I’ve receently discovered this thing called: “1st amendment audits” on YouTube.
Basically, it’s people filming random businesses from a public access, to see if said businesses “respect their right to take video” (really I think they’re just troll’n).
1st amendment rights aside, what blows my mind, is that people get so bothered about being videoed in public.
So I ask: Would you be bothered by this?
Here is an example of what I’m talking about. It’s a 16 minute video, but you get all the highlights in the first minute.
Just so we’re clear, I’m not advocating for these guys, I know they’re being jerks. I’m just wondering if people would be bothered. Because this wouldn’t even ping my radar.
It wouldn’t bother me to be videotaped, but it looks like a medical facility, and I can see how some people may not appreciate the lack of privacy involved while they are going in for treatment.
Some random camera in some public parking lot? No problem. Or rather it’s a problem that’s already so far out of the bag we’ll never put it back in.
Some people carrying “Jesus Hates Sex” signs standing on the public sidewalk in front of an “adult” toy store taping everyone who goes in and out? Now that’s a problem whether I’m going into that store, into the unrelated store next door, or just driving by on the street. Their intent is to harm, or at least influence the behavior of, the people in the area, while hiding behind a passive/aggressive “we’re just asking questions” kind of BS. And that’s flat wrong.
These “auditors” are to my mind simply protesters. Usually angry protesters with an attitude driven by the insane trolling wing of the professional internet propagandists. The only good news is they’re usually a small group, not a crowd of 500. Yet.
If the various authoritarian state legislatures in fact succeed in passing their various “protesting is a per se felony” laws, I’d like to see the cops round those folks up as well as the folks protesting the authoritarian laws in the first place. But who am I kidding?
Fundamentally these people are ignorant idiots. It’s all dependent on whether they’re filming on private property or not, and even then, the business owners haven’t violated anyone’s rights by telling them to take a hike. If the cops back up the business owners when they are filming on public property, maybe they might have an argument.
That said, I wouldn’t much care if someone videoed me, except unless I felt like it was for the purpose of humiliation, ridicule or some sort of weird-assed record keeping. I work for a municipal government, and I’d be pretty damn weirded out if they were filming me in order to figure out who I was for some reason unbeknownst to me.
I’m not a big fan of random people recording me or taking pictures of me. I have (semi-jokingly) shielded my face while walking through someone’s video, for instance.
I had a former coworker from Russia who was horrified by the thought; if you did that to someone back in Moscow and they turned out to be a gangster, you’d get the crap kicked out of you (at the very least).
Me too. But I deliberately chose an example that would be less contentious.
There are plenty of people, and SDMB members (not I) who would happily stop the traffic into and out of an abortion clinic by any means short of shooting the patrons. And as we have seen now and again across the country, sometimes by in fact shooting the patrons.
I think there’s a difference between some random weirdo on the street taping me and getting caught in random surveillance cameras as I tool about town. But at worst I’d just get mildly annoyed that someone was taping me and continue about my business.
I believe and hope that that (filming strangers in the street, not walking dogs) is still illegal in Germany (will check). We care about data protection at least as much as you do about this 1st amendment. I actually doubt this has anything to do with the first amendment anyway, it sounds just like a troublemaker’s excuse for mischief. And what if someone uses the second to fight against the first? This would not end well.
Specifically, some rando recording me on video? Yes I care. Not that I can do anything about it. “Free country” and all that. But I don’t have to like it.
I’m not a fan of total surveillance, either. But again, whaddya gonna do? Too hot in AZ to wear a ski mask everywhere.
People have sold out privacy for … whatever it is we have. Security? Convenience? I dunno.
In 1984, Big Brother forced every home to have an always-on listening device. In 2021, people pay money to have them in their houses.
At TusCon in 2019, the last time it was held, a crew was shooting a movie where at least part of the action took place at a Con. There were signs around explaining this and at Reg, if you didn’t mind being in the background signed a model release form and were handed a green cord. Most of us folded it up into a half-assed aiguillette and taped it to the badge, I’d guess about 2/3 of the members.
At the end of the Con a crowd scene was being shot in the ballroom. We gathered there and those without green cords signed a release and a clipboard was passed around to put our names on for extras screen credit.
Yeah, I’m not thrilled by all the surveillance videos, but at least i have a high degree of certainty that they aren’t going to post it with nasty text about me on you tube. I’d be unhappy about the weirdo.
Being videoed by a random stranger takes two forms. 1- Being caught in a video about something that isn’t you. 2- Being the subject of the video which will absolutely be used to harm you in some way if the videographer can manage it.
