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Posted3 months ago
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Sometimes I just want to enjoy a thing with other people enjoying a thing without any expectation that it might end up as "content" to be monetized by the algorithm.
I don't look forward to mass adoption of things like Meta glasses, where even the mundane examples of _going outside_ are all content opportunities waiting to happen.
My first experience akin to this happened when I was at the grocery store during Covid. This guy stood near the checkout lines and just did a big arc with his phone filming all of us and mocking masks. Like the author of the blog sometimes I’m just like “it’s not worth it” but I had one of my kids with me and when I asked the guy to stop, he started ranting at me about how he uses an app that blurs faces, it’s a free country, etc. I just moved on but it’s like… dude, we’re all just trying to get through the day out here and I’m with my kid at the grocery store. Do I really need to be putting up with this crap?
I imagine if people actually start wearing any of these smart glasses in any appreciable number these experiences will be sadly pretty typical.
But I'm also free to apply societal pressure to behave like a grown-up.
I think this is the key.
It might be legal, but it's not polite. It's a bit like blasting crappy music from your phone on the bus without headphones. Grown ups should know better.
Too many folks forget this.
Do what you want, but I'll tell you if I don't like it. Others might too.
They're not infringing on your rights, but it might make you a little uncomfortable.
If I were to compare it to a client relationship, it’s the kind of person who throws the contract in a partner’s/client’s/vendor’s face anytime there is a minor disagreement or discussion about details. Reasonable people know you only start pointing to the contract when things escalate to a certain point as it locks everybody into a defensive posture and now everybody is going to be rigid moving forward.
First, and arguably most important, thing in learned in tech & business. Once the contracts come out, it's game over.
Also many people just flip out even about the most reasonable of requests.
They would be wrong to, given that it's legal to take photographs or videos in a public place.
There is no expectation of privacy in a public place in the UK.
Also not sure why you assumed there was any situation to be "defused". Weird. I guess you may be the type I referred to in my last paragraph
If you know you're just going to remain in disagreement, then hell yes. It's not worth the conflict. Now, if they could point to a law I was breaking, then maybe I'd entertain them for a minute, but this is not that.
Public means not private. What you do in public is not private. In presumptive free societies, when in public, one is allowed to notice what others are doing in public. Secret is the opposite of public.
The paranoia around being seen feels a lot like the other reptile-brain based phobias like fear of poisoning with vaccines.
(Similarly to how "we have license plates on cars to identify them if needed" is a thing and basically nobody complains that I can see your license plate when I walk past your car or write it down if needed, but thousands or millions of cameras recording all traffic and logging plates are something people are concerned about, even if its completely legal in some places)
What was that Larry Ellison quote that came up again over the weekend?
EDIT: or to bring a specific real-world example: A friend of mine does classes at a local studio that also offers martial arts courses, and some of the local right-wing bubble has gotten it in their head that this has to be "antifa combat training" and keeps screaming that this needs to be monitored. The current local government has been ignoring them, but a lot of people are probably quite happy now that there isn't an easy-to-get public record of who was there and "needs a visit" just because some influencer needed to film her dance lessons.
Even if you're right, and we all just should be comfortable with being seen by the internet when we're in any semi-public space, you can't expect human brains and culture to change on a dime, and you should expect weird effects.
Side note, this is a spectrum, not like a black and white thing. Semi-public is a thing, why not let it still be a thing
- I see who sees me, a digital copy breaks this symmetry
- Recordings may be stored indefinitely, searched through, used for things I can't even imagine today
- In a local environment a specific behavior might be normal or accepted while in some other cultures it is not. This conflict is bound to happen
etc.
So why worry about it? It's like worrying a camera will "capture your soul" or whatever the story about those tribesmen is.
> a local environment a specific behavior might be normal or accepted while in some other cultures it is not
Do you actually have an example of this or is this yet another hypothetical?
Some political view in Region A is wildly unaccepted in Region B, thus making them "enemies". See recent conflicts globally.
I know who the whackjobs are and don't need to interact with them or watch my speech to avoid triggering them and dealing with ensuing harassment, threats, violence.
