Woody, I purposely omitted the “safety fails” from my article as internet content is almost impossible to regulate, as has been shown by recent examples of politicial, sexist and racist statements, trolling, deep fakes, etc. We cannot verify who posts the content and don’t know the processes or resources applied by the platform operators to filter this content. In the early days of the internet this lack of control was discussed as a positive feature.
The AFR article is different and a little simpler. Journalists have a Code of Ethics, the publisher has something similar. There are media guidelines albeit voluntary. The source of the photo, and the subject in this case, can be tracked.
I find many of the social media posts you mention disturbing and unnecessary. I wish they didn’t exist and weren’t so popular but they are an consequence of the home video technology, the social media platforms and activities like Australia’s Funniest Home Videos that encouraged people to laugh at the misfortune of others.
What is missing from the safety fail videos is context. I have seen such videos used successfully but selectively in OHS inductions. Without context these videos perpetuate that the worker is at fault. Using these videos as case studies of failures in planning, design, resourcing etc are possible.

These sites show actual high rusk behaviour and/or workers getting hurt! They have huge followings!

I was at a site a while back where the employees were sitting in the crib room on their phones watching ‘Excavator Fails’ showing people operating machinery and having incidents!

Do you think watching these ‘fails’ make people more aware of what can go wrong? Or are the people sharing these pictures and videos capitalizing on others misfortune?