Secretly filmed videos of drunk northern women

[Northernnnnnn]

I haven't posted before, so apologies if this is the wrong place.

I keep seeing videos on my Facebook and Instagram from a few different accounts, of people secretly filming very drunk, mostly dressed with very few clothes, women on nights out in northern cities.
I had a further look and there seems to be quite a few accounts of I'm assuming men (I can't imagine any woman I know doing this but then I could be wrong!) just dedicated to this secret filming of women who seem to be walking home very drunk. There is even one video where the cameraman is literally filming a very drunk woman walking being followed by a very drunk man. Why wouldn't you step in and help??

I have so many problems with these videos I don't even know where to begin, but they have brought up a lot of bad memories and feelings for me, and I hoped the feminism board might be a good place to have a discussion around this.

Firstly, there is the issue of secretly filming women who are not in a fit state to know what is going on. There is a lot of skin on show- obviously it's the woman's choice what she wears, and I often went out as a teenager of wearing similar- but I can't imagine any of them would want videos of themselves in this state, with so much skin on show being broadcast to the whole world.

Then there's the issue that, from experience, a lot of these women are going to be under 18, and many under 16- I made loads of stupid decisions as a teenager, and was raped as a young teenager while walking home from a night out dressed similar to these women- obviously what I was wearing wasn't the issue, but the whole culture of this getting so drunk you don't even know what's going on, and the fact that someone might have filmed me. This is not very well articulated but it just really upsets me.

Then there is the stereotype of northern women. There seems to be this idea that northern women are 'scummy' and 'chavvy' (words taken from video comments). There is the dressing in this way, in the middle of winter, when all the men are dressed comfortably - I don't know.ow what my friends and I were thinking going out dressed up to look so much older trying to impress men who hadn't even brushed their hair. The group of girls I was friends with at this age all had similar life stories to myself, leaving home at 15, getting raped/sexually assulated, often at work. I know that some of the old friendship group are still going out, doing drugs, drinking now we are nearly 40, which again is their choice and fine, and I have no judgement, but I've just been really shaken by these videos, and I'm struggling to put my feelings on this into words.

Thank you if you managed to get through that!

I haven't seen them but it sounds very distasteful.
It seems people whip out their phones and film everything these days. I'm sure in this case there is a sexual element to it as well, but it reminds of the "bumfights" videos from several years ago - people filming and uploading homeless (usually drunk) people fighting.
All very poor taste.

I'm really sorry that you have been treated so appallingly by men OP 😞You didn't deserve to be treated that way. I can totally understand why these videos have triggered you. They sound horrific and illegal?

I forgot what the incels have called this particular 'movement' or trend, but I've seen this has been started to gain pace over on Reddit and it is very worrying :(

Starting*

I’m sorry you find these videos disturbing, OP, but there’s really nothing new about young women going out on the town in Northern & Midlands cities wearing next to nothing. And anyone who is out & about in a public place can legally be filmed. That’s not new, either.

Its similar to the videos of homeless drug addicts in American cities. That is normally done with a fake veneer of concern (either what an awful area or how sad for those people) but it is incredibly voyeuristic and exploitative. It also features barely dressed (and completely out of it) women - especially in the thumbnails. I suspect partly because images of barely dressed women are the most likely to generate clicks. Bleurgh.
Likewise I bet they get more clicks from footage of inebriated women than inebriated men. Both because of the voyeuristic element and because certain people enjoy disapproving of/laughing at women (actually the voyeurism usually goes with that).
It might be legal to film people, but it is not healthy for society to think shit like this is normal.

I thought about starting a similar thread myself as I have so much misogynistic content via Facebook reels recently.

Rather than scroll past I reported some of it...which then fed into the algorithms and showed me more as I had interacted with it! Hiding it seems to be the best way to see less.

Some of it was 'Karen' videos, which I find vile - none were taken down when I reported.

Also some disturbing clips of violent scenes from movies depicting violence against women - some anti Semitic - like an excerpt from Schindler's List when a woman is shot in the head. These were also not taken down when reported, presumably as the violence was acted...but taken out of the context of the film and posted for laughs I couldn't understand why FB moderators found this acceptable.