But of course, that ship has sailed in much of the world, with the ubiquity of surveillance and the dearth of opposition.
Also, you have correctly noted that I did not say that second thing (since nobody has asked me to).
Good job, 2/2 accuracy, would chat again.
I accept I am visible in public to all who share a space but I do not accept that the ephemeral nature of my existence in that space should be violated.
I've noticed that folks born after some point in the early 2000's tend to feel this way, and they don't even realize that the survellience in 1984 was meant to be problematic, or why it might feel that way to others
It seems that the panopticon has been normalized successfully.
"Running around in the woods, firing small plastic pellets at other people, in pursuit of a contrived-to-be-fun mission, turns out to be, well, fun."
I was wondering if there are no biodegradable bullets for Airsoft and found out that they exist. Maybe a better solution than plastic in the woods.
https://www.filamentive.com/the-truth-about-the-biodegradabi...
> PLA is only biodegradable under industrial composting conditions and anaerobic digestion – there is no evidence of PLA being biodegradable in soil, home compost or landfill environment.
There are plenty of posts of people putting 3d prints in compost piles, for months or years, and visually not much happens. Even stuff advertiser as bio don't fare that well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tavrkWrazWI
The idea that you can coat much more resilient stuff in PFAS and label it “biodegradable” is at least as big a scam as California’s $0.10 “reusable” bags, or mixed stream recycling.
I’m for taking each use of plastic, by global volume, and then banning them, in order.
We should probably start with fishing nets.
Alternatively, the industry should need to produce 200% as much post-consumer recycled plastic made from the same grade as they’re manufacturing. This would act as a tax, strongly encouraging investment in more sustainable materials. Maybe drop that to 150% if the plastic in the product is 100% recycled.
We’re not that far off in Europe. Give it a couple of years more and climate change will make sure we get there.
https://jakubmarian.com/highest-recorded-temperature-by-coun...
Edit: forgot to say. In every field I’ve been too, there’s millions of leftover BBs, and I’ve never seen one with signs of degradation.
We have lived in our house for +15 years and we still regularly find small fluorescent yellow ball bearings in the garden soil from the previous owners family. These things are here to stay
I’m sure they’re better now, but I have no idea!
> This is nonsense, for a number of reasons. Clearly, one should be able to exist in society, including going outside one’s own home, without needing to accept this kind of thing.
Sorry, that's not clear to me at all. If you're going to accuse other people of "nonsense", you should probably avoid circular reasoning yourself.
That's a bit over the top. It's a game, like paintball, Nerf, or Mortal Kombat. Has nothing to do with actual murder.
I was shooting video of a car park exit last year. (I was trying to prove to the shopping centre owners that it was dangerous.) Mundane footage. Some lady drives out in her car and sees me. Winds the window down and starts on the you don't have the right to film me carry-on.
I politely informed her that, I'm sorry, but I do. She's in public. That's the law (in Australia).
Another fun one, while I'm here. C. 2010, we're shooting a music video in central Melbourne. We're on the public pavement. There's a bank ATM waaaay in the background. Bank security come out. Sorry mate, you can't film here.
We told them, we can. We're on public land. So they call the cops. We politely wait for the cops. The cops turn up.
"This sounded much more interesting on the radio", the cop says. They left us alone to finish the shoot.
This doesn't necessarily need to be an article, because the author could have just handled it with each venue individually, but this just gets the conversation going about general sentiment and wider applicability.
My guess is that early on this kind of youtuber was relatively rare and so being captured occasionally wasn't a big deal, but that now the trend is catching on, a it's happening regularly and becoming a concern for some people.
I guess they can weigh that against their customers desire for privacy.
Many hobbies are like this. The majority of footage people record on their GoPros is for themself. It's rare for someone to edit it into a YouTube video. Even more rare for someone to go see it.
The AirSoft example is interesting because players where so much protective gear and face masks that it would be very difficult to recognize anyone's likeness anyway.
Don't go to places that allow recording.
I occasionally see people saying “well, if you don’t want to be in photos published online, don’t be in public spaces”.
This is nonsense, for a number of reasons. Clearly, one should be able to exist in society, including going outside one’s own home, without needing to accept this kind of thing.
