Taking videos of strangers

[Deaaae]

I’m very late to social media! As you can probably tell from my AIBU, I’m really curious what others think will happen in the future as to me it’s very unacceptable that people take videos of random strangers and post online. I’ve just seen a huge debate on social media (I’m not posting as don’t want more traffic drawn to it) and it’s leaning towards people saying well the guys in public space so the OP has a right to post but others like me (minority) are saying it’s an invasion of his space and what if the genders were reversed. So basically this middle aged man who looks very well-groomed in a suit is on his phone playing a game and the poster is filming him for around 1-2 minutes and she wrote a caption saying “wow! His hands are so neat and tidy, what job do you all think he does “. The issue I have is he’s minding his own business but this girl has a full video showing his whole face.

I don’t believe in the future this kind of thing will be acceptable as it is now to take videos of random people. What do others think? Will laws come about or will things get worse? I have social anxiety and seeing these videos make me so uncomfortable as anyone can just take a video of me or my family and post online! Not that I do anything remotely exciting or incriminating but that’s not the point. I just feel really sad for these people. There another one my colleague mentioned today where the poster takes videos of people eating alone and everyone comments on how sad they are! Apparently there’s sad music playing in the background of these videos and they get thousands of comments. BTW: I eat alone often when I need peace from my kids and DH.

Or play them at their own game. Film people
who are filming you and upload that onto social media and highlight that they are filming you despite you asking them to stop. Make them the content.

That's callous as fuck,I'm sorry you experienced that.

We are not on about crimes on this thread though.

Exactly if you're not actively helping in some capacity get the fuck out the way and let the pros get on with their job.

I agree, OP. It should be illegal, but how it could be policed is very difficult. I was recently posted on social media sitting watching the sea with my DDog whilst my (now late) father was ill. It was a nice photo, just the back of us, (and I have an outstandingly huge and beautiful DDog), but it did feel a bit invasive. Also, my DDog is locally recognised so it didn’t take long in the comments, before we were identified. I often think how I’d hate to be a celebrity, dealing with this type of thing day in, day out. It’s just weird.

It’s a rotten thing to do but I’m not sure it should be illegal.

I've talked about this before on here

I tried to start a campaign for a privacy law about 15 years ago, maybe. It was specifically to address this kind of thing. This has been going on for absolutely ages.

Nobody I knew thought it was a good idea. Literally did not find one person to support it.

It's a difficult area, being able to photograph and film in public is an important democratic freedom, as it's about being able to record events.

But the invasion of privacy and online bullying is causing real harm.

I think the laws need review, but I don't think it's an easy problem to solve.

It’s awful, I agree.

In a public place you can legally photograph or film anyone and SM just want people putting stuff up so they're not going to care what it is unless they're forced to legally.

I think a law banning the posting of pictures/videos of people in distress on SM would be sensible. I guess even then though a bride crying at her wedding or a just born baby crying etc could get caught up in algorithms to pick that sort of thing up.

I think the easiest and best thing anyone can do tbh is to just stay off any SM that has that sort of thing on it.

If social media always identified the original person who uploaded the photo/videos and the person uploading had to be verified with ID then I think people could start suing whoever uploaded it or sue the social media company itself for allowing it. Money talks (these days especially), and if people started losing money from doing it, they would stop.

It doesn’t help that people actively support bullies and laughing at people online. I remember the days when if people wrote something nasty online people would jump on the nasty person, now it seems to be the other way around - nasty qualities are celebrated and supported and there are big pile-ons.

I think one of the biggest problems in society is social media, it has been used to create a very antisocial society full of hate.

Can you please re start that campaign?

I don't support restriction of filming in public spaces

I'm in the US. People are being grabbed on the street by masked gunmen with no identifiers and thrown into vans and taken away. A woman just got shot by a masked gunman. We need to be able to see the truth of what is happening on a wide scale.

Those need to be documented. The police already try to say we can't film them and that's not do.

Also restricting filming in public areas would make security cameras and measures like doorbell cams illegal as they're filming public spaces.

No. Public space is not private space.

The people who seek out and watch this stuff are just as bad as those who post it, IMO. there was a thread here a few weeks ago, a celebrity (can’t recall who) had been involved in a car crash in which two others had died, the celebrity had survived. A poster started a thread about it, with some tenuous connection as she had apparently spoken to one of the dead men on a few occasions, but she talked about the footage she’d seen of the aftermath, including graphic footage of the deceased, she was complaining about why this had been recorded and posted, but in one of her posts admitted she’d clicked it in the first place to see the celebrity being removed from the car… WHY would anyone click in to watch that?? Have people no concept of allowing others privacy and dignity? And not to mention the utter hypocrisy of complaining about the graphic footage being posted when she was deliberately intruding on the celebrity at a time of distress.