[HN Gopher] They didn't ask to go viral
___________________________________________________________________
They didn't ask to go viral
Author : DocFeind
Score : 183 points
Date : 2023-08-05 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| FreshStart wrote:
| But this has beauty too. Hideous crimes go punished, for the
| world is watching. Surveillance by the many for the many prevents
| warcrimes, prevents police brutality, chills a uncivilized
| humanity, idealized by to many into a civilized humanity. If you
| aspire to see a unwatched world goto den Haag, travel to
| auschwitz, to Xinjiang and the Archipel gulag. When the world is
| not watching and authority story reigns supreme, monsters walk
| the earth. The cybernetic augmentation of society, the leviathan-
| cybernetics is a great societal achievement.
| newsclues wrote:
| Part of the power of social media, is that powerful people acting
| badly in public finally might face some public backlash or
| justice.
|
| Banning this, will certainly protect the powerful, and will
| likely continue to be unenforced for the average person.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Whenever this argument comes up I think of what happened to
| Logan Paul and Justine Sacco. One desecrated what was
| effectively a burial site and faced few consequences, the other
| told a dumb joke and had their life destroyed over it. The
| powerful continue to thrive while the weak suffer.
| foogazi wrote:
| We need more forgiveness in this world
| gochi wrote:
| This argument doesn't hold up in practice, because currently,
| the powerful are already protected. Look at how many cops got
| away with abuse, how many high profile celebrities got away
| with heinous things, so many examples of the powerful (in their
| respective realm) never facing consequences.
|
| So what actually ends up happening is most of this "public
| backlash" only affects people already easily accessible.
| Whether or not they actually did "act badly" which is important
| to bring up because people too easily buy into narratives
| online that are very one-sided. These easily accessible people
| could have been talked to 1 on 1 to solve the problem, that's
| how accessible they are.
|
| I don't think banning this is the solution, but we absolutely
| do need to check this behavior and evaluate the incentives in
| place because right now they're terrible. The fact that people
| can profit off these kind of videos/posts on social media (two
| times btw: by the platform itself and if the story picks up by
| news orgs who pay for rights to display the content),
| especially during a time when people feel financial unease, is
| a recipe for disaster. Logically with these incentives in
| place, it makes far more sense to just be a bystander and film,
| rather than stepping in and helping or looking for help.
| newsclues wrote:
| "This argument doesn't hold up in practice, because
| currently, the powerful are already protected"
|
| Not on social media. Anyone can post a video or article
| attacking powerful people and groups, and thus "we" need new
| laws that will protect people on social media.
|
| I am blocked by my local elected representative on Twitter. I
| was able to get better constituency service publicly on
| Twitter than I can via email or voicemail. But if I can be
| blocked, no problem.
|
| Censorship and safety tools on social media need to be very
| carefully designed because at scale they get abused.
| junon wrote:
| Meh I've never liked this argument. It becomes a question of
| who is "blessed" and "unblessed" enough for you, subjectively.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| There's a big difference between filming a public servant on
| duty misbehaving, and I random person having a bad day.
| dustincoates wrote:
| > Part of the power of social media, is that powerful people
| acting badly in public finally might face some public backlash
| or justice.
|
| Who are the powerful people in your opinion? Does it depend on
| their skin color? Their gender? Their perceived wealth? Their
| looks?
|
| Try hard enough, you can find any kind of hook that will
| justify public shaming because this person has privilege and so
| it isn't punching down. Of course, nevermind that, what use is
| it for someone in Seattle to join the shaming of someone in
| London, nevermind Atlanta?
| trubeliever wrote:
| [dead]
| foogazi wrote:
| > Who are the powerful people in your opinion? Does it depend
| on their skin color? Their gender? Their perceived wealth?
| Their looks?
|
| One use of recording is if you hire someone to do a job and
| they don't do it - a recording can be used as evidence in
| court
|
| Like of you hire a police officer to enforce traffic laws and
| they choke someone on the sidewalk
| nullindividual wrote:
| The video evidence clearly shows the officer detaining the
| pedestrian to prevent them from wandering out into traffic.
|
| Cop 100% doing his job. With Qualified Immunity when that
| ped dies.
| [deleted]
| nullindividual wrote:
| Social media truly is the opioid of today's society.
|
| While browsing /r/all, I ran across a post from a very popular
| sub which had an airport worker stripping in the airport,
| flailing on the floor, etc. No one knows why, could have been
| drugs, could have been a mental defect.
|
| Yet many of the thousands of responses were laughing because they
| could see the man's flaccid penis.
|
| While we don't know what caused the man to do this, imagine your
| next mental breakdown being posted to an insanely popular sub for
| everyone to gawk and laugh at.
|
| Oh, and of course Reddit found that the post didn't violate the
| "no non-consentual nudity" which according to the guidelines does
| cover non-consentual public nudity.
|
| https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004351341...
| [deleted]
| dustincoates wrote:
| I know I'm not saying anything new here, but I'm always shocked
| by just how vicious the Reddit community is, especially from a
| group who considers themselves highly intelligent (compared to
| those "other" people). Videos like you describe are there every
| time I visit, along with fight videos and comments making up a
| back story as to what the victim did to deserve it, etc.
|
| Sometimes I wonder why things like vigilanteism and other bad
| behaviors were so prevalent in the past, but then you go to
| these communities and realize it hasn't gone away, it's just
| moved online. Which, I guess is progress of a sort (less
| violence) and a big step backwards when you think about how in
| the past you could have moved away from a mistake or
| embarrassing encounter, but not anymore if it becomes viral
| enough.
| nullindividual wrote:
| > I'm always shocked by just how vicious the Reddit community
| is
|
| Eventually you won't be shocked.
|
| It's anonymous and you can say (almost) anything you like.
| Moderation of large subs is a joke, even before the strike.
| Just like the reddit "Trust and Safety" team, the mods of
| this particular subreddit, even though the post violated a
| sub rule along with the site rule, stayed up, unlocked.
|
| > but not anymore if it becomes viral enough.
|
| Not everyone wants to be a celebrity. But just read _this_
| thread. You have at least one individual justifying this
| behavior.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Reddit has always been hostile/tribal, I would say it's
| slightly less so than in the past.
| capableweb wrote:
| Absolutely not, in the beginning it was a super welcoming
| community, that openly accepted all types of people with
| open arms, where you could have friendly debates with
| people you'd probably punch in the face in real life.
|
| But it quickly changed as reddit became a more mainstream
| 4chan alternative rather than the welcoming community it
| was in beginning.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Have you ever been to the php subreddit... toxic since
| day one.
| pixl97 wrote:
| How many millions of people post on Reddit?
|
| Reddit is just made of everyone, and it turns out that
| everyone is a bunch of jerks.
| mackatap wrote:
| Reddit has grown large enough to lose any identity it once
| had. It used to be tech literate, now it is really just the
| average population.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Here's the ironic part: Where are all the _actually_ smart
| people?
|
| If the person is actually smart in a field, they probably
| have jobs in that field. A job that is often extremely
| mentally or physically involved, leaving little time for
| revisiting that job over recreational periods (no time to
| hang out arguing with strangers, life's tough enough). There
| might also be NDAs involved, or concerns from higher-ups that
| the user might post anything that might embarrass the
| company, etc. It is also completely common for the smartest
| people in a field to have not an inkling on how to set up a
| website or join social media (because they are generally...
| on the older side).
|
| The result is that Reddit, and social media, are _mostly_
| people who have studied those fields and didn 't get in. The
| results are self-evident. I like to think of the uncle from
| _Napoleon Dynamite_ who is constantly bragging to everyone
| about how he _could_ have been an excellent NFL player.
|
| Edit: It is also for this reason that I suspect that
| StackOverflow and Reddit moderators do it for what some have
| called "productivity porn." "Look at me - I'm such a great
| person in this field that I even get to moderate the forums!"
| Even though they often probably couldn't hold a midlevel job.
