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Kentucky Bill: Wait an Hour Before Posting Injuries To Social Media (kentucky.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A Kentucky state representative is developing an unusual piece of legislation. It would impose a delay on people posting about an event on social media if the event resulted in serious injury. Users caught violating this law would face fines ranging from $20-$100. It wouldn't restrict media, victims, or first responders — just bystanders. Representative John Carney says, "It's purely my intent to get a discussion going out there, asking people to be more respectful about what they put on social media. We've had some incidents, including one in my community, and I'd hate for anyone to learn about the loss of a loved one through social media."
Opponents of the bill point out the difficulty in determining who qualifies as "media" in the age of social networks, not to mention the potential conflict with the First Amendment. Carney recognizes the difficulty, and says he doesn't intend to push the bill immediately, but notes that he's trying to solve a real problem. Tiger Robinson, a local public safety director, said, "There have been times we've been pulling bodies out of cars and these people are standing there, snapping pictures on their phones to post on Facebook. It's just not right."
Opponents of the bill point out the difficulty in determining who qualifies as "media" in the age of social networks, not to mention the potential conflict with the First Amendment. Carney recognizes the difficulty, and says he doesn't intend to push the bill immediately, but notes that he's trying to solve a real problem. Tiger Robinson, a local public safety director, said, "There have been times we've been pulling bodies out of cars and these people are standing there, snapping pictures on their phones to post on Facebook. It's just not right."
The guy is right, what have we become?
Even if the law were to pass and it survive all legal challenges -- and it most certainly wouldn't -- there are always going to be an insensitive idiots. I'm sure the victims would feel a ton better with random people taking pictures and spreading them instead of a news channel or newspaper.
This easily falls in the "Why the fuck would you even bother" category. Seriously, this is the best response you could come up with to an incident in your district? Send out an email to your voter base and write a FB update praising people who respect the privacy and dignity of accident (or crime) victims. It's great because you wouldn't look like an idiot, would appear respectful, and it would have a bit more impact.
I mean, cameras are obviously much more dangerous than guns.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
but it is their right. also he is still ok with taking the pictures just delay posting them... so clearly it is still right at a later time.
In what era of human history before now have we had such thorough and widespread documentation of events both wonderful AND tragic. All those camera angles, all those photos, all that video and audio: it's hard to cover something up. Hard to hide evidence. Hard for police to quietly murder a black man and sweep it under the rug.
A person who videos INSTEAD of rendering aid, when their aid is needed, is a shithead.
But what do you expect? 100 people to all somehow help? We naturally now stratify into helpers and documenters. Both are important.
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bad taste maybe but illegal???? seems a little, i dont know unconstitutional
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
This is a symptom of a deep cultural problem, and I don't think either law or technology is going to fix it. At best, it'll just be another "law nobody knows about" that can be used for selective enforcement.
This need to post every microscopic facet of one's life to Facebook is rather sick, even under less tragic circumstances than a traffic accident. It's something that's badly broken about our narcissistic culture. It's bad enough when it's one's own private data, but when it involves some other human being who didn't agree, and in fact may have just suffered either the worst day of their life, or the last day of their life, it's even worse. It's a symptom of lack of empathy for other human beings.
The only way I see to fix this is long term and cultural, not short term and legal.
I wonder if this guy knows about "scanner feeds" where some loner posts what he/she hears on the police/fire/EMS scanner into Twitter or Facebook. Lots of times there's serious injuries there. (Sometimes even the responder departments do this since the reports will all be public later anyway.)
Or what about sports? Would this prevent tweeting about a particularly violent tackle?
"news journalists" are tired of getting scooped by bloggers and twitheads?
lol wut...
> he doesn't intend to push the bill immediately,
"I'll wait until they are sleeping, then BAM!" - John Carney
If it's "just not right" for bystanders to post photos of victims to social media, why make exceptions for "emergency responders" and "members of the news media"?
"At first I was flabbergasted when I learned of my wife's death via a photo posted on Facebook, but breathed a huge sigh of relief when I saw it was just my local news team's Facebook account! A huge thanks to the Channel 10 News Team for their sensitivity and tact in relaying this private information."