In any case, here, the issue is somewhat different, since it is a private site, where people engage in private activity (a hobby).
With the OP example, people getting recorded are not bystanders catching stray camera focus, they are the subject of the video. Without other participants, there would be little 'content'. Imagine going to an indoor climbing venue, recording someone else, and publishing just that.
I think this is a case where the reasonable person test is excellent. Is this use of a camera reasonable for personal/professional purposes
You should be expected to take reasonable steps not to victimise someone by use of a video camera, subject to public interest. That means filming strangers with intent to provoke them should be a crime but raging car park lady cannot reasonably claim to have been victimised. Consent affects what is reasonable without creating a duty-bound obligation not to film without consent.
We already have "reasonable expectations of privacy", why not flip that?
Ephemeral public has no expectation of ephemeral privacy, but me walking down a street with a handful of people on it should not lead me to expect that being recorded and having it broadcast to the entire human race, permanently, for eternity.
You shouldn't have an expectation either way. If anything, the expectation that you will not be recorded is more of a violation of the social contract that the reverse. It's a public space that can be used for many purposes. If the effect on bystanders is minimal then attempting to exclude an activity is wrong. Can we say "I don't want you to see me, so look away whenever I am out." "I don't want to wait in traffic so everyone else has to pull over and clear the road when I am driving." "I didn't consent to this smell, so this restaurant has to turn off their stoves and ovens hours before I will be coming by."
Reality is that you can't exclude others if they aren't doing something that excludes you.
I hear you and I agree public spaces involve us working and coexisting together, not tailoring the public space to what one person wants.
On the other hand, there is something in me that doesn't like for-profit rage bait creators monetizing how I react to a guy shoving a camera in my face and doing something irregular. I feel like it is a type of assault we don't have a name for yet but that should conceivably be criminal.
I just realize that I'm acting like the those that first saw the printed word or a camera and felt uneasy about it, I am just an old man angry that video cameras and globalization of content exists. I'm probably just a luddite trying to stop the world from progressing.
Stop taking video in public, or at least of the public. You just assume you should be able to do that and the whole world should adjust to your preference. Maybe it should be the other way around.
However, there are significant differences: 1. The camera is in a fixed position, 2. The footage is not typically shared let alone published online.
I'm not sure I support anything. I'm just pointing out that there is a path available if you don't just assume that you should be allowed to take video.
But it wouldn't bother me at all to have, say, a rule that you couldn't have a surveillance camera covering any space you didn't own, and furthermore that if you had a camera covering a space that you did own that was open to the public, and recordings would be deleted after say 24 hours unless there was special justification to keep a specific one.
I would have thought they would be very useful for adjudicating high cost events such as automobile collisions, or even police interactions.
Just as the author says: “Publishing someone’s photo online, without their consent, without another strong justification, just because they happen to be in view of one’s camera lens, feels wrong to me.”
It doesn’t fall to the legal level, but a social rules level.
People who obnoxiously recording people in public, even if 100% legal, and disregard the wishes and conform of others around them deserve social consequences.
Some things should only exist at the social norms level. IMO it would be hunky dory if societies considered what “privacy in public” looks like in the modern age, and came to the conclusions like “no dragnets pls”.
You've got a very large, diverse population without a strong social identity and ever-fraying trust. So you won't consistently get basic human decency any longer. That's something which is extended to the in-group with which you have real social ties and obligations. Most people don't have this any longer.
This is nonsense. People started taking photos of crowds almost as soon as the camera was invented.
Human decency still exists as it has always done. But perhaps not in a form that we all agree on.
For a forum that tends to trend libertarian, I'm genuinely surprised by the level of enthusiasm for using the government to police the photos people take and share of people in public spaces.
Seriously? This one? This place is Reddit with more words, in my ever-degrading experience.
While I think we all agree that this is crucially important, for many of us the affront to decency is not the capture of photons that have previously bounced off someone's skin, but the very idea that that person has a claim to those photons in perpetuity.
I think it's indecent to suggest that someone needs to avert their gaze (or in this case, their CMOS sensor) because I happen to be in the area.