| darepublic wrote:
| Intelligence is not a spectrum you can place people along
| and then point to a dot and say "this is where stupid
| comments stop"
| MaulingMonkey wrote:
| > Sometimes I wonder why things like vigilanteism and other
| bad behaviors were so prevalent in the past,
|
| For vigilanteism it seems simple to me: it was the original
| counterforce against anti-social sociopathic and predatory
| behavior such as murder - predating law enforcement,
| predating law, predating _humanity_. Even animals arguably
| engage in "vigilanteism" when retaliating against another
| pack's attack, or when pack leaders are overly cruel and
| tyranical. The deterence of "don't hurt us - or we'll hurt
| you".
|
| We rightfully look down on vigilanteism now as it tends to
| short circuit things like the due process of an assumed-to-be
| effective, functional, and ethical legal system... but those
| are some pretty big assumptions, and I have several bridges
| to sell you if you think they're always true, or if you think
| everyone agrees on which legal systems rise to that level.
| Vigilanteism is merely the default form of "justice" that we
| sometimes rise above, given the right circumstances.
|
| Circumstances which are often lacking online.
| imiric wrote:
| It shouldn't surprise you that online communities are a
| reflection of human nature. The behaviors we see are the
| effects of groupthink taken to its extreme. Even in
| "civilized" forums such as this one, you'll notice people
| conforming with the group mentality, and deleting their posts
| if they get downvoted. When there is little to no moderation,
| and viciousness is acceptable within the group, this behavior
| will spiral out of control, as individuals try to one-up each
| other, leading to vigilantism, manufactured outrage, cancel
| culture, racism, and all sort of abhorrent behavior an
| individual wouldn't do in isolation. We all seek validation
| in our ideas, after all.
|
| All of this still exists offline, BTW. This is how riots
| happen. What the internet does is make it more possible by
| connecting more people than we traditionally could
| communicate with, and providing a safe space for any kind of
| discussion to happen. It's a tool our tribal monkey brains
| aren't ready for.
| dustincoates wrote:
| I think you're largely right, but IMO the difference
| between what happens online and what happens offline is
| that you have to look people in the eye offline and you may
| encounter them randomly in person. There's a moderating
| function that generally (not always) keeps the heat down.
|
| Same for pile-ons. I'm not so naive to think that they
| never happen offline, but there's a higher cost to doing
| them than there is when all you have to do is write 140
| characters to dunk on someone you won't even remember in
| two weeks.
| rightbyte wrote:
| People that write on the internet are probably just on
| the average less sane. There are prevalent types on the
| interwebs that I just never meet outside.
| chmod600 wrote:
| Are they a different set of people online and off, or a
| just a different set of behaviors for the same people?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Reddit is far worse than human nature, I believe. The
| upvote and downvote system favours people that are
| authoritarian (as a personality trait). There is this sect
| like wibe nowadays on Reddit.
| mvncleaninst wrote:
| I kind of wish that some billionaire would just get mad, buy
| reddit, and run it into the ground. The world would be a much
| better place
|
| Or better yet, round the redditors up and send them to
| Siberia
| nonbirithm wrote:
| Be careful what you wish for, this has already happened to
| The Social Network Formerly Known As Twitter.
|
| I wonder if anyone who wished doom upon X in the past years
| is finally getting the satisfaction they wanted from
| watching its steady demise. Personally I don't see anything
| stopping someone from just making Twitter: The Sequel and
| starting the whole cycle all over again. There's nothing
| that outlaws the creation of an internet cesspool.
| brewdad wrote:
| There was little of lasting value on Twitter. It was
| great for breaking news or timely discussion but I've
| rarely had the need to go back and reread old tweets.
| Reddit, at least in the right subs, is often a
| StackExchange with a much broader scope and less pedantic
| moderation. I probably refer to old Reddit posts multiple
| times a week.
|
| I don't miss Twitter. I would absolutely miss Reddit.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| For some reason, this reminded me of the Bansky quote:
|
| "The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people
| breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's
| people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre
| villages."
| renewiltord wrote:
| The backstory ones are amazing.
|
| It's like an LLM were set free.
|
| "He probably stalked her from the age of 12 and waited till
| she was 19 before he bought her an ice cream of the flavour
| her mum liked before she died. All so that she'd invite him
| to this party where he could fight this other guy.
|
| Imagine you think this guy is a friend and he only became
| your friend because he hated someone else.
|
| As someone with trauma because of my parents dying when I was
| young, finding out that the one guy who was your friend is
| not would be devastating."
| bbarnett wrote:
| It actually reads like modern TV. Soaps, and teen drama.
|
| Part of the problem is, we tend to ignore age. That sort of
| post could have been made by a 9 year old.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Groups which consider themselves as very intellectual can
| commit the worst atrocities. Just look at communists.
| watwut wrote:
| Communists were quite anti-intellectual. Literally against
| intelligentsia
| j45 wrote:
| It has little to do with education or intellect.
|
| The disease of righteousness is available to all.
|
| Being able to reflect and examine one's own thoughts and
| beliefs is harder than fitting in and being righteous.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Smarter people are better at rationalizing away their bad
| behavior, though.
|
| You need certain cognitive capacity in order to engage in
| sophistry.
| [deleted]
| fakedang wrote:
| [flagged]
| brookst wrote:
| Really depends on the sub. r/conservative bans everyone who
| questions the right, even conservatives. They'll ban you
| for being opposed to banning books, fer chrissake.
|
| Reddit just lends itself to tribal behaviors.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Your first paragraph is true but also, what do you expect
| when politics is exactly the same.
|
| You're given and us Vs them narrative and if you fall on the
| wrong classification by whoever decides they want to apply a
| label, any harm you can come to is delightful and cherished.
| Violence is justified too. "Words are violence" so violence
| can be used to "defend" against it.
|
| I think it goes well beyond Reddit and has all to do with
| creating a context of righteousness and dehumanization to be
| able to justify mob behaviour and, ultimately, violence.
| Power, in one word.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Reddit is a cesspool. There are people actively using it for
| radicalization. It takes them far too long to shut down
| subreddits dedicated to far-right eugenicist delusions, if they
| do so at all.
| dude187 wrote:
| Any examples of that? That sounds pretty far fetched
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| My man... if you think the problem with Reddit is "far right"
| that is just how far your perspective is skewed.
|
| There are a lot of accusations to make at Reddit; that is by
| far not even close to reality.
| waithuh wrote:
| Reddit has a far everything. From tankies in denial to
| straight up Nazis, Admins do nothing with both sides. I
| used to like the libertarian approach (except the
| borderline/straight up cp subs...) but it is evident that
| they dont do anything except punishing their own community
| and censoring what they dont like because of being
| understaffed and underqualified rather than sacrificing on
| advertising revenue for the sake of liberty and pulling
| users that way.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Show me.
|
| I've been to every corner of Reddit and never seen
| anything remotely "far right". I've seen the conservative
| sub be brigaded by other subs that are allowed to break
| reddits rules about hot-linking to brigade, though I
| disagreed with them I saw The Donald get banned for two
| astroturfed posts that MediaMatters (Hillary Clinton)
| used to get them banned (ironically before "all cops are
| bastards" was promoted), and I've seen actual far right
| forums that make me sick. None of that is far-right on
| Reddit.
|
| So show me. Link a sub. It should be easy for your claim.
| As response other than "here is a far right sub on
| Reddit" will be an admission you are making it up.
|
| EDIT: Imagine my surprise when conclusive links never
| come.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Of course, this is what I expected to see when you claim
| far right content isn't a problem. You are severely
| biased to think that The Donald was anything other than a
| cesspool of radicalism. The dude has been a lifelong con
| man. He was an utter failure (and traitor) as a
| president, as was obvious from the start.
|
| Reddit is full of whatever a dogwhistle becomes when
| everyone can hear it. Just whistles, I suppose. It is
| shockingly easy to find racists commenting about IQ and
| 13/50 bullshit in any subreddit that isn't actively
| moderating against that, let alone one that encourages it
| like the Donald.
