The video of Maaz al-Kassasbeh’s torturous death filtered on to my Facebook at around the same time I came across Piers Morgan’s column on the reasons behind his decision to watch it. The video has been described across the web as "cinematic" in its portrayal; Morgan describes it as "professionally-crafted’ and of "movie-quality". This is no shaky, blurred account; it is a video made with the sole purpose of glorifying in the death of another human being – one that, Morgan tells us, horrifyingly switches the camera to show the victim’s face as he burns to death. 

I have never seen a person burned alive, but I know what pain looks like, and I know the destructive power of fire. I can well imagine the sight of a terrorist group setting a man alight, and jeering whilst he dies. I don’t ‘need’ to watch this video, as Morgan agrees he didn’t "need" to either. But I find the reasons for his viewing troublesome. He insists that he is "glad" he watched it, a somewhat uncomfortable and sensationalist word in the light of the grisly incident that the video plays out. He is ‘glad’ because by watching it, he can tell that the terrorists "have no limits, no humanity, no semblance of any soul". 

But I know this about ISIS by the fact that they have set a live man on fire; that they have thrown gay men off buildings before stoning them to make certain that they are quite dead; that they have beheaded journalists and peacemakers and photographers, and filmed all these actions because it is something they not only want the world to know, but they want the world to see. 

Perhaps the most difficult question is what action makes me the most complicit.  ISIS wants us to see this video, and that for me is reason enough not to watch it. To view it somehow makes me complicit; it is enough for me to know what those awful twenty minutes contain. But I still question whether this is the most respectable thing to do. Has Maaz al-Kassasbeh somehow become martyred by this footage? His native Jordan described him as a "hero" in their correspondence to ISIS, warning that they would "quickly judge and sentence" all those it holds on suspicion of being members of ISIS. Al-Kassasbeh has become, like those journalists so brutally murdered before him, a rallying mark. 

Does watching the video join me in the global outcry of mourning and anger, or is my motivation more obscenely curious? Does it somehow fetishise this kind of violence by staring, transfixed, at a man in mortal agony, or is it something that must be watched to truly understand the nature of ISIS? 

These are questions that address a new form of propaganda and reporting that we don’t yet truly have moral codes or guidelines for. Media organisations face a difficult challenge in deciding how to report these crimes and how much they should morally – and legally – show. Fox News posted all of the footage with the warning "extremely graphic video" – but this open reporting has its own problems. Making these videos available to a wide audience, including minors and those living in impressionable communities, is both important in accepting in free speech and the belief that each individual should answer these questions for themselves, but also dangerous in allowing ISIS and terror organisations like them to gain ever more publicity. 

Watching the video would no doubt drive home the message of the evil of ISIS. But thousands of people have been killed in equally violent and brutal ways by ISIS off camera as well, and I am not convinced that the "uncontrollable rage that no amount of reasonable argument will ever temper" that Morgan states the video gives him is a healthy response. I know that this is an evil act. By questioning whether to watch this video – and others like it – I am questioning the role I want to play in this war; the role I am able to play, the response I should have to these terrorists, and this question is one that, to me, is one that we should, now, be asking of ourselves.