More pictures have emerged of eager onlookers using scenes of disaster as a backdrop for photographs of themselves, also know as ‘selfies’.

These self-portrait takers have earned themselves harsh criticism on their social media accounts for using the suffering of others as a backdrop for their own pictures.

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We saw it during the Lindt cafe siege in December, when several foreign visitors flashed broad smiles and took selfies in front of the police tape – including two young French girls who stopped to reapply their lipstick.

Elsewhere, a woman who posed, holding up the V-for-victory hand signal, at the scene of a Manhattan building collapse was told it was “too soon” and to “leave New York City. You’re too much of an idiot to be here” on Instagram.

Friday night #eastvillage @evgrieve pic.twitter.com/8OpG1d6mPy

— EventPhotosNYC (@Eventphotosnyc) March 28, 2015

Which was then turned into the cover image of the New York Post.

Today’s Cover http://t.co/3UObzl3ZMA pic.twitter.com/iceVaaw2f9 — New York Post (@nypost) March 29, 2015

And sparked the apology from Christina Freundlich, a public relations worker who had just finished working with the Democratic Party in Iowa.

“It was inconsiderate to those hurt in the crash and to the city of New York,” she said.

And she was just one of the people to have taken a hit for their brush with fame.

The building erupted in flames after a gas line exploded Thursday March , two men were killed in the calamity and 22 injured, according to reports.

Polémique à #NewYork après la multiplication de selfies (y compris de journalistes) sur lieu explosion. #Manhattan pic.twitter.com/wx1Y1kjhra — Breaking3zero (@Breaking3zero) March 30, 2015

Officials at the Ukrainian MH17 crash site were also reported to have snapped a glamour shot in front of the twisted wreckage.

Demjen Doroschenko, a cameraman in the Ukraine reporting on the Russian conflict, told The New Daily that amid the corpses strewn across the field where the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 carrying 295 people crashed.

“Since we arrived here last night I’ve seen 65 bodies. There are officials wandering around marking out bodies, but they are also taking pictures of themselves in front of pieces of aircraft,” Mr Doroschenko said.

When the Lindt Café siege at Sydney’s Martin Place in December 2014 onlookers were snapping up the opportunity to show their social media friends and followers they were outside, while hostages were terrified inside.   

Bystanders taking selfies at scene of Sydney hostage siege. http://t.co/OgTn7iAO1W pic.twitter.com/FkxZWo6dSs — Jim Roberts (@nycjim) December 15, 2014

The punters are back taking selfies 100m from the Lindt Cafe #sydneysiege pic.twitter.com/JoAa9JO0Ep

— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) December 15, 2014

These people probably don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, says Dr Andy Ruddock, a media lecturer at Monash University.

He said they were showing a lack of awareness to “people’s relationship to media”. Instead of being observers on the outside of the news process, these days they are creators once they have posted their pictures on social media.

“Quite often they’re doing the job of a journalist without giving themselves the time to think about the consequences of what they’re doing,” he said.

“That doesn’t wash, that’s not what you’re doing and that’s not what it is,” he said.

“It’s all too easy to act before you think,” he said. “Media ethics are an issue for everybody.”