| dude187 wrote:
| So you're saying there's no examples, meaning that you're
| actually claiming such subreddits don't exist
| plagiarist wrote:
| From your comment history on vaccines and illness I
| presume you are more familiar than I with far-right
| subreddits. Perhaps you should list a few here to satisfy
| yourself, since I won't be entertaining the question.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >racists commenting about IQ and 13/50 bullshit
|
| I don't know what you are saying. Explain?
| plagiarist wrote:
| You've thoroughly proven you have no clue you would
| recognize far-right content when you used the Donald as a
| counter-example of it, no need to continue.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Why are you having difficulty explaining all the things
| you are saying are so commonplace?
|
| You are making claims but unwilling to back any of them
| up.
|
| Imagine for a moment... if you were so far left that
| everything looked "far right" to you, how would you know?
| plagiarist wrote:
| I'm not having difficulty, I'm choosing not to follow the
| directives of someone who thinks the Donald wasn't far
| right radicalism.
|
| "You didn't write responses on my terms so you're wrong
| and biased to the point of delusion." No, actually, you
| think a far-right echo chamber finally getting banned for
| agitating users towards shooting police officers is
| somehow Hillary Clinton's fault.
| Gud wrote:
| the_donald was banned years ago, along with many other
| far right subs. Where are these far right wing subs?
|
| Right or wrong, I don't really care. The far right has
| been effectively purged from Reddit.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Maybe a single hive was removed after years of activity.
| The users from the Donald were not removed. They moved to
| other subreddits where they persist with the same
| behaviors. There has certainly not been any sort of
| purge.
| [deleted]
| ipaddr wrote:
| I agree reddit is a cesspool. I disagree that rightwing
| groups are the cause. Leftwing groups, Rightwing, groups in
| the middle, groups around programming languages are all
| filled with toxic people showing toxic behaviour that the
| same people would complain about on other mediums.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| I often think this about Ring / permanent surveillance that
| exists now. Nobody can even be free in front of their own house
| without the threat of something ludicrous happening to you and
| then it being on public record until the end of the internet.
| It's absolutely wild to me.
| teamspirit wrote:
| That's the exact reason I just ordered a locally recording
| doorbell and am finally replaced the last cloud based "smart"
| device in my home. I found myself actually changing my
| behavior and not saying certain things to my wife in front of
| it. The thought that every time I passed my own front door a
| stranger, that I placed there, was recording me was
| nauseating.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I had a ring for about one week before I ripped it out and
| sent it back.
|
| I can't understand how almost no one realized we went far
| worse than UK or Singapore's surveillance state and did it
| on our own dollar voluntarily.
| one_level_deep wrote:
| [dead]
| Eumenes wrote:
| Ring cameras are wired and you can set them up to only turn
| on when you aren't home. Thats what I do. I also don't have
| neighbors and live in the woods.
| mvncleaninst wrote:
| Those ring cameras are actually crazy. The fact that they are
| so normalized in the BA is kind of disturbing
|
| This lady just moved in next to me. Drives a leased luxury
| car. Doesn't interact with anyone, she just put up a ring
| camera (on an apartment door) and doesn't go outside
|
| I absolutely can't stand people who put up all of this
| cringey privacy invading IOT shit, in a relatively nice area
| on top of that
| eertami wrote:
| In Switzerland those cameras are illegal, since there is a
| right to privacy for all persons. Security cameras can
| exist on private land or where the need is deemed to be
| absolutely necessary (eg, high security or high value areas
| where it is in the public interest to have a camera) - but
| filming the street from your house fails these tests. Same
| for dashcams.
|
| People like to make this "oh but you're in public so why
| can't I film you" argument and it's so strange to me that
| this is something people actively want - to not be allowed
| privacy from other peoples pictures and recordings.
| one_level_deep wrote:
| [dead]
| bandyaboot wrote:
| > People like to make this "oh but you're in public so
| why can't I film you" argument and it's so strange to me
| that this is something people actively want - to not be
| allowed privacy from other peoples pictures and
| recordings.
|
| I don't find it at all surprising that there's
| disagreement about this. You have two entirely reasonable
| and important principles that are butting up against each
| other. Personal freedom is important and so is personal
| privacy. Of course there's going to be controversy and
| differences from place to place and culture to culture on
| where the dividing line should exist.
| mvncleaninst wrote:
| > You have two entirely reasonable and important
| principles that are butting up against each other
|
| How exactly is being allowed to record someone else in
| public without their consent an "important principle"?
| Especially if the non-consenting person is the subject of
| the recording?
| brewdad wrote:
| Why should I need your consent in public? Especially, if
| it's incidental. If I follow you around all day, I see a
| problem. If you're in the background of a video or photo
| I took of something else, I can't see an issue.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Like it or not, this is just the beginning.
|
| Fairly soon, all human life will be recorded.
| jsemrau wrote:
| There should be a right to be forgotten
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten
| zgluck wrote:
| HN/YCombinator does not honor this correctly from a EU
| law perspective. They don't allow you to delete your
| content. What they do offer is renaming your account.
|
| I'm salivating for this monster lawsuit once they they
| have enough EU exposure. It will probably be based in
| Germany.
|
| @switch007: They are investing in European companies.
| That's exposure.
|
| @walthamstow: Look up the "Right to erasure" aspect of
| the GDPR.
|
| (Why am I adding these things as edits? - I was rate-
| limited by HN/Ycombinator so I can't reply to your
| individual comments. When trying to post a reply I get
| the message "please slow down".)
| switch007 wrote:
| Does HN have an EU company? If not, why should EU law
| apply?
|
| I'm mostly pro EU but I'm against countries/unions
| enforcing their laws beyond their borders.
| 4RealFreedom wrote:
| I don't know EU regulations well enough but isn't the
| ability to change your email address and scrub your about
| section enough? That would break any traceable links to
| you.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I live in a GDPR country and I don't really see the
| problem with HN's approach. They own the information you
| typed into their website, you own the privacy of your
| name. Why should they delete information you gave them,
| rather than just help you anonymise it?
| xg15 wrote:
| > _They own the information you typed into their website_
|
| Not a lawyer, but is this actually the case? I thought
| the core of section 230 was about exactly that - that a
| site operator does not constitute a "publisher" for
| everything that is written on their site, if the site is
| just a "dumb" software that displays content written by
| the site's users - and therefore can't be made liable for
| anything written in user-generated content in the way
| they would be for editoral content.
|
| That would imply to me that the site operator does _not_
| own the user-generated content. Otherwise, you 'd have a
| weird "have your cake and eat it too" situation where a
| site gets all the rights of ownership but none of the
| responsibilities.
|
| (... this doesn't even touch on the situation where that
| content violates intellectual property or contains PII.)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Not a lawyer, but is this actually the case?
|
| Generally, no, they have a license, generally a broad,
| perpetual, non-exclusive license per the conditions
| attached to use of the site. not ownership. OTOH:
|
| > I thought the core of section 230 was about exactly
| that - that a site operator does not constitute a
| "publisher" for everything that is written on their site,
| if the site is just a "dumb" software that displays
| content written by the site's users - and therefore can't
| be made liable for anything written in user-generated
| content in the way they would be for editoral content.
|
| This is wrong on multiple levels; it specifically does
| not require that it be "dumb" (neutral) software, which
| would have made them a distributor not a publisher under
| the law _without_ Section 230; it specifically is to
| allow site operators (and other users) to do things that
| _shape_ which content is presented without being subject
| to liability as a publisher.
|
| But that's about liability, not ownership.
|
| > (... this doesn't even touch on the situation where
| that content contains intellectual property or PII.)
|
| If its not IP, no one has ownership ; ownership of
| content only applies to IP of some kind.
| xg15 wrote:
| Thanks a lot for that clarification. That actually
| changed my understanding of section 230: I always thought
| that the "shaping" of content was some sort of loophole
| that the section might have more or less accidentally
| enabled - I wasn't aware that this was its main purpose.