If the same thing happens in 2025, there's a decent chance your unmentionables will end up posted online for anyone to ogle in perpetuity. If you find out about it, it could really eat at you.
I don't have a solution to it, or even know if there should be one. But I think it's undeniable that it's causing a fundamental shift in what "private" and "public" mean, in people's minds if not legally. We used to be more private in public than we are now.
If people aren't decent enough to wait till you are dead and bother you over the footage of you they've seen, you should go after them, not the person who recorded the footage. They are the ones who cause you inconvenience.
This isnt rocket science guys, why are we all acting stupid.
Even the richest man on earth's (one of them) solution to related problems is a tall hedge around his property that he gets fined for. There ain't no going back.
Again, let's stop playing stupid. And, while we're at it, let's stop suggesting "solutions" that we know we can't implement.
There's a very simple solution we can do right now: don't take naked pictures of people.
/thread
...I think this advances the point GP makes. We have allowed obsession over body image to take on religious proportions (falling off both ends of the spectrum, toward tiktok swimsuit edition on one end, and the burka on the other).
Part of this obsession is the claim of ownership of every photon that bounces off one's skin until it is eventually captured by someone else's eye (biological or electronic).
A healthy internet age is one in which we find comfort in our bodies, fitness in our habits, and security without needing to control every depiction of us.
Not every thing has to be recorded.
It is like all those runners and cyclists who log and share all their runs/rides on Strava without even taking the time to figure out if it really serves a purpose other than a vain attention seeking.
https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-f...
Honestly, the older I get the more I cherish that I grew up in a time before the compulsion to post literally everything.
Why are you shaming people for seeking what they obviously lack and need for their psychological well being?
If you are doing it because you're a creator on YouTube and you are getting paid through views on YouTube, aren't you then required to get release info? If it's for personal use, sure thing, but when you are making money on it then you should absolutely get releases and default to bluring non-released individuals.
I think the bigger issue is that our laws (in the US at least) haven't really caught up with this gig/creator economy. It would be no different than a blockbuster film group filming a war/battle sequence and having to get permission ahead of time from the location and individuals.
My work will have signs up or ask explicitly if they are filming and intend to publish. If you go to a private org with the intention of filming, you should follow the same rules for a full-budget production group.
The model release laws are usually tied to commercial use where some endorsement is implied.
That’s why your company must secure a model release when filming in your office: The material is being used in a manner related to the company and as an employee in the video you are implicitly part of that.
If the AirSoft facility was filming customers and using that footage in an ad, they would probably require model release forms.
There are freedom of speech protections covering the capture of likeness for artistic display, editorial use, and so on.
If the YouTuber made some video in this case as an ad for some AirSoft product and included other people in it without model release forms in a way that implied they were part of the endorsement, they could be in trouble. If they’re just making videos reporting on their games then I doubt there’s an argument that you could make requiring a model release, even if the channel was monetized.
This is also why news channels don't need to secure model release forms when reporting on public events. If we required everyone to do the model release form thing to show any video of them, you would never see any negative videos of politicians or criminals agin.
I find it interesting how the winds have changed on this topic. 5-10 years ago it was a hot topic in online tech spaces (HN, Reddit, Slashdot and adjacent sites) about preserving your rights to take photos and videos in public spaces.
I can understand some people preferring not to be filmed in public or shared commercial spaces, but ultimately if you are truly in public then being photographed or recorded is just part of the deal.
I don’t think some people have thought about the second-order effects of things like requiring model release forms for everyone who enters the frame. Imagine getting a ticket or being sued by your busybody neighbor because you took a video of your kids in the backyard and they walked past. Laws like this are frequently abused by people who want to wield power over others, not simply people who simply want to protect themselves.
When you extend the thinking to topics like news reporting and journalism it becomes obvious why you don't want laws requiring everyone to give consent to have video shared of themselves in public: No politician would ever allow footage of themselves to be shared unless it's picture perfect and in line with what they want you to see.
My very very strong gut feeling is that this is an influx of bots muddying the waters of discussion in concert with the unleashing of the secret police force that is ICE.