This actually happened to me when my Mom died. A facebook-obsessed uncle posted about my mom's death the moment she died. My grandmother didn't even have a chance to call me first.
That was less than an hour of that trainwreck of a story appearing, prepare to pay for that!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What a god damn retard.
I'm now fairly convinced there is some kind of contest going on. "How many postings about 'Obamacare' can you get done in a single day pretending that it has anything to do with the topic on hand".
Seriously. If there was a story about the second coming of Christ, all we'd get to hear from you is how we got Obamacare but Jesus still got holes in his hands.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
how about focusing on making life for residents more interesting?
stupid.
2. End negotiation with something still nobody wanted, but which looks like a compromise.
Probably something about obstruction which works suspiciously well at intimidating people filming cops.
So the correct way to handle that situation is to take a picture of the dufus that's taking a picture of a body being pulled out of a car, and post a picture of them on social media.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
next time they shoot or beat the shit out of a black person; hell, any disadvantaged person.
Freedom of speech/assembly.
Moreover, it's a blatant cash grab.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Being a legislator, his only tool in the toolbox is writing bills.
The fine summary at the top of this page says he doesn't intend to actually push the bill to pass and the representative says "It's purely my intent to get a discussion going out there, asking people to be more respectful ".
So yes, he's trying to get a discussion going, aka trolling. That appears to have worked because here we are discussing it.
Say you record a cop shooting a pedestrian. Straight up, cold blood, didn't like them, went postal, flipped their lid and shot a jaywalker.
If you post the video of the murder right away, you can be arrested and charged.
But if you wait an hour, that gives the murderers time to come up with ways to protect themselves.
[End Of Line]
If I had a mouthful of coffee, I would have spit it all over my computer.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt28...
legislators: we should tackle existing agenda items such as the impending repeal of our states healthcare exchange from a newly elected governor, or the drug crisis in cities like Covington and Louisville.
John Carney: I wrote something on a dennys napkin about people who do things i dont like.
Good people go to bed earlier.
There are many things people can do that might be in poor taste, but won't be illegal. If these people are standing on the sidelines and not preventing emergency services from getting to the injured/dead, then they aren't doing anything illegal. Will we next require people to intervene instead of standing on the sidelines? (Not minding that Random Person intervening might make the problem worse.) If the people are interfering with emergency services, then that SHOULD be illegal. However, it's not the "taking photos/posting on social media" aspect that's illegal. That's just a side issue to people blocking emergency services in their quest to get a photo for Facebook.
Somehow, though, I doubt this guy's talking about people mobbing a scene and instead thinks he needs to regulate what is and isn't in poor taste.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I see an emerging market for fake press badges in Kentucky should this law pass.
The press has freedom of speech because all the people have freedom of speech. Once you start singling the press out for special treatment, you have State Controlled Media.
You mean like the jaywalking laws?
The town I live in only has crosswalks in one place Walmart.
The rest of the town is unmarked so people just cross wherever whenever it is safe to do so it is very often selectively enforced when it really ought not apply anymore anyhow.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
It's a choice.. morality aside. It's not for the government to dictate what you should and should not be allowed to do. It's the new age of social media and information travels fast. I don't think it's any different than obits being published and relatives finding out from the paper before someone calls them. That's just madness. I agree you don't need decapitated pictures of close ones on the internet.. but again.. that's morality. Common sense and as another posted mentioned.. Report it to facebook/twitter etc. You can't enforce and legalize decency as tempting as it would be at times, everyones perception of what is appropriate and what is decent varies. That's the cost of having a free country. Sad yes, sick maybe in some cases. But it is what it is; you can ask, you can report to private social media sites and they can take it down, but evolving the legal system is not only unconstitutional, it's morally wrong.
"...I'd hate for anyone to learn about the loss of a loved one through social media."
Sounds reasonable. But wait a minute - is there any good way to learn about the loss of a loved one? I know from personal experience that the arrival of two regular policemen at your front door in the middle of the night isn't ideal, either.
Something terrible has happened. It can't be undone. I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't actually prefer to read about it on social media, and be able to grieve alone before outsiders began to push in with their expectations and self-conscious caring voices.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
That "hour" will get abused to be anything, anytime, plus confiscate and search.