I reported these but nothing got done, they’re awful and make me angry. Girls going about their night and having no idea they’re being filmed, it does not sit right with me at all. I have seen some filmed in London but the majority is up North.

This is all articulating what I feel much better than I said it! I do think there should be some kind of law to stop this kind of filming- I have also seen the American 'fake concern' ones.

I reported one of the videos as the girl being filmed was clearly a teenager, but it didn't get taken down. It really disturbs me, filming women who are completely out of it, and as someone said above, there does feel to be some kind of sexual thing behind it- I don't know what but it just worries me- especially that random creepy men somewhere in the world could be watching these videos of younger women, practically naked in some cases, and completely unaware- and it seems to be perfectly legal.

@Northernnnnnn I feel like some of it is already covered by existing laws, such as GDPR in UK...but there is no pressure at all on social media companies to stop this kind of posting.

The video I mentioned with the Jewish woman being shot in the head I felt met the definition of hate crime - I reported it to FB using the hate crime category as users were posting laughter emoticons.

I feel like more enforcement of existing laws is required, rather than new laws.

I saw a couple of these and for what it's worth I wrote a comment asking if the person filming had consent from the people being filmed. No reply of course. Really rank, considering the only reason it's fine (I would imagine) is to encourage a pile on of comments critiquing their appearance and behaviour.

Only reason it's done not fine

About a year ago, someone posted a semi-famous video of skinny women in shorts.

The folks that run this cool site, thought that was inappropriate and deleted the link.

GDPR doesn't stop people being filmed in public places and videos of them put online. I think it's illegal where I live if the people are easily identified, but not in England and Wales as far as I know so these women know they may be filmed. They seem to be over 18 in the videos I've seen.

Has anyone actually had fb remove anything? It is just bots not humans and there seems no way to get past them. I’ve reported things which are clearly against their “community standards” but the bots response is always that it is fine.

I've seen this too and found them really creepy and weird. Every time I see one i report to FB as harassment

Yeah shaming women is still a thing unfortunately, it’s vile, it also makes you a sadsack if you go out to just film other people having a night out.

Tbh I’d be inclined to say the women are probably having a great time vs the creepy weirdo who goes around filming women. Shame back. Loads of men do weird things like public letching that is actually really gross and we don’t tell them enough that they are being weird and gross and they are giving everyone the ick.

Would it be OK to film disabled or elderly people falling over in public so they can be laughed at?

Being disabled or elderly/falling isn't a choice. Wearing skimpy clothing and getting extremely drunk in public is.
It's legal, but not morally acceptable to film anybody in public IMO for the purposes of being laughed at.
However, even if these creepy weirdoes weren't filming. You'd still have been seen by lots of people on that state, caught on CCTV, etc etc. Everyone has a phone, they could be making a film of something else or filming their friends and you might appear in the background. It makes no sense to continue doing the same thing if you're shocked and horrified at the idea of you being filmed.
I also somewhat take umbrage at the idea that sexual assault is related to clothing, I get what the OP is trying to articulate but women have been raped wearing all sorts including niqabs and 100% sober. It really isn't related.

There was an article about this on the BBC the other day:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-68826423

Thank you for posting this- I'm glad it looks like the police are taking it seriously

Yes, and it does say TikTok is removing them - though I suspect as fast as they take one account down, another will pop up.

Years ago there used to be pages called Lad Bible, Slut Bible etc. who would post videos and photos like you describe and they'd get them from people privately sending them to go 'viral' of folk being drunk, crazy and sometimes performing sexual acts being filmed secretly in toilets
So many people I know ended up on these pages and at one point an embarrassing photo of me was shared from New Year pouring a drink down myself

I had no idea that Lad bible started off as that! Unless it has nothing to do with
https://www.ladbible.com/.
The latter is just a UK buzzfeed

Yes you're right, the official lad bible (you posted link to) account was always fine but there were 2 big pages using the same name that had thousands and thousands of followers and just posted drunken crap. So bad!