The Snoop Next Door Is Posting to YouTube

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Your most trivial missteps are increasingly ripe for exposure online, reports the Wall Street Journal, thanks to cheap cameras and entrepreneurs hoping to profit from websites devoted to the exposure. From the article: 'The most trivial missteps by ordinary folks are increasingly ripe for exposure as well. There is a proliferation of new sites dedicated to condemning offenses ranging from bad parking and leering to littering and general bad behavior. One site documents locations where people have failed to pick up after their dogs. Capturing newspaper-stealing neighbors on video is also an emerging genre. Helping drive the exposés are a crop of entrepreneurs who hope to sell advertising and subscriptions.' But other factors are at work, including a return to shame as a check on social behavior, says an MIT professor."

No problem?

[alshithead (981606)]

I don't see a problem. You can either forgoe shameful behavior or keep it hidden. If you're doing something you would be ashamed of then you probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you're doing something that you feel you shouldn't be ashamed of but that others might want to shame you for, then keep it private. I call that civilization. For those that say they are entitled or should have the right, if most people agree then there is no reason to be ashamed. If most people don't agree then maybe you need to reassess whether or not you should be ashamed.

I'm betting some will disagree with me. If you can provide me an example of where I might be wrong I'm certainly willing to think about it. Offhand, I couldn't think of an example on my own where my logic wouldn't work.

First post?

Re:No problem?

[robably (1044462)]

You don't see a problem? The problem is How long does someone have to be ashamed for, and in front of how many people? You put something on the internet and potentially it's there forever and can be seen by millions, like with Star Wars Kid. I believe forgiveness is necessary in society - being allowed to learn from your mistakes and move on to become a better person - but we seem to have a culture where nobody forgives and nobody is allowed to forget. The people doing the uploading, who feel the need to shame and humliate someone this much, must be pretty unpleasant themselves.

Re:

[alshithead (981606)]

I agree that the ones doing the uploading probably have issues. I have better things to do with my time. It would take a pretty egregious offense for me make the effort.

I hope the Star Wars Kid isn't ashamed and keep in mind that he's the exception, not the rule. It's amazing to see the life span that video has had. I see a kid having a good time, not anything to really be ashamed about.

Re:

[killjoe (766577)]

It's great that you see nothing shameful or embarrassing about that video. The problem is that the vast majority of the people on this planet don't share your view and they will mock this person for the rest of his life. Whats worse is that there is a real chance he will be denied a job because of it.

Re:No problem?

[springbox (853816)]

Whats worse is that there is a real chance he will be denied a job because of it.

Only if his chosen profession happens to be dancing and/or acting..

Re:No problem?

[joto (134244)]

Or his potential employeer will see that he is the famous Star Wars Kid, and employ him on the spot, hoping that some customers will recognize him. Which is just as likely.

Or his potential employer won't recognize him. Because he is at least 5 years older, has different clothes, a new haircut, and doesn't try to dance around with a long stick. Which is the most likely thing to happen.

But then again, it's only our generation who cares about this. When the kids of today grows up, everybody will have access to nude/embarassing/whatever pictures/movies/whatever of everyone else.

Re:

[Snarfangel (203258)]

You don't see a problem? The problem is How long does someone have to be ashamed for, and in front of how many people?

Just like everyone gets fifteen minutes of fame, in the future, everyone will get fifteen minutes of notoriety. As long as you can withstand that, you're golden.

Look at Richard Jewell. He was falsely accused of planting a bomb and had every media outlet on the planet broadcasting his picture. Yet how many people today could pick him out of a lineup, or have more than the vaguest recollectio

Redefinition of shame

[Harmonious Botch (921977)]

...nobody is allowed to forget."

I might rephrase it as "anybody can refresh their memory if they want to", for you don't have to watch it repeatedly on youtube. But regardless, I think there is a good side to this. Some of what is considered shameful by the majority of our population should not be so, and continued exposure to it may cause some rethinking of the issue. We may end up with a better common definition of shame.

The most prominent examples are things in the sexual area. Nudity is ofte

Re:Redefinition of shame

[LightCecil (792100)]

There's a book that covers this. It's a science fiction book that explores a society that emerges when a freely available, perfectly portable surveillance technology emerges. It's based on projections of light-transmitting wormholes that can be put up *anywhere*, even in your house. Now, of course the initial usages are obvious, but once the novelty of "hee, I can look at people in their bathroom" wears off, the society becomes increasingly uncaring about the old social stigmas and shames. The technology also extends into time, letting people see what real history is like, rather than the history people accept, filtered through thousands of years of alterations.

