess one option is to show exactly how many people have seen a message when received, or what stage of the chain a message was at. Maybe that would give people pause. Or maybe it would just feed the spectacle. Either way, it’s clear that the very thing that makes these apps work — ease and privacy — also makes them unstoppable.So how do we navigate this new landscape – one where sharing happens instinctively, automatically, and at scale? If the moral weight of our actions has been diluted by numbers, does that mean morality no longer applies? Of course not. But the dynamics have changed.We can still ask: what does it mean to minimise harm in an age where participation feels inconsequential – but isn’t? We might not be able to stop a video from going viral, but we can reflect on our role in its journey. Every forward, no matter how small, is still a choice.And not all sharing is equal. Some acts clearly cross an ethical line – blackmail, revenge porn, child exploitation. These aren’t grey areas. They’re crimes, and should be treated as such.But we shouldn’t create a new problem to fix another. Efforts to clamp down on this kind of behaviour may be well intentioned, but they risk going too far. The law should protect victims, yes – but not at the expense of criminalising everyday people who shared something in a group they trust. The intent is different.Even if we tried to regulate this morally, we wouldn’t get far. Most of us live in fractured societies, shaped by competing realities. Some are repulsed by blood, others intrigued by gossip. Some are indifferent to violence, but transfixed by nudity. We all draw our own boundaries, and they rarely overlap. We live in an age of à la carte values – sensitive about some things, numb to others. What shocks me might amuse you. What I protect, you might expose. There’s no shared moral consensus anymore – just endless judgement calls, made in private chats, every day.The way forward isn’t clear, partly because we no longer agree on what the problem is. What is clear is this: even if WhatsApp could delete a viral video from circulation, it would probably just lead to users migrating to a platform that promised not to. Our desire for privacy – and to act without consequence – is as natural as our need to eat or sleep. It won’t go away. And it won’t be curbed by anything short of an Orwellian system where all communications are monitored and pre-approved.I’d argue that would be more disturbing than accepting that anything we do in public – online or off – can and will go viral when the conditions are right.We live in a world where everything can be captured and anything can be shared. We no longer get to decide what stays private. And no one is exempt. Whether that’s good or bad isn’t for me to say. But once upon a time, caller ID was seen as a breach of privacy. Now, we take it for granted.This isn’t about abandoning ethics or privacy. It’s about learning how to live with them in a world where the tools that shape our behaviour have outpaced the frameworks we use to judge it.•