No thanks. Life sucks. Cops can't fix that. Stop adding cops to every "problem." It doesn't help.
The people I live among have the good taste not to do this to others. Foster decency and honor and leave the cops out of it. For that you'll need discipline, respect and a degree of prosperity. The exact opposite of what our leaders give us with their welfare state, grievance mongering and controlled decline.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
It all comes down to you can legislate morality. Shitty people will always be shitty people
I don't think the solution is another law. Instead he should find someone to launch an education campaign and try to convince people why they shouldn't do it.
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We named the dog "Kentucky"...
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
We are the people. We have the recognized right to free speech, assembly, and religion.
Media corporations rely on THAT to do what they do.
These people have it reversed. These are OUR rights, not theirs, first.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Who is Kentucky Bill and why does he want to injure Tiger Robinson?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This is what...okay one of the many thing, wrong with the US and much of the other western nations. You cannot legislate social change. It doesn't work. You want people to be more respectful (the meaning of which varies), you need to make that behavior the socially acceptable one, not the legally acceptable one. How much better our laws would be if they focused on safety rather than people trying to make things they don't agree with illegal. I don't even disagree that posting pics of some fatal car crash is asinine behavior, but not a legal issue at all.
About 8 years ago, one of our local (Milwaukee) TV anchors called the wife of a man who was killed earlier in the day. Unfortunately, no one at the TV station (TMJ4) made sure that the police had already told her. Even worse, the TV station defended her actions and she still works there.
I'm glad this bill wouldn't prevent that sort of thing from happening again; mostly because if she would ever interview me unannounced, the first words out of my mouth are going to be, "Oh god, my wife was killed, wasn't she."
This would be like passing a law you can't look at the accident for an hour after it happens.
This is illegal and won't pass a trivial constitutional test.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
How is that right? Either it is everybody or nobody. You can't prohibit individuals from doing this if you allow mainstream media. BTW, I don't think you should legislate this anyway, freedom of speech and such.
Yea but how else are people who are miserable in their own lives going to get some level of validation? Other people just come second to that.
"Look at this crazy thing that came into my life!"
Non-law. Anyone who communicates can be called media, there is no meaningful distinction any more.
My guess is that Representative John Carney has been contacted by people with emotional pleas using the argument "it's just not right".
Carney's job is to explain to those people that it may not be "right" but it is legal and the ability to do so is Constitutionally protected in the US. He should stop seeking headlines and wasting taxpayer resources and tell these people the truth.
People can be dicks -- and they should not be dicks -- but being a dick should not be against the law.
Whether it's intentional or not, this legislation will clearly violate people's First Amendment rights, and as such it cannot become Law.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Isn't it funny how Republicans love to extol the virtues of the Constitution and freedom and then go around and restrict freedom and violate the Constituion.
As with horsemeat, or dogmeat for you Koreans, it must be labelled as such. If your local butcher has a call for humanmeat, in the form of deadbodymeat otherwise wasted, it is legal in all 48 contiguous states. Alaska it's being done now. Ans Hawaii, well, I won't talk about Hawaii, but let's just say, you have a wee-little chance of being a Tourista, just like in the movie. These are undisputed facts.
Yea but how else are people who are miserable in their own lives going to get some level of validation? Other people just come second to that.
"Look at this crazy thing that came into my life!"
Sounds like my Homeowners Association... Them people are cray cray...
The bill is aimed at videos. You are still free to report any event in writing using your favorite blogging service. Your right to express your opinion is not hindered. In many cases video taping a court room trial is not allowed, so you see painted images of the court room instead on the news.
What the question should be is: Is evidence protected under the first amendment?
Videos are a stronger form of evidence than someone written summary of an event. They are harder to fabricate and easier to detect frauds.
"There have been times we've been pulling bodies out of cars and these people are standing there, snapping pictures on their phones to post on Facebook. It's just not right."
News reporters would be doing the same thing. Snapping pictures to use in their headlines. What is the actual ethical problem with this behavior?
If you're concerned about people getting in the way of rescue efforts, then make it illegal to interfere with rescue efforts.
