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Comment by newsclues | Hacker News Reader

Part of the power of social media, is that powerful people acting badly in public finally might face some public backlash or justice.

Banning this, will certainly protect the powerful, and will likely continue to be unenforced for the average person.

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This argument doesn't hold up in practice, because currently, the powerful are already protected. Look at how many cops got away with abuse, how many high profile celebrities got away with heinous things, so many examples of the powerful (in their respective realm) never facing consequences.

So what actually ends up happening is most of this "public backlash" only affects people already easily accessible. Whether or not they actually did "act badly" which is important to bring up because people too easily buy into narratives online that are very one-sided. These easily accessible people could have been talked to 1 on 1 to solve the problem, that's how accessible they are.

I don't think banning this is the solution, but we absolutely do need to check this behavior and evaluate the incentives in place because right now they're terrible. The fact that people can profit off these kind of videos/posts on social media (two times btw: by the platform itself and if the story picks up by news orgs who pay for rights to display the content), especially during a time when people feel financial unease, is a recipe for disaster. Logically with these incentives in place, it makes far more sense to just be a bystander and film, rather than stepping in and helping or looking for help.

"This argument doesn't hold up in practice, because currently, the powerful are already protected"

Not on social media. Anyone can post a video or article attacking powerful people and groups, and thus "we" need new laws that will protect people on social media.

I am blocked by my local elected representative on Twitter. I was able to get better constituency service publicly on Twitter than I can via email or voicemail. But if I can be blocked, no problem.

Censorship and safety tools on social media need to be very carefully designed because at scale they get abused.

Whenever this argument comes up I think of what happened to Logan Paul and Justine Sacco. One desecrated what was effectively a burial site and faced few consequences, the other told a dumb joke and had their life destroyed over it. The powerful continue to thrive while the weak suffer.

Justine Sacco is such a sad story, but she is doing better now thankfully. Last I heard she was rehired by the company who fired her when she made the tweet.

We need more forgiveness in this world

Meh I've never liked this argument. It becomes a question of who is "blessed" and "unblessed" enough for you, subjectively.

> Part of the power of social media, is that powerful people acting badly in public finally might face some public backlash or justice.

Who are the powerful people in your opinion? Does it depend on their skin color? Their gender? Their perceived wealth? Their looks?

Try hard enough, you can find any kind of hook that will justify public shaming because this person has privilege and so it isn't punching down. Of course, nevermind that, what use is it for someone in Seattle to join the shaming of someone in London, nevermind Atlanta?

> Who are the powerful people in your opinion? Does it depend on their skin color? Their gender? Their perceived wealth? Their looks?

One use of recording is if you hire someone to do a job and they don’t do it - a recording can be used as evidence in court

Like of you hire a police officer to enforce traffic laws and they choke someone on the sidewalk

The video evidence clearly shows the officer detaining the pedestrian to prevent them from wandering out into traffic.

Cop 100% doing his job. With Qualified Immunity when that ped dies.

There's a big difference between filming a public servant on duty misbehaving, and I random person having a bad day.

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