5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Online

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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby JamishT » Fri Jun 12, 2015 7:45 pm

My thoughts on strangers taking pictures of me in public doing whatever I do: I don't care one bit. The chance that I'm doing something stupid/illegal/fireable is slim to none. If I become a meme, that's great. I don't care if it's a "stupid/jerk/whatever guy" meme. It's a meme, and I'm pretty sure people know that meme's aren't an actual reflection of the person in the picture.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby TwoSheds » Fri Jun 12, 2015 7:47 pm

JamishT wrote:It's a meme, and I'm pretty sure people know that meme's aren't an actual reflection of the person in the picture.


Scumbag Steve's experience says otherwise, unfortunately.

http://knowyourmeme.com/blog/interviews ... mbag-steve

Scumbag Steve wrote:I guess people can’t separate the meme from the real me in some cases. Like people got my name, my phone, my Facebook, started callin’. Callin’ me all kind of racist shit, callin’ my girl and my family all hours of the night. Some asshole put up an ultrasound picture of my unborn kid and wished it would die. How fucked is that? My girl cried all night. She felt molested by that. Lot of racist shit being said, lot of haters. But truth is man, even with d-bags like that, I have it good really cuz I’ve got my family and my friends who know me. And no one can break that.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby Popinki » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:01 pm

CarrieVS wrote:
ghijkmnop wrote:As a human being, nobody has a right to know anything about me without my allowing it first.


However, if you are in public, you are allowing anyone at all to see you and see what you're doing.

Yes but, if I'm running into Home Depot to buy trimmer line for the weed whacker and I'm wearing a junky t-shirt and shorts and sneakers with grass stains on them, someone might mentally laugh at me for looking like a walking rag bag. That wouldn't bother me, because I made the choice to go out looking like that instead of cleaning up first.

But if someone took my picture and stuck it on the internet with a snotty caption I'd be aggravated, because I didn't choose that.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby CarrieVS » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:13 pm

Popinki wrote:But if someone took my picture and stuck it on the internet with a snotty caption I'd be aggravated, because I didn't choose that.


Yes, if someone did that, they'd be a dick. And you'd have every right to be upset. But I'm not certain that it absolutely qualifies as a breach of your basic human rights. That's all I was saying.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby ghijkmnop » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:17 pm

Redacted
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby sunglasses » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:58 pm

ghijkmnop wrote:It's what happens after the dickishness spreads, IMO. Everything is a slippery slope.


slippery_slope.jpg
slippery_slope.jpg (27.94 KiB) Viewed 2946 times
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby DjiboutiDan » Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:54 pm

What about people standing in the background of pictures I'm taking? Do I need to go through facebook and add black bars over everybody in every picture that isn't the focus of the picture?
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby NathanLoiselle » Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:02 pm

You only have to blur faces and logos if you're going to make a profit (and your self-sense of worth isn't a profit) of the picture. Otherwise it's considered open territory and while humanity can be horrible they're more often than not. Not giving a shit.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby ghijkmnop » Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:12 pm

Redacted
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Postby Cujos&Bits » Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:15 pm

...
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby NathanLoiselle » Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:16 pm

Considers replacing Ghijkmnop's head with Justin Beiber's and posting the photo on Instagram.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby cmsellers » Sat Jun 13, 2015 2:16 am

Hey, if you don't want me posting photos of you online, you should really check your shower for hidden cameras more often.

but seriously
I think it depends on the context. A celebrity taking pictures of a nobody without their knowledge and posting it on Twitter? That's very iffy. Celebrities calling attention to private individuals is in general something which makes me oncomfortable.

On the other hand, when I think about pictures of strangers that I've posted online they've pretty much alway been either A. in crowded areas taken incidentally to the main subject, or B. taken with the subject's permission. You should expect that in public areas you might get your picture taken. And if someone asks to take your picture, you're welcome to refuse, but if you agree, you should expect it might end up online.

I had people ask to take my picture a lot in Korea, since fat white people are not an everyday sight. I'm also sure that I've ended up in a variety of pictures incidentally as a result of visits to tourist attractions. I suspect that in Korea, some people probably took pictures of me without my permission (considering how many asked), and considering the Asian attitudes towards obesity, may well have posted unflattering comments on Naver or Daum. Even if those pictures ended up as a sort of meme in English-language media, I wouldn't be really bothered.

Likewise, in Turkey some cute girls asked me to sing "Happy Birthday" on video. Of course I obliged, and if that video ever surfaces on the English speaking web, I'll be a bit embarrassed. But I was the one who agreed to sing a song on camera for unknown purposes; that's my cross to bear.

I think that the only thing that would bother me is if I discovered pictures of me sitting in the priority seating section of a Korean subway, with comments on the rudeness of foreigners. Since A. I hadn't noticed that it was priority seating, and B. in American people sit in priority seating until people who need it show up, such a picture would be taking my behavior out of context. But that feeds into my general hatred of people taking me out of context, and has almost nothing to do with people posting pictures they took of me without my knowledge.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby Crimson847 » Sat Jun 13, 2015 4:36 am

Generally speaking, I don't think people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public. Paparazzi/stalker shit like taking pictures through someone's window is one thing; the person has a reasonable expectation that nobody will be able to see them inside their own house, even if that expectation turns out to be factually incorrect in a particular case.

By contrast, if you're on a crowded bus or street plenty of strangers are going to be able to see what you're doing anyway. If you do something foolish or embarrassing in that context, it's already going to be visible to a bunch of strangers and you know it. You also know that if your embarrassing experience is noteworthy to them, they might decide to tell their friends about it. Therefore, since you don't know who these people are friends with, you accept that such embarrassing incidents could potentially come back to haunt you later on.

Taking a picture changes none of these dynamics, and ultimately I can't think of any reason to care more about what a random person on the Internet thinks of me than I care about what a random person on the street thinks of me. If anything, I'd care more about looking foolish to someone in meatspace than in cyberspace.
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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Sat Jun 13, 2015 7:53 pm

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Re: 5 Ethical Questions On Posting Photos Of Strangers Onlin

Postby Ribby » Sat Jun 13, 2015 8:33 pm

"The chance that I'm doing something stupid/illegal/fireable is slim to none"

Actually as long as enough fucking morons get upset about it, then almost anything is fireable.

Remember that girl who ended up getting a guy fired because he made a funny comment about the piece of technology known as a 'dongle' to the friend standing next to him? And she decided to post a picture to shame him?

Pretty sure she suffered a fairly heavy online backlash for that and (maybe?) ended up fired too. I'd feel sorry for her, but I read about it and she still believes she was in the right to shame the first guy, apparently not perceiving the irony of her situation.

Personally, I think internet-shaming someone is DEFINITELY not okay and I would never do it in any situation. As has already been said- you don't know their circumstances. Besides, what makes you think you have the right to judge them and allow the whole world to judge them? You can judge them privately, you can even tell your friends about it later, but posting a picture for everyone to see? Just don't
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