In Nigeria, capturing law enforcement abuse is so popular that people send in videos and photos taken from scenes of military brutality, bribery by public officials and other misconduct to one of the nation’s biggest television stations, which shows them in a segment called “Eye Reports” during its main news program.

“They are now part of the reporting of the good, the bad and the ugly of the country’s social life,” says Lanre Arogundade, the coordinator of the International Press Center in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

Human rights workers say that the practice of sharing videos in West Africa is a natural extension of longstanding frustrations with abuse of power in the region. But even with today’s ability to capture and broadcast evidence immediately, the videos have not always produced tangible results. Often the clips are hard to verify, and few prosecutions have followed, experts say. Scenes of police officers seeking checkpoint bribes or beating civilians sometimes amount to no more than a handful of Facebook comments expressing indignation.

But little by little, many of the videos shared on social media are chipping away at impunity and in some cases drawing widespread attention to problems that the authorities are finding hard to ignore.

“These have led to, if not prosecutions, at least more awareness and discussion of violations, and that is really important,” said Sabrina Mahtani, West Africa researcher for Amnesty International.

In areas where law and order is scant, videos are sometimes shared online by supporters of the police — as a cautionary tale of what happens to wrongdoers who are rightly, if violently, punished for doing bad things. But once they make their way across social media, they are sometimes cited as evidence of abuse by security forces, evoking outrage and injustice.

In the video of the officer shooting the man in Ivory Coast, for instance, one onlooker can be heard saying, “Again, do it again!” after the officer shoots the man the first time. Others in the crowd appear to egg on the officer, and at the end of the clip, another person off camera can be heard saying, “Don’t film him, don’t film him,” adding, “You are going to get that police officer in trouble.”