|
| Considering that we increasingly understand how much
| power lies in that ability to "shape" distribution of
| UGC, and how much platforms actively abuse that power,
| the people wanting to reform/repeal the section just got
| a whole lot more sympathetic in my view.
|
| > _If its not IP, no one has ownership ; ownership of
| content only applies to IP of some kind._
|
| (I edited the GP before I saw the reply)
|
| My point was more who is responsible for violations of
| _other_ IP in UGC - i.e. the classic case of someone
| uploading a blockbuster movie to YouTube. Would the
| liability fall on YouTube or the individual user who
| uploaded the content.
|
| Or, in a similar vein, you post your address/phone
| number/real name/whatever to a platform, then later want
| to delete the post again, but the platform doesn't let
| you. Can you (legally) force the platform to delete the
| post or not?
|
| However, the fact that both scenarios resulted in years-
| long, (and still ongoing) debates and in the end, new
| laws had to be passed to handle them (DMCA and GDPR),
| shows to me that the whole area seems to be extremely
| messy and not completely well-defined.
|
| But yeah, the other question is also interesting: If I
| uploaded some personal project to YouTube (which would
| constitute IP I believe) and suddenly it goes viral,
| could Google steal the video and publish it as their own?
| Good to know here that they can't.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| > Considering that we increasingly understand how much
| power lies in that ability to "shape" distribution of
| UGC, and how much platforms actively abuse that power,
| the people wanting to reform/repeal the section just got
| a whole lot more sympathetic in my view.
|
| I'm curious who you're referring to as the people wanting
| to reform/repeal. Most of the discussion on section 230
| that I've seen in recent years can pretty much be
| summarized as "I allege that you're shaping content to
| reflect a particular political/cultural preference.
| Therefore you should not be shielded from responsibility
| for illegal content"--which is a total non-sequitur. But
| maybe there's also bee more thoughtful discussion that
| I've missed since I was never really paying that close
| attention to it.
|
| Really, those people weren't even looking for reform.
| They wanted to apply their interpretation of the existing
| law such that it would lead to a punitive outcome for the
| sake of retribution.
| dude187 wrote:
| Yeah, that's the point. Create a negative outcome for
| companies that perform politically biased censorship, as
| many do. It gained a ton of popularity during covid
| because so many were against the government banning
| public assembly. Yet the only remaining avenues for broad
| speech censored views that went against the CDC's demands
| happytiger wrote:
| We need a privacy bill of rights.
|
| Until then, based on how it's going, the EU will lead on
| this for the foreseeable future so let's hope they nail
| it.
|
| American intelligence agencies are complaining and
| lobbying hard about even the possibility of restriction
| in buying unlimited amounts of warrantless location
| tracking data on all their citizens at the moment as if
| it's their God given right and without a thought to the
| monstrosity that could create... so... yea.
| orangecat wrote:
| I agree that overexposure is a problem, but I can't
| support censorship of truthful information.
| [deleted]
| quantumfissure wrote:
| What's really scary about this, is that it can be edited by
| anyone before being posted online to make you either look
| like a victim or an instigator. It's then picked up by the
| media (which apparently are just influencers or Redditors
| now). People will always view that initial video as fact,
| even after the full evidence is posted. This can ruin the
| rest of your life, the damage has been done.
|
| While editing videos has always been an issue, it wasn't
| possible to gain notoriety, make money, or instigate
| racial/class/political/whatever warfare as easily as it is
| now. You just need to post an edited video and whatever side
| you want to instigate, you can.
| spuz wrote:
| I saw the same video on r/publicfreakout and I didn't see a
| single comment laughing at the guy. Most were expressing
| concern. Many were saying it shouldn't have been uploaded.
| brewdad wrote:
| Different subreddits will have different reactions. Also,
| moderation and up/down voting will swing the tone over time.
| One of you may have seen the post early and the other later
| and you could both be right in your impressions.
| Sakos wrote:
| As time goes on, I find myself avoiding posts like these on
| purpose. I just don't find them funny or entertaining and I
| find the comments to generally be quite heartless and
| judgmental. We're collectively laughing at these people like
| they're caricatures. They're people like you and me, but
| they're treated like subhumans. I saw that post of the airport
| video and briefly considered watching but, honestly, I don't
| want to participate anymore in the collective ridicule of
| somebody whose personal situation I don't know and can't judge
| fairly.
|
| There was a post the other day by a wife who briefly saw
| messages between her husband and some 16 year old. They seemed
| 'intimate'. All the comments condemned him as a vile pedophile.
| A day later, she writes that it turned out the girl was her
| husband's daughter. That he'd only recently found out about
| her.
|
| We judge as if we're any better than these people. We're not.
| blueflow wrote:
| The online shaming culture at tumblr, twitter and reddit was what
| convinced me that you need to stay pseudonymous on the internet
| at all cost.
|
| There are so many people that participate in this and haven't
| realized yet that they are being an asshole to random strangers.
| arp242 wrote:
| Online I always try to talk about people as if the person I'm
| talking about would read it. It's always easy to be harsh when
| no one's watching, but the thing is that online you never know
| if they are. This doesn't mean I don't criticize posts or
| people, I just do it _as if_ that person would read it.
|
| I started doing this after some of my weblog posts (mostly
| about programming) ended up on Reddit and HN, and I read some
| of the comments on that. Some actual quotes (mostly from
| Reddit's /r/programming): "moron", "idiot", "retard", "you must
| have an IQ lower than 65", "fucking suck at making software
| (and I guess generally anything)", "you're like the anti-vaxxer
| of front-end development", "this is hate speech" (context was
| about a technical topic they disagreed with, no politics at all
| involved).
|
| And there's more ways to be unfriendly than using "bad words"
| like "idiot", such as not actually reading the post before
| commenting (frustratingly common), being excessively pedantic,
| very aggressive but without actually using insults, etc. I
| remember one guy who for some reason really had it in for me
| and did a line-by-line "rebuttal" on several posts, picking on
| the tiniest thing, resulting in some comments that were
| _longer_ than the article article than he was responding to,
| but usually never really addressing the core point. Odd person
| _shrug_.
|
| HN has been a bit better overall, though not perfect either.
| bloopernova wrote:
| reddit is pretty bad now, I didn't realize when I was there
| regularly but after a break it's really shocking.
|
| I went there last night to read any first person accounts of
| the streamer riot yesterday in New York's Union Square.
| Instead there was a _lot_ of racism and hate.
| kedean wrote:
| It's permeating into HN too, since so many people starting
| abandoning reddit. I've noticed a distinct shift during the
| last few months, that very distinctly started in mid June.
| It's gradually becoming a less positive place, and
| "antiwoke" posts in particular are becoming commonplace
| where they used to be unheard of.
| arp242 wrote:
| It really depends on the sub. "Reddit" isn't really one big
| forum, but more like a hosting platform for lots of mostly
| independent forums. Some are moderated quite reasonably,
| some are moderated very strictly, and some barely at all.
|
| As a rough rule of thumb, the larger the sub, the worse it
| is. This holds true for communities in general in my
| experience - humanity doesn't really scale well to large
| groups.
| throw382736 wrote:
| This is why I still wear a mask outside. If I'm filmed, at
| least I'll be harder to recognize.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| one of the COVID silver linigs
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Don't try and pretend HN takes the moral high ground. This is
| something - regardless of how big of a problem you think it is
| - that permeates.
|
| Once a month there will be a link to some GitHub or issue where
| everyone will pile on about some stupid issue.
| blueflow wrote:
| Then flag it, too. HN shouldn't be the torch & pitchfork
| store.
| mettamage wrote:
| IMO, the issues are much milder on HN than I have seen
| elsewhere.
| ipnon wrote:
| Ad hominem is at least nominally against the rules here. Most
| egregious instances will get flagged and deleted. It's not
| perfect but there is some effective immune response moving
| things back in the right direction.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| 100% this.
|
| Learned in the 90s early internet about the emotional harm that
| I've seen happen to people.