If you are concerned with people taking pictures, when they should be providing meaningful assistance --- then make a law requiring people to stop what they are doing and render aid, or walk away slowly and directly to a minimum distance of 100 feet of the injury incident, if not intending to assist.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Its mighty-fine-doubleplus-good-for-your-pro-tekt-shun we government employees and paid-for-news outlets do it. Just not you. You are just another pretend citizen journalist. Now get out of my shot citizen, cant you see you're blocking your publics view?
That's what happens when lawmakers are bored and have too much time in their hands.
You're right, of course, a troll says something ridiculous to draw attention and stimulate angry responses.
This guy says something ridiculous to draw attention and stimulate responses.
By stating upfront that his proposal isn't serious and he's using the concept to stimulate discussion, he's not really trolling. Anyone who read the summary knows it's not a law that's going to be passed, so anybody with a clue won't be posting an ANGRY response. I used the word (after first redefining it specifically in response to the following post:
> With the low fine, and unconstitutionality, it seems like this rep is trolling us. How can he possibly be serious?
The $20 fine etc (and his statement) does indeed indicate he's not serious about passing the bill into law. Therefore, according to the person I replied to, he must be "trolling".
In other words ...
That chili dog "kicked my ass".
The lawmaker is trolled the citizens.
The chili dot does not have feet, so it did not in fact kick anything. That chili dog caused bodily pain, as a kick in the ass would. The rep isn't literally trolling; he's making a ridiculous statement in order to draw attention and stimulate discussion, as a troll would.
This is a symptom of a deep cultural problem, and I don't think either law or technology is going to fix it. At best, it'll just be another "law nobody knows about" that can be used for selective enforcement.
This need to post every microscopic facet of one's life to Facebook is rather sick, even under less tragic circumstances than a traffic accident. It's something that's badly broken about our narcissistic culture. It's bad enough when it's one's own private data, but when it involves some other human being who didn't agree, and in fact may have just suffered either the worst day of their life, or the last day of their life, it's even worse. It's a symptom of lack of empathy for other human beings.
The only way I see to fix this is long term and cultural, not short term and legal.
My grandfather recently told me this story. About 45 years ago he was saw an accident where the car hit something, flipped and had the occupant fly out, his head chopped off at the poll. He got out, picked up his 35mm camera and took a few shots. He came back to his car and drove off. This is not a "now" thing, People have been doing this since they have invented the camera. Hell, you see it in paintings from even before that. Any kind of long term solution means teaching everyone empathy. Considering the most exciting thing you can see when your in your teens is a dead guy and poking him with a stick, I doubt this will ever be solved.
I am not a hypocrite though, I asked if he still had the pictures but he said he didn't because a friend used his camera before him and removed the film. Hence his lessen, "Always make sure you have film in your camera"
Big hard-on for 2nd Amendment.
Thinks 1st Amendment is a nuisance.
What problem will this legislation address?
...bills would be subject to a small fine of $200-$1000 and loss of their ability to submit or vote on any further legislation for a month.
I wonder how that'd fly.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Freedom of the speech is limited.
You can't blast your stereo 24/7 and prevent your neighbor from sleeping.
You can't scream fire in a movie theater.
You can't tell someone you're going to kill or do bodily harm.
You can't publish a report that says your company made $10B in profit, when it was really losing money.
You can't publish a report that says your sugar and alcohol elixir is a cure for cancer.
Your freedom of speech is highly limited already based on situation and the damage it can cause. Creating a law that prevents the publishing pictured based on an arbitrary time limit is not one of them. In addition; do you really want people who have no idea what the fuck they're doing putting their cameras away and going to help trained first responders?
And posting information to social media involving an injury in an immediate manor actually does any harm unless the first responders are trying to hide something.
Representative John Carney says, "It's purely my intent to get a discussion going out there, asking people to be more respectful about what they put on social media."
A lot of things qualify as "speech". Passing a law restricting behavior is not one of them.
Legislators who pass laws to "send a message" or "start a conversation" are tyrannical and should be immediately recalled. (They're also using the wrong legislative mechanism. The correct one for "sending a message" is a non-binding resolution.)
