Hacker News Reader

Comment by timdaub | Hacker News Reader

I loved his stuff and how upset people got. You could say it was performative art criticing post-modern technocratic stance on privacy: While Zuck said privacy is over: this dude got people raging. "I'm just making a video"

Legend

View on HN

It puts me in a tough spot, because on one hand I believe public space should be able to be recorded, but on the other hand this is pretty obnoxious behavior and pretty threatening in context. There are laws that cover this kind of stuff that are unrelated to filming, so police definitely could do something here. We see it as a video on the internet and know the intent but in the moment, it's some guy filming you and your family and not explaining why, I would totally get why people are furious.

As a photographer myself, how do you think street photography happens? Sometimes the mundane stuff is unstaged, and when I was shooting it, you end up throwing a lot of stuff away anyway. In North America, you have no right to privacy in a public space. I understand why people are antsy about being photographed / recorded in public, but they direct that anger at the person doing it instead of the laws that allow it.

Besides, the person you see and who is generally being intentionally visible isn't usually the one you have to worry about.

Did you watch the videos linked elsewhere in this thread? He's acting pretty insidious, it's not just street photography. Even just someone following you around like they are, with no camera, would be uncomfortable/threating to some. He follows one family back to their car.

> but they direct that anger at the person doing it instead of the laws that allow it.

The law that allows filming in public spaces clearly was not meant to allow this kind of creepy behaviour. People are rightfully directing their anger at the person abusing the law, rather than the law itself.

AFAIK he never revealed his intents, so he could just be doing it 'for the lulz'... That seems more likely to me considering his 4chan-y attitude on his other channel 'Vagrant Holiday'

It just shows how people have no idea about how transparent they have become. A private guy filming you is so trivial and insignificant compared to surveillance capitalism, it shouldn't even get a mention.

Except its been shared widely. Its not his home movie shown to ten people, its privacy breach (I understand thats at best a hypothetical motivation not a law) with thousands, or millions of viewers.

Scale is sometimes enough to make the mundane terrible. Hence memes.

True, in this case it is an exception of course. Although in times of social media an audience is easy to be found. Memes are the opium of the people or something like that.

I think opium is the opium of the people. But I do think "laughing at strangers" has persisted a long time in our culture. Millenia. Romans laughing at Braes (trousers) on Gauls...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com