|
| Slightly different topic. I think state and federal laws need
| to be passed regarding medical, police, evidence, and other
| types of private videos and photos from being leaked online.
| Too much of it magically leaks out and it's just the people
| that are trusted with the data that are posting it online.
| iambateman wrote:
| For sure. There was a show called "LivePD" that took live
| video as someone was arrested by the police.
|
| I watched for years.
|
| Now it feels so gross...if someone is having the potentially-
| worst moment of their life, society should offer them the
| decency of not putting it on live TV.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Didn't those people all sign releases?
| function_seven wrote:
| Maybe, and kinda.
|
| From a NYT opinion piece[0] a few years ago:
|
| > _But "Cops" cameras, of course, are not news cameras,
| so unlike a traditional news crew, the shows' producers
| have to obtain the written legal consent of every suspect
| whose face appears on camera. The producers of "Cops"
| claim they do. We found a different reality. Tracking
| down the people who have been filmed by "Cops" is not
| easy. But of the 11 suspects we interviewed, all but one
| said they either did not give their legal consent to
| appear on the show, were too inebriated to consent
| knowingly or were coerced into signing -- with the police
| and producers, troublingly, working together to get those
| signatures._
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/opinion/cops-
| podcast-inve...
| at_a_remove wrote:
| In the late 1980s, I got online. I refused to use my real name
| anywhere. I said, "Someone could run this Usenet group off to
| tape, restore it some time later, index it, and somehow make
| that available." I was derided as a paranoid fool. And yet here
| we are. One of my "handles" is still visible in a help file
| from 1993.
| ipqk wrote:
| I was asked to provide a quote for a silly fluff lifestyle
| piece my friend was writing for the college's newspaper. 20
| years later, that piece is number 5 when searching my fairly
| unique name (I've done as much as possible to scrub myself
| from the public internet).
| scruple wrote:
| I wonder if there's a service that could be created here,
| using AI to create sterile/whitewashed ghost accounts, and
| flood them all over social media, etc., for people so that
| the real, human identity is pushed down on the search
| results.
|
| For sure against TOS, but I'm not sure that I personally
| care.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| It's a common PR SEO service, no AI.
| junon wrote:
| While I agree, humans are immoral, and will always be immoral.
| We're inherently flawed and self-serving (speaking collectively,
| not individually as a rule).
|
| This is why cryptocurrency is at its core a very good idea (I
| personally found the Satoshi whitepaper very beautiful), yet in
| practice is completely and utterly abused and useless to society
| - it failed to take into account that humans will do anything and
| everything to abuse a system for a dopamine hit or for status,
| etc.
|
| As soon as technology catches up to this reality, we'll start to
| see change there. I don't think regulators will ever catch on to
| this, honestly. I think we need to stop thinking they will.
|
| I don't know the solutions here, but this is my pessimistic take.
| It makes the problems harder (but IMO not unsolvable).
| [deleted]
| donatj wrote:
| > In reality we already practice social media consent; it is not
| unusual to ask a friend if they're alright with having a picture
| posted
|
| Is this common practice? The author keeps insisting it is. I
| don't think it is, I think the author is just a member of a
| particularly inclined friend group. It would be a nice
| consideration but I can honestly say I have never asked nor been
| asked.
|
| I've certainly asked after the fact to have particularly
| unflattering pictures I've been tagged in taken down and friends
| have always apologetically complied.
|
| I don't generally post many pictures of people outside my direct
| family, and can only think of one occasion where my sister had me
| take a photo down.
| karaterobot wrote:
| The week Facebook released a feature that allowed people to be
| tagged in photos by other people is when I deleted my account.
| 2008 or so? The writing was on the wall by that point: in these
| platforms, your identity is as much controlled by other people as
| by yourself. Not good, very bad, get me out of here.
| 26fingies wrote:
| Off topic but reading articles on mobile is a goddamn nightmare
| these days. Reader mode is the only thing saving it.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But what about the legality?
|
| You don't need people to sign a release form if you're a
| photojournalist or anything considered to be an editorial source.
|
| But as professional filmmakers know, you absolutely do need a
| release form if you're producing anything commercial (for sale).
| Or if you're pushing the boundaries of this like they do when
| filming Law & Order, to at least put up prominent signs so
| Manhattan pedestrians know they might wind up on the show if they
| walk down a particular patch of sidewalk that day.
|
| Isn't there a strong argument to be made that posting on social
| media without consent is therefore illegal? Because while you're
| not explicitly _selling_ the video, you and /or the site is
| _monetizing_ it via ads, which these days is the same thing.
|
| Has this been tested in court?
| dml2135 wrote:
| AFAIK, there is no requirement to gather release forms from
| someone you happen to film in public. It is simply something
| done to reduce exposure to possible civil liability on
| commercial shoots.
|
| Avoiding lawsuits is the point of those forms, not winning
| them.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > there is no requirement to gather release forms from
| someone you happen to film in public.
|
| It probably depends on where you are. France and Germany for
| instance have stricter rules on the subject of photographing
| people in public places.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _there is no requirement to gather release forms from
| someone you happen to film in public_
|
| Right, the _filming_ is fine -- it 's the _commercial
| distribution_ that 's the problem. And I'm assuming those
| civil suits have existing and succeeded in the past?
|
| So my question is still whether social media ought to be
| considered commercial distribution, since it's generally ad-
| supported. I mean, broadcast TV is entirely ad-supported too.
|
| E.g. posting on Mastodon is fine because there are no ads,
| but posting on Facebook/YouTube is not, because they're
| monetized with ads.
| prepend wrote:
| So I guess we can start seeing lots of lawsuits against
| people who didn't take these steps to avoid this risk.
|
| I wonder if class action suits against YouTube, TikTok will
| make it. And against specific big streamers.
|
| I think it's reasonable to ask for at least all revenue from
| a video, if not treble damages as these video producers
| aren't even attempting to get consent before commercializing.
|
| I don't care too much, but anything that puts a damper on
| social media is good in my book. Kind of like I thought the
| reason Facebook got a bad rap in 2016 was dumb but was still
| happy because it harmed Facebook.
| rychco wrote:
| I personally DO think it should be illegal for another human's
| identifying features to be present in a digital photo without
| their consent, especially if it is shared online & doubly so if
| any money is made on it (including advertising)
| prepend wrote:
| > Still, a blanket law against posting strangers without their
| consent would be draconian and unworkable. There are too many
| variables, too many circumstances, and simply too many cases.
|
| There's lots of revenge porn laws now and they seem to be
| helping to reduce the number of sites willing to post. And
| revenge porn is usually sent consensually but the victim
| doesn't consent to the type of sharing. Obviously the harm is
| greater, I think, but there is a precedent for how a law could
| be structured.
|
| It would also be quite easy to set up a "$100 statutory damages
| if you're in someone's video without consent" and watch the AI
| firms make a zillion dollars on recouping damages.
| [deleted]
| throwingtoofar wrote:
| I stay away from the kind of content the article refers to
| however I think there are cases where it's important to highlight
| the behaviour of those who would prefer you didn't such as
| recording the bad behaviour of public workers.
|
| Popular 1st Amendment auditor Long Island Audit has highlighted
| much of this and shown how many police officers lack knowledge of
| laws they are supposed to be upholding.
|
| Here's a video that went viral[0] and a recent follow up[1] where
| things went kind of differently i'm assuming because of the
| exposure in the first.
|
| [0] https://yewtu.be/watch?v=AsxNf54ep1Q
|
| [1] https://yewtu.be/watch?v=CZtgVrYC4f0
| mcntsh wrote:
| Living in Germany I always appreciated their privacy laws related
| to being filmed/photographed in public. The US should do
| something similar.
| ipqk wrote:
| This would be about 90% of Reddit's front page.
|
| Just look at /r/tinder: people just casually posting screenshots
| of ostensibly private conversations with the person's face &
| first name visible. It's frankly ridiculous.