Though it destroys many people's faiths of famous figures of the past, it also constructs a society where the shames have shifted from transient things like sexuality.

It's called "The Light of Other Days", and it was a collaboration between Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.

Re:

[bladesjester (774793)]

Not to mention the fact that far too many employers have fairly extensive checks done on potential employees now.

That "harmless" video could impact your career for the rest of your life.

The fact that businesses need to realize that a person's personal life is just that - personal - and they have no business basing their hiring decisions on perfectly normal, legal activities that are done outside of the workplace is a whole other matter.

Remember, boys and girls, things on the internet never really go away.

Re:

[RareButSeriousSideEf (968810)]

I see your point, but not *all* forced conformity is eeeevil.

When I see some asshat park his Beamer diagonally across 4 prime spots in a crowded parking lot, or change lanes into a lane that's ending just to force his way into a gapless line of traffic ¼ mile up, I'd like him to conform to my notion of civilized behavior. I'm too lazy to actually film him myself & Tube the video, but I'd defend someone else's prerogative to do so.

On the other hand, the goofy, perpetually drunk & shirtless dude

Re:

[Travoltus (110240)]

If you're in a restaurant and need to make an important call the polite thing to do would be get up and go to the restroom lobby or outside and make the call.

You do make a good point about being "held hostage to anyone's momentary whims". Another post made reference to "noise". At some point only the most extreme cases will be used to try and cause shame. All others will be ignored and viewed by such a small number of people that they won't be shamed.

And how do you know that the idiot close enough to film y

Re:Exactly.

[Travoltus (110240)]

Well, I do have a heart. I have been to business seminars and have lectured other employers about the evils of googling their employees. I was talking about the past when I talked about being hard pressed. You see, I go to networking events via meetup.com. The last 2 times I've included a 10 minute mini seminar on online defamation and the dangers of googling applicants.

My tools are a PDF file about Joe Applicant, and a projector.

Joe has all kinds of outrageous comments on USENET and MySpace and even drops some personally identifying things so you know which Joe this really is.

The audience, some of whom are actually employers, after about the 3rd or 4th page, all unanimously decide this guy shouldn't be hired.

Then the next shoe drops.

The next slide is John Doe and his anonymous remailers that he uses to post to USENET, and his use of http://boxofprox.com/ [boxofprox.com] to view the web (MySpace included), and his http://myway.com/ [myway.com] or http://10minutemail.com/ [10minutemail.com] account that he uses to register his MySpace account. They see the details of how he poses as Joe and says all kinds of plausibly crazy crap to make the guy unlikeable.

Unanimously unhireable quickly turns to unanimous "oops, we fucked up" and "WTF OMFG, can we somehow be sued for this somewhere down the line?"

One time one of these guys came back and told me he googled himself and found that someone had did something like this to him. The next seminar I will have him as a witness that this did in fact actually happen and that I'm not just scaremongering.

Now we're going to include youtube education, too.

I plan on taking this public service announcement nationwide, because while you and I feel these Grinches should be fired, the reality is, they rule corporate America. I know. I rub elbows with these people, which is why I started doing these 10 minute presentations.

Re:

[alshithead (981606)]

Thank you. I'm really glad you expanded on your original comment and responded gently and intelligently to my somewhat flamish post. I think I may have looked at your comment from the wrong angle. Could have been the spitting in my food comment. :) I'll blame it on one beer too many. It doesn't surprise me that there are folks out there who will try and wreck another's reputation. It's a shame but goes to show that there are some really nasty people out there. I've helped in the hiring process before

Re:

[Zaphod2016 (971897)]

There's also the huge issue of mistaken identity. Most of this video is going to be crap quality and at best [...] that's a pretty big assumption on your part to say that the guy you're interviewing is the SAME guy you saw online.

Very good point. I myself have been told several times that I have "dopplegangers" out there, despite the fact that I have always considered my appearance "unique".

A friend of mine has the misfortune of sharing a name with a gay porn star. The irony is, he is one of the most

Re:

[alshithead (981606)]

"So is it safe to say then that if you are in a restaurant and need to have an important conversation the polite thing to do is get up and go to the restroom lobby or outside to have the conversation? It is perfectly legitimate to make a phone call at normal conversational volume anywhere that a normal conversation could be held. I think what ticks of most of the cellphone bigots is that they can no longer hear both sides of the conversation. It has very little to do with the actual noise involved."