We've had some incidents, including one in my community, and I'd hate for anyone to learn about the loss of a loved one through social media."
Tough. The First Amendment trumps feelings.
For myself, I'd rather find out about a loved one's death quickly, even if it's by a media report, than wait for hours while some brasshat hunts me down to notify me "gently".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's bad enough when it's one's own private data, but when it involves some other human being who didn't agree, and in fact may have just suffered either the worst day of their life, or the last day of their life, it's even worse. It's a symptom of lack of empathy for other human beings.
Is it? What's ultimately new about this? Facebook is a medium by which people communicate to other people. Are you telling me you wouldn't at the end of the day go home and talk to friends or family about your day and mention that someone died in front of you, or someone had a really shit day and got into a fight?
Absolutely nothing at all has changed about the way we communicate and the things we communicate about. People are only now freaking out about it because the conversation is now in conference with a bunch of friends and relatives at the same time, rather than between two people in a room.
Yeah, by the family that discovers a video of their loved ones dying among the LOL-catz photos.
Greed can be a form of narcissism, so it's easy to go from proper greed to proper narcissism. That's a flaw in modern culture that cannot be argued or empathized away.
Yeah, you best put that up there with revenge porn, sex tapes and sexting: All forms of invading a person's privacy to bolster one's sense of self-importance. I say sexting because unapproved distribution is still a big problem. We like perving on other people (or blaming other people) and the current culture accepts the internet-powered abuse which encourages further perving. Please get on your soapbox and demand people be nice, I need the entertainment. While you have everybody's attention, ask for world peace too.
The second purpose of the law is changing behaviour. That's why countries are making revenge porn a crime. Oh, and because culture can't make people empathic or kind.
About 15 years ago I did some traveling. I discovered that different cities had totally different idiosyncrasies: In one city, when many of its citizens stopped working, they chain-smoked. Nowadays, in a different city, I see people staring at their phone while riding the escalator or ignoring the adverts at the cinema. I wonder how much of phone addiction is caused by law (because smoking in public is nearly impossible) and how much because everybody else is doing it?
The activity it seeks to prevent is indisputably despicable. The potential negative outcome is on people liveblogging events of genuine public interest and being prevented simply because somebody was injured (i.e. you would not be able to post say a video clip of police brutality for several hours).
Then there is the fact that even a forced delay is censorship (mitigated by being very, very temporary but that is only a mitigation at best).
I tend to think it would be much better to find a solution to this problem which is not legislative in nature... but I'm stumped as to what that might be ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You can't make a law that trumps a higher law. The very attempt makes this new law completely invalid from the moment of conception.
Our right to exercise free speech is a higher law which trumps any lower law.
Why are there some that are allowed to do so? Is a paramedic or police officer trained to know what can and can not be posted? Are they spokes persons? I doubt they are.
And why the media? Please do tell me that if I film it and sell it to FoxNew, they can immediately show it to the world on their website, while I can not show the identical content on mine.
What is the reason for that?
It is not delay in security, because FoxNew can broadcast it life, as well as others. If it were unsafe, EVERYBODY should wait 1 hour.
The danger would be the broadcasting, not the person doing the broadcasting.
I am not even touching the subject if it will be a good idea. It is a bad idea from the start solely on the fact that some are and some are not allowed to do it. Remove that and we will talk if the idea in itself is good or not. Although I am sure that the media concerns will not go down easy. Because it would mean no life sports. (People get hurt there as well.) No life anything, because some people will get emotionally hurt.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
In case you were wondering, yes Kentucky has no waiting period to buy handguns.
If you want to express your thoughts immediately in KY, they prefer you do it with lead.
What law would he like to have repealed to make room for this one.
I'm a Yelp Reviewer!
hour means you're just fine. Go figure.
...in this current political race, "outsiders" like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are doing so well.
Just maybe, people are getting sick of the crowd whose answer to every conceivable human problem, is more laws, more government, more police.
"Look at this crazy thing that came into my life!"
Like a sandwich?
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
He did not pass a law. He drafted a mock-law (which he expressly stated he has no intention of getting passed) in order to start conversation about a topic.
First amendment protected speech.