| roenxi wrote:
| The "everyone:1" ratio of internet criticism also has had an
| interesting effect on politics. Given the sheer amount of vitriol
| directed at politicians no sane person would run for election. A
| plausible base-case scenario is a group of socially disabled
| internet dwellers dedicate their life to hounding you for
| imagined wrongs. Let alone the pressure of making any decision in
| a situation where large groups of people are in conflict. As a
| result I think we'll see detectable pressure for _only_ risk
| taking narcissists to run for public office. Even beyond what is
| usual for politics.
|
| I don't think we have a choice about allowing roving internet
| mobs - the cost of forcibly breaking groups up would be too high.
| But as always, the more protections we have to slow action down
| in the real world the better. Mobs make decisions that are
| foolish, fast and often final.
| tiffanyg wrote:
| Yes, this trend has been becoming more observable -
| particularly in the past ~10 years IMO. Of course, as another
| commenter points out, it has been increasingly adopted by some
| politicians themselves.
|
| At some point, all of the "megaphones" we handed every single
| person with access to the internet, started to be more and more
| co-opted by actors whose primary use is propaganda, trolling,
| etc. And, particularly, in the sense of what has been termed
| "coordinated inauthentic activity" and the like. So, whereas,
| 15+ years ago you could look at comments on YouTube, say, and
| see a mix of discussion and some 'low quality' comments of
| various types (like trolling, random nonsense and non
| sequiturs, etc.), more recently, there are specific efforts to
| hijack comment threads, "stir the pot", etc.
|
| A lot of the "bad actor networks" hinge, as usual when it comes
| to humans / statistics / networks, on a small set of "high
| volume central nodes". Although, apparently, that has been
| evolving as well, presumably as a sort of war continues to play
| out between companies hosting various platforms, and people,
| groups, countries, etc. who wish to exploit their availability.
| [1]
|
| There are two potential mitigations I see forming more and
| more. One appears to be proven in a practical setting, already,
| though it has negatives that have also been fairly
| substantially discussed. The other involves a tool gaining more
| and more ground only even more recently:
|
| 1) Turn off / remove general (and especially unmoderated)
| "comment" features*
|
| 2) Use increasingly sophisticated ML and other models to handle
| various types of activity and language that are being deployed
| for corrupt purposes.
|
| The problem with "1" that is most frequently cited is that this
| can push "networks of bad actors" more into the shadows - where
| it's harder to know what they are up to etc. However, this is
| obviously a trade-off against their reach in general etc. In
| the shorter-term (and, I personally think, likely even in
| medium- to longer-term), this clearly "works". It substantially
| reduces harms to individuals, various social groups, societies
| as a whole (arguably), etc.
|
| The second option is of less clear value, so far. Automated
| moderation has been around for 30+ years - that's about the
| time I have personal experience with. It's only in the past 7 -
| 10 years that more sophisticated statistical models etc. seem
| to be being deployed (AFAIK). And, we are now in a period of
| really rather more significant change with ML capabilities and
| the like. I'm inclined to think we're still not at the level
| required to make this "easy" / "silver bullet". But, I also
| think there are likely significant improvements being
| implemented and seen in practice, currently. Of a type that is
| relatively "transparent" to most users ... so, not being
| involved in any such efforts, not having spent time looking
| into these efforts more closely, I'm entirely speculating here.
|
| In any case, much as "publishing" went through periods of less
| and more "regulation"**, we've had a reasonable period of very
| low "regulation" of the internet. Regulation need not, of
| course, mean government regulation. But, it seems increasingly
| likely that regulation in some form or other will increasingly
| need to be imposed on the internet (at least the "mass / easily
| accessible" parts) to diminish the influence of bad actors and
| keep the internet valuable for everyone (else).
|
| * Obviously, this depends on nature of platform - for many
| platforms, these features are far from core. Something like
| Twitter/X is, of course, pretty much "pure comments" ... so,
| irrelevant there, regardless of who is running it.
|
| ** There were periods where pamphleteers in America (where I'm
| more familiar with the history) were running wild in political
| and other discourse, and then this was brought under more of a
| semblance of and practical "moderation"
|
| [1] E.g., https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3522756 (just one
| of a slew of relatively recent papers, more and more being
| published each year, of course)
| jancsika wrote:
| > As a result I think we'll see detectable pressure for only
| risk taking narcissists to run for public office. Even beyond
| what is usual for politics.
|
| I love the word "detectable" thrown in here for good
| scientistic measure.
|
| What exactly do you claim you'll be measuring here?
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Journalists can make a controversy out of anything, and find a
| clique of accounts with any given opinion on anything, and
| therefore portray Public Opinion in any way that the editorial
| board directs. The accounts don't need blue checks, they don't
| need to be notable, they don't need to be human, to find the
| next Antoine Dodson ranting with a memorable sound bite.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| 10% of US presidents were assassinated and 20% of them had
| assassination attempts. Congressmen have been assassinated,
| judges, state politicians, mayors. If you go into politics,
| getting made fun of on the internet is the least of your
| worries, you're going to need a thick skin. If someone is
| making fun of you on Twitter, at least you've got name
| recognition.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| With the internet, citizens can anonymously criticize a
| politician, publish compromising information on the politician,
| ridicule the politician, and even call them insulting names!
|
| With political power, the politician can restrict the freedom
| of the citizen, confiscate the property of the citizen, order
| the citizen to the front lines, declare the citizen a non-
| human, torture the citizen, execute the citizen, and
| exterminate the citizen's family. This has happened in every
| country on earth, including yours. It happens right now that
| you're reading this.
|
| So the balance of power is far from being thrown by online free
| speech.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > A plausible base-case scenario is a group of socially
| disabled internet dwellers dedicate their life to hounding you
| for imagined wrongs.
|
| The intersection between the set of chronically online people
| who see this content and the set of people who actually vote is
| much smaller than you might think. Voter turnout is
| consistently very low among young people, despite how actively
| interested they may appear on sites like Reddit.
|
| Most of this content also turns into preaching to the choir.
| They congregate in online communities where people already
| decided who they were going to vote for, so the online anger
| has little to no effect on the people who might actually vote
| for the candidate.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| This works both ways. Weaponising the non-voting chronically
| online naysayers to rile up your own base who _will_ vote.
| Mezzie wrote:
| > The intersection between the set of chronically online
| people who see this content and the set of people who
| actually vote is much smaller than you might think. Voter
| turnout is consistently very low among young people, despite
| how actively interested they may appear on sites like Reddit.
|
| Not all chronically online people are in the young voter
| bucket. There are Boomers with terminal Facebook brain and a
| lot of Redditors have accounts that are almost old enough to
| vote in America.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Interestingly, the most successful politicians in recent years
| have adopted the techniques of old-school internet trolls.
|
| It goes like this: 1. Do or say something
| that's a bit edgy and controversial. 2. Pull out a lawn
| chair as the opposition attempts to stir up a shit storm.
| 3. Under no circumstances engage with the criticism directed at
| you, just be somewhere else when anything is coming your way.
| Never defend or explain anything you've said or done.
| 4. When the shitstorm is fading, GOTO 1 to ensure all focus
| remains on you, depriving the opposition of any opportunity to
| talk about what they want to do. 5. Win the election
| because your opposition looks completely unhinged and you look
| unfairly persecuted.
|
| It's basically like watching Muhammad Ali in a boxing match.
| Always has the initiative somehow even when he's ducking
| punches left and right.
|
| If you think this describes anyone in particular, you're
| probably right; but the point is this playbook has been used
| basically all over the world with an insane degree of success.
| neilv wrote:
| I think two-term US President George W. Bush provided one
| pre-Twitter but modern example of how this effect could work,
| maybe not intentionally.
|
| Here's a bit from a 2004 NYT piece that stuck with me:
|
| > _That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a
| longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own
| consulting firm and helps the president. He started by
| challenging me. "You think he's an idiot, don't you?" I said,
| no, I didn't. "No, you do, all of you do, up and down the
| West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern
| Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't
| care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big,
| wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read
| The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And
| you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the
| way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith
| in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his
| jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those
| folks don't like? They don't like you!" In this instance, the
| final "you," of course, meant the entire reality-based
| community._
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-
| certainty-...