It seems to me that every real person sees the crucial importance of public photography in peacefully maintaining accountability.
If you believe in the basic right of general purpose computing - not just a political right, but the idea that general purpose computing is the lifeblood of the internet age - then it seems to follow logically that the capture of photons and depiction thereof are part of the functioning the commons.
Restrictions (especially with the force of law, but also social pressures) of the basic and deeply human capacity to capture photons and vibrations, and to make depictions of the results of that capture, are invariably used by the more powerful against the less powerful. eg: cops playing "copyrighted" material to prevent posting to youtube.
Much safer and fairer is to just give ourselves the same rights we might imagine are afforded to an alien, 4 light years away, looking through an extremely powerful telescope. Do you suggest that earth laws extend to this alien? Is she prohibited from posting the activities she can see of ours through her telescope?
=> https://web.archive.org/web/20040611150802/http://villagevoi...
It's also legal to play an annoying song on repeat all day on a quiet hiking trail, but people (rightfully) recognize that as improper socially.
I don't know about that. Aroudn this time was the peak of "Glassholes" for those who remember that phenomenon. People really didn't want someone to be potentially, passively recording their conversation. Would that not be a thing should Google re-launch Google Glass today? That might be a real factor given how Meta is trying to push AR glasses.
1. Taking pictures/videos for personal use.
2. Taking pictures/videos for internet fame/money.
3. Taking pictures/videos as a check on abuse of power.
Most opposition now is due to #2, sometimes under the guise of #3; #3 also has divisions between "is it {illegal,unethical,immoral,weird}?"
Just like some gyms are accommodating to people filming TikTok’s and some aren’t, an airsoft range could have camera or no camera days, if that was something their players wanted.
or expressly allowed, so that this dude knows not to go there
I'm fine with being recorded as long as you keep it private. Not with that video ending up on your Drive backups or OneDrive etc, let alone YT.
"Sharing with a third party" because you have phone backups enabled is very different from streaming live or uploading to social media, like most are actually discussing here.
> I get it, but the alternative is what? Get model release forms from anyone in a public space every time you turn your video camera on?
The offline alternative exists even if your OS employs dark UX patterns to make that frustrating. GP is the one who is conflating things.
E.g. you can film public spaces as much as you want, but be careful of what you post to YouTube.
Any user uploading to a video platform has to run their video through this integration user-facial detection layer at some point in their editing pipeline. Payments are made accordingly.
Just brainstorming.
This seems reasonable to me. If its airsoft, how many people are involved? 10? 20? Just go around and ask people if they will allow you to post video of the game with them in it.
Yes, this is what the author is concerned about. There’s a big difference between being filmed incidentally, and being filmed on purpose for the activity you’re engaged in. Being accidentally in the background is one thing, while being the subject of a video and having the camera aimed at you is another. Even though public photography is also legal where I live, and I believe we should keep that right, if I filmed close-ups of people in the car park getting in and out of their cars, I’d expect most people would object and find it uncomfortable.
There are a lot of '1A' auditors on youtube. They can be nasally and annoying but it's hilarious how often people go into a rage that they're being filmed despite the fact the people getting angry are doing the same to everyone else.
Tangentially, nightclubs put stickers over your phone cameras and that is a great idea.
In fully public spaces I think we're pretty much out of luck, though I do think that laser/lidar-based countermeasures should be legal.
I don't think your situations are the same as someone appearing on some youtube channel without their consent every single week unless they opt out of participating at all.
Either that or, if you can’t get a model release, make sure to blur their face in editing. This used to be standard practice.
Think of it like a public pool. It is unreasonable to say that there should be public pools that children aren't allowed into, but it's also unreasonable to expect all adults to want to swim with children. This is why we have the concept of adult swim time.
What once was a funny little niche character at the faire is now a TikTok tourist spot.
Where once you could dress up as your pseudo anonymous alter ego with friends and have fun, now you get recorded without consent and get to enjoy all the perks that can come with
Ultimately it will be up to us as a society to determine what is acceptable or how to communicate boundaries for this new element in our culture, with the understanding (to the authors point) that some of us will be against it and others will be enthusiastically for it.
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