The Ethics of the Algorithm
Most of the time when we speak of the ethical dimensions of video testimony of the Holocaust, we refer to the viewer’s “duty to listen and to restore a dialogue.” By this, it is understood that genocide victims who give testimony have been denied their humanity, and that isolation continues when their story is not heard. Video testimonies bind the testifier to the viewer in an ethical relationship that demands the viewer listen and understand what the survivor has shared. This is the ethical responsibility of the listener, who, in turn, becomes a secondary witness to the survivor’s story, and who is obliged to carry the message forward into the world.