|
| I'd guess this might've been a political effect/tactic that's
| been known or rediscovered for thousands of years.
| spydum wrote:
| completely agree with this. it's difficult, but the right
| answer is to ignore all media contexts and criticisms of
| political candidates AND their actions, and entirely focus on
| the ground truth of "what" they have achieved in the past,
| and not the "why". That seems risky, as motives matter, but
| there simply isn't a way to get an unvarnished assessment of
| a persons motives from the media (mass or otherwise). even
| still, there is a risk the only thing you learn they achieved
| is filtered via the spin factory, or what their achievements
| were by grift or illegal means, but what's the alternative?
| macintux wrote:
| Many of the most explicitly trollish politicians make their
| motives explicit and easy to recognize. I don't think
| ignoring "why" is a good strategy; I'd rather vote for
| less-effective people who aren't successfully tearing down
| civil society.
| mid-kid wrote:
| Finally someone spells it out. Ever since the first twitter
| US president I've noticed a great uptick in politicians and
| other public figures doing deplorable things for the sake of
| attention. They'd be publically called out and ridiculed for
| months on end, and meanwhile you wouldn't hear anything about
| other people at all.
|
| There's nothing I can describe this as other than "trolling",
| yet people always look at me confused when I mention that.
| Trolling is just being mean to people online, right? Surely
| there coudln't be an ulterior motive to it, right?
|
| I guess we never learned to stop feeding the trolls.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's old. "There's no such thing as bad publicity".
|
| The objective is to use these non-voting high replication
| nodes to reach your voting public.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| > use these non-voting high replication nodes to reach
| your voting public
|
| Nice, this really distilled the strategy down to
| something tangible for me, thanks.
| [deleted]
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| _...I think we 'll see detectable pressure for only risk taking
| narcissists to run for public office. Even beyond what is usual
| for politics..._
|
| I know you added the "even beyond what is usual" part, but I
| think it's been clear since way before the US existed that
| decent people dont pursue power.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I reject the notion that no decent person seeks to lead.
|
| I agree it is hard to stay in power without getting your
| hands dirty, but many good people have been leaders. And to
| normalize the idea otherwise would be a bit of a self
| fulfilling prophecy.
| ip26 wrote:
| That doesn't capture the whole picture. Great leaders may not
| have been decent people, but it's also clear that being a
| decent person isn't what makes for a good leader.
|
| The concern would be something like, only a strong narcissist
| would risk extreme public scrutiny, but while great leaders
| might exhibit narcissism, they have other more dominant
| traits. Is any overwhelming narcissist capable of gathering
| advice and delegating effectively?
| anon84873628 wrote:
| It seems like existing laws could already cover some of these
| scenarios if judged correctly.
|
| E.g. if a TikTok'er uploads a video lying about you, isn't that
| slander? The size of their audience and known effect of internet
| mobs makes it very clear to a reasonable observer that harm to
| the victim is expected/intended.
|
| And gaslighting children or abusing the elderly is already
| illegal, right?
| constantcrying wrote:
| >TikTok'er uploads a video lying about you
|
| This is quite rare and any lawsuit is hard and likely not worth
| it.
|
| >And gaslighting children or abusing the elderly is already
| illegal, right?
|
| Depends. And then again, what are you going to do about it?
| madeofpalk wrote:
| "Lying" is not really all that illegal in the United States
| because of that pesky first amendment that people love to apply
| (and ignore) when it suits them.
| brightball wrote:
| This is actually what I've been waiting for for years. Should
| only take a couple of successful ones to stop it.
| gochi wrote:
| No, most countries don't have very aggressive libel laws.
|
| EFF has a post about online defamation laws and one of the
| examples they go into is Vogel v Felice where the claim was
| about videos that used titles like "Top 10 Dumbasses" among
| other things. They got away with it because they couldn't prove
| actual malice and because despite nobody being want to be
| publicly known as a "dumbass" it's not a statement that can be
| proven true or untrue.
|
| They also go into how private and public figures are viewed
| differently. It's all very interesting and worth reading. Also
| I had no idea insurance was now covering online libel claims
| for small businesses/bloggers.
| https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/defamati...
| mvncleaninst wrote:
| > Still, a blanket law against posting strangers without their
| consent would be draconian and unworkable. There are too many
| variables, too many circumstances, and simply too many cases.
|
| I disagree. If someone (who is a non public figure) is the
| subject of a photo/video and has their likeness used without
| consent by a third party, the third party should be liable. There
| should be legal recourse for the victim to sue and force the
| third party to take it down (plus compensate for legal fees)
|
| Courts already deal with situations where there are "too many
| variables", the law isn't black and white for everything. The way
| that the author just brushes any legal solution aside seems like
| a cop-out
| yosito wrote:
| There is no reasonable expectation of privacy when in public.
| While it's certainly polite not to take photos of strangers and
| post them without asking if it's ok, you shouldn't morally or
| legally need permission. They're in public. Their actions can be
| seen by anyone else in public who crosses paths with them,
| whether online or off. There are cameras everywhere, and a random
| person with their smartphone should not be held to a higher
| standard than a surveillance company or security camera. I
| recently had someone give me a hard time because I had posted a
| selfie where someone else was in the background smoking a
| cigarette. The person was recognizable but far from being the
| focus of the photo. It was a complete coincidence that they were
| in the background, but a friend of theirs recognized them was
| angry that I had posted a photo of them without consent doing
| something that they didn't want shared on social media. Well, I'm
| sorry, but if you don't want people to see you doing something,
| don't do it in public. I chose to immediately remove the photo
| out of politeness and to avoid drama, but in my opinion, people
| have no right to be upset if a photo of them doing something in
| public goes viral.
| hattmall wrote:
| I think it's actually pretty reasonable to have an expectation
| of relative privacy even while in public. As in I'm obviously
| expecting to be seen by the people in my immediate vicinity but
| not by people who aren't nearby. For the entirety of human
| existence until it very slowly started changing with cameras,
| but that rate of change has accelerated exponentially in the
| last ~15 years with ubiquitous camera phones and social media.
| yosito wrote:
| > As in I'm obviously expecting to be seen by the people in
| my immediate vicinity but not by people who aren't nearby.
|
| If you're in a forest, maybe that's reasonable. But it would
| really be interesting to see some statistics about how many
| security cameras the average person is recorded on in a day,
| with the images broadcasted to servers around the world. I'd
| wager a guess that in modern cosmopolitan cities, it's
| probably upwards of 100 cameras a day. Meanwhile we're
| completely unaware of this fact and get upset when a stranger
| points a smartphone at us.
| ck425 wrote:
| The important difference though is that most security
| camera's aren't publicly posting the footage. I'd expect
| most people to be upset if a shop started live streaming
| everyone that went by the street.
| redfern314 wrote:
| That would just be a webcam, and there are tons of them
| out there that don't (to my knowledge) get any blowback.
|
| Example I saw in person a couple years ago (Estes Park,
| CO): https://originaltaffyshop.com/taffy-cam.php
|
| They had a sign out front saying something like "tell
| your mom to visit this website so you can wave to her".
| Nobody seemed to mind. Maybe the difference here is that
| it is clearly marked?
| rcme wrote:
| I think you're confusing legal duty with moral duty. I have no
| reasonable expectation conversational counterparts aren't lying
| through their teeth, but I have the moral expectation that
| they're telling the truth. Similarly, you have no expectation
| of privacy when browsing the internet, but I think you would
| still feel an invasion of your privacy should I post your
| browsing history, along with your real name, publicly.
|
| Ultimately, moral codes are about creating a functioning
| society. Having people feel comfortable in public is an
| important aspect of that.
| yosito wrote:
| > you have no expectation of privacy when browsing the
| internet
|
| Uh, yes I do. And a very reasonable one!
