Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Removes Video of Reactions To Being Videoed
theodp writes "To follow-up on an earlier Slashdot post, GeekWire reports that YouTube has removed Surveillance Camera Man's latest video of people's sometimes-violent reactions to being videoed, citing its policy of prohibiting content designed to harass, threaten or bully ("This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy prohibiting content designed to harass, bully or threaten"). In a neat coincidence, the YouTube ban comes just after similar complaints were lodged against Google Glass. 'Some people also seem to feel threatened by Google Glass,' Philip De Cortes wrote in Google Glass Will Fail. 'They wonder if they're being recorded, and they feel like the tool could be used against them in some way.'"
People should be this upset about the government doing this too. CCTV's are popping up everywhere, even in rural US cities.
No good deed goes unpunished.
On the subject of surveillance and Google Glass, the British tv-series Black Mirror had a pretty neat episode (s01e03) titled "The Entire History of You", here's a brief description from wikipedia: Set in an alternative reality where most people have a 'grain' implanted behind their ear which records everything they do, see or hear. This allows memories to be played back either in front of the person's eyes or on a screen, a process known as a 're-do'. Very interesting concept
Disagree. This guy is just being a total asshole and a creep. The one lady is just having a conversation on the phone and he come up, sits down in front of her, videotaping her from point blank range. She asks him fairly nicely to please go away, and he just keeps being an asshole about it. Despite that, she continues acting fairly nice for a while until he continues being an asshole. And she even tried to engage him in some conversation, reading part of something off his shirt "I support" and then asking what it was he supported. Instead of responding, he continues to just be a creep, and gives her no response.
Also, this is supposed to be some form of protest against pervasive security cameras, but there are a few major differences. First, I believe the vast majority of security cameras only capture video, not sound. Second, security cameras are not specifically targeting you the way this jerk is by coming up and getting right in people's faces. Third, security cameras generally aren't uploading their videos to youtube.
I'm generally very cool with people doing this stuff in public. I have no problem with people taking photos or videos of me in public. Hell, I'm a photographer myself, so I'm sensitive to that sort of thing since I'm often the one behind the camera. But this guy is just an asshole, and even I would be extremely pissed if he acted that way around me. Assholes like him are why people like me get grief whenever we photograph in public.
I"m very much against the govt. cameras, but a guy on the street not hassling anyone shouldn't be a problem.
The person calling himself Surveillance Camera Guy was absolutely hassling people in my opinion. In one controversial instance, he sat down at a small table outside a coffee shop with a man who was talking on his cell phone, and proceeded to record the man on video. Not surprisingly, the man asked what Camera Guy was doing. Camera Guy's repeated response was an inane "It's OK - it's just a video" or something like that. The victim calmly and politely asked him to take his camera elsewhere, stating that he was having a private conversation, but eventually become quite angry that Camera Guy would not respect his request for privacy.
A lot of commenters ridiculed the victim because he was expecting to have a "private conversation" in a public space. I wonder how these commenters would react to a stranger recording their phone conversations? It's one thing to be casually overheard talking on a phone in public. It's another thing for some jerk to deliberately encroach in someone's personal space and sit there recording their conversation.
Some people have interpreted Camera Guy's stunts as an artistic commentary on life in a surveillance society. I call bullshit. At one point he tells a victim something like "Why would you object to me video recording you? The store you just walked out of has video surveillance cameras, yet you weren't bothered by that". There is a world of difference between a passive camera system that indiscriminately records video (and not audio) of anyone who walks past, and a guy who deliberately singles out individual passersby, encroaches on them in a manner that is deliberately intended to make them uncomfortable, refuses to answer meaningfully why he is doing it, records both video and audio, and then posts the videos online for the sake of ridiculing the victim.
We have certain accepted modes of behaviour to enable us to get along together as a society, such as respect for people's personal space, even in public. To deliberately cross these boundaries, merely for the purpose of making people uncomfortable, is neither clever or noteworthy. Camera Surveillance Guy was being a rude little asshole for the sake of his own amusement. Youtube was correct to consider his actions as harassment.