| rcme wrote:
| Why? When you're browsing the internet, you're connecting
| to servers owned by others and agreeing to their terms of
| service. You're also using a service provider to provide
| your internet service, which is, again, privately owned.
| From where to you derive your expectation of privacy?
| yosito wrote:
| And when I'm showering in my apartment, I'm on privately
| owned property agreeing to my rental contract. That
| doesn't give my landlord a moral right to place a camera
| in the shower and post the photos online. Privacy in
| private is a right.
| rcme wrote:
| I hate to break it to you, but a sever in Google's data
| center is not a private place. And if you shower in a
| public shower? For instance at the gym or pool?
|
| I believe you're beginning to see that you have certain
| expectations of privacy in public too.
| yosito wrote:
| There's a reason I don't use Google products and block
| Google IP addresses.
|
| And I still expect that videos of me showering and the
| gym would not be posted online. It's not about who owns
| the property, it's about whether I'm in a place where I
| can be seen by the public.
| rcme wrote:
| Anyone is free to sign up to the gym and go to the
| showers. And it's not about Google specifically. Any
| server is located out in what is essentially public. When
| you connect over the internet, you're essentially leaving
| your house to go to that server.
|
| Let's say you used radio waves to operate a robot on a
| public street. Would it be invasive for those nearby to
| look at the robot? According to you, yes it would be
| because you're controlling the robot from the privacy of
| your home. Or if you control the robot into someone's
| yard. Wouldn't they have a right to look at it? I'm not
| sure how you physically sitting at home changes things.
| yosito wrote:
| Your arguments aren't really rational.
| rcme wrote:
| Ok... I'm just taking your arguments (that you have no
| expectation of privacy in public) and showing you all the
| ways that you, personally, have an expectation of privacy
| in public.
|
| You have an expectation in a public shower. You have an
| expectation of privacy when your bits are in public. Why
| not in other situations?
| yosito wrote:
| You're switching the definition of public from publicly
| observable to publicly owned. Those are not the same
| thing.
| rcme wrote:
| It's actually you who are making the distinction. The
| article doesn't mention whether or not the filmed people
| were "in public" or whether they were only "publicly
| observable" (whatever that means). One of the videos I
| know for a fact occurred in a shopping mall, which is
| private property that is open to the public. I assume
| this means "publicly observable" in your definition.
|
| But in either case, in regards to your original comment,
| how did you determine these people were "in public"
| instead of "publicly observable"?
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is illegal to record anyone without their consent in
| places where there is an expectation of privacy.
|
| A shower may fall under that provided you have not been
| given notice that recording will take place. But people
| can takes photos of you at the gym working out and post
| thek online for others to laugh at.
|
| If your apartment manager tells you they are filming or a
| sign is visible at the gym they can film you.
|
| Connecting to the internet and requesting a resource
| means you are in public.
| nullindividual wrote:
| You're coming at it from a legal perspective where the
| platforms do not have their own rules on what is allowed or not
| allowed.
|
| In the example I gave in this thread, yes the man was in
| public, nude, however the platform (reddit) has a rule against
| posting this type of content. That reddit itself doesn't
| follow.
|
| > I recently had someone give me a hard time because I had
| posted a selfie where someone else was in the background
| smoking a cigarette.
|
| Why didn't you blur/crop/etc. them out, instead?
|
| While you're not legally nor technically in the wrong and
| you're welcome to argue until you're blue in the face of
| 'public!', (the royal) you can ask those who are in the picture
| if you can post it, being a kind, thoughtful, and respectful
| human being, or you can go "it's in public! the law says I
| can!". And then the rest of us can make comments about morality
| and respect.
|
| And if you don't know the people in the picture, ask yourself,
| do I _really_ need to post this? (hint: no)
| yosito wrote:
| > Why didn't you blur/crop/etc. them out, instead?
|
| Because they weren't the focus of the photo and I really
| didn't even notice them there. And I don't believe that it
| matters one bit if someone is caught doing something
| embarrassing in public on camera. They could have been the
| focus of the photo and I still think it would have been
| morally acceptable to post it. Whether it is acceptable
| according to the rules of the platform it's posted on, or
| according to social etiquette, is a completely different
| question.
| nullindividual wrote:
| > They could have been the focus of the photo and I still
| think it would have been morally acceptable to post it.
|
| No. No it wouldn't have been.
|
| You have absolutely zero need to post any picture online.
| It is a choice; a choice to further humliate the
| individual, possibly even causing them greater distress.
|
| People who post pictures with justification like yours have
| caused those who are the target of the cruelty to commit
| suicide.
|
| You do not need to post anything on social media. You
| choose to do so. And by choosing to post an embarrassing
| moment, you are the problem and you are morally in the
| wrong.
| brewdad wrote:
| If you are so against posting on social platforms, why
| are you posting here? You don't need to post anything.
| yosito wrote:
| > No it wouldn't have been.
|
| What if I catch an off duty cop on camera assaulting a
| person of color? Is it immoral to post that online? Where
| do you draw the line about which public acts should be
| moral to show in public?
| nullindividual wrote:
| You've moved the goal posts from embarrassing behavior
| (smoking) to an illegal act.
|
| Try again.
| yosito wrote:
| The goal post was "doing something that they didn't want
| shared on social media". I didn't move anything.
| nullindividual wrote:
| Where in Western society do we consider an embarrassing
| act the same as an illegal act that may also be
| embarrassing?
|
| My reaction to someone smoking is going to be "gross". My
| reaction to someone getting a DUI is going far, far
| beyond that, despite how embarrassing it is for the
| individual who received the DUI.
| plagiarist wrote:
| "And if you personally cannot draw a perfectly sharp line
| assigning every event to one of two groups, then no line
| exists and everything must be in one or the other!"
| rolph wrote:
| >> There is no reasonable expectation of privacy when in public
| <<
|
| this is the most incorrect statement i have seen today. you
| should experience what happens if you walk up to a woman with a
| purse and start rummaging through it. clothes would be
| unreasonable as well, you should look under peoples garments
| and tell them about how unreasonable they are being .
| yosito wrote:
| Rummaging though someone's personal belongings is not the
| same as observing and reporting what they do in public. I am
| not making that argument, and you are being disingenuous to
| imply that I am.
| rolph wrote:
| well i am making that argument and im not implying any
| thing.
|
| >> observing and reporting what they do in public.<< try
| this for real, you wont like what the observed response is.
| yosito wrote:
| What do you think journalists and reporters do? Is their
| work immoral?
| rolph wrote:
| why do you think journalists, and reporters are so safety
| conscious ? why do they use pseudonyms?
| yosito wrote:
| Is the answer you're expecting that journalists are doing
| something that is immoral? Because that's not it.
| rolph wrote:
| the answer im expecting [TIC] is your answer., regarding
| : why do you think journalists, and reporters are so
| safety conscious ? why do they use pseudonyms?
|
| im actually expecting you to duck the question, with non-
| interrogative questions
| [deleted]
| ipaddr wrote:
| If you did that you could be charged with any number of
| charges, let's go with trespassing for starters, we can move
| to assault later.
|
| If the purse was open and you looked no problem.
|
| If someone frontdoor is open you can look in from a public
| spot but cannot walk-in.
| rolph wrote:
| yes thats probably right in most jurisdictions.
|
| you are illustrating culturally, and legally accepted
| signals regarding expectation, or lack thereof, of privacy
| while in public purview.
|
| THNX for your support BTW
| foogazi wrote:
| > They're in public. Their actions can be seen by anyone else
| in public who crosses paths with them
|
| Yes, in public in that same instant - were public is
| constrained to be the people present there
|
| Once it's recorded it can be copied and transmitted to far off
| places and preserved in time
| jwie wrote:
| There's a gulf between the lack of expectation of privacy and
| that information pushed into a social media platform.
|
| Sure, I don't have an expectation of privacy. But I do have an
| expectation of not being made into content for anyone to
| consume.
| yosito wrote:
| I don't think that's a realistic expectation, and hasn't been
| since at least the middle of the last century. Public acts
| have been in the media for a long long time.
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