I think

Misleading video, punishment fits the crime, etc.

[The Amazing Fish Boy (863897)]

For those that say they are entitled or should have the right, if most people agree then there is no reason to be ashamed. If most people don't agree then maybe you need to reassess whether or not you should be ashamed. I'm betting some will disagree with me. If you can provide me an example of where I might be wrong I'm certainly willing to think about it.

Are you saying the majority is always in the right? I can think of a few examples where the majority would deem an act "shameful" that shouldn't really be. Stealing a newspaper is (in most cases) shameful, as is not cleaning up after your dog. But what about, for example, getting rejected when asking someone out?

Furthermore, there is the issue of a mistaken act. Think of Seinfield where Jerry's girlfriend sees him scratching his nose in his car. From her angle it looks like he's picking his nose. Should that go on these sites?

Finally, even with shameful acts, there is the idea that the punishment should fit the crime. What if you stumble home drunk, piss on your car, and collapse in your doorway. Now, first of all, that's pretty pathetic, and you probably deserve ridicule. But that ridicule should come from friends and neighbours. Should that video go online, where your employer might see it? Does it have your name on it? What if it affects future employment opportunities?

I don't think it's as clear cut as "don't do something you'd be ashamed to do."

Re:Misleading video, punishment fits the crime, et

[alshithead (981606)]

"Are you saying the majority is always in the right? I can think of a few examples where the majority would deem an act "shameful" that shouldn't really be. Stealing a newspaper is (in most cases) shameful, as is not cleaning up after your dog. But what about, for example, getting rejected when asking someone out? "

Why would getting rejected when asking someone out be shameful? That strikes me as a self image problem. So that's one attempt at an example, do you have others?

"Finally, even with shameful act

Re:

[inviolet (797804)]

Well said.

There is another angle to the "punishment should fit the crime" point, and that is this: the internet's memory is too long. The old-fashioned kind of shame was visited upon the offender by eyewitnesses, and after a while the incident would be forgotten. Nor could their memories of the incident be accurately spread to non-witnesses. And that was usually sufficient.

Not so with YouTube.

Public space, public faces

[symbolset (646467)]

Recording what people do in public is, er, in the public domain*.

* This bikini cam brought to you by the Ft. Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce. Visit scenic South Florida!

Re:No problem?

[LionKimbro (200000)]

Well, there are those situations where society is wrong, and needs to be called on it.

Will society be responsive? That's the question.

If society is not responsive when society is wrong, then this is horrific and terrible and should be opposed.

If society is responsive, then we should welcome our new neighborly overlords.

Example: "Women shouldn't be allowed to vote." Suppose we had this high technology, and it's early 1900's. You and your subversive friend are having a discussion, and whisper that you think women should be able to vote. Obviously, you are trying to create a subversive cell movement; And unfortunately for you, someone with a microphone and a camera caught it, and posted it online. You are visibly and painfully ostracized from society. Anyone who thought at least some bit of sympathy for your way of thinking either changes their mind (against you,) or decides to stay quiet. Because a critical mass of people are able to express their opinion, society is incapable of changing, and the passages of perspective [communitywiki.org] are blocked.

Will society be responsive in our future environment? We do not know. It seems reasonable to believe that the future may resemble a panopticon, [wikipedia.org] but that piece of evidence alone doesn't tell us enough; We don't know what balancing forces [usemod.com] may exist.

But, anyways: There's an example of how the system you described might be flawed.

Re:

[alshithead (981606)]

Fantastic point about a "critical mass" being needed! That's why I asked for examples counter to what I stated. I felt there was an angle I was missing but couldn't put my finger on it. I guess the critical mass has to come from a critical mass of subversives. Think about how Victorian times changed to where we are now. From what I read of history it's not that everyone espoused Victorian ethics, it's that they kept their non-Victorian ethics hidden from view of the general public until people started

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

Consider the flip side of this, though. Back when communism was collapsing in east germany, I remember seeing the crowds marching in Leipzig, and they were chanting Wir bleiben hier! ("we're staying here"). Before that time, most East Germans just wanted to escape to the west. After that point, they realized that they were being ruled by the will of a minority, and that was game over for the commies in Germany. What the thugs were most afraid of in East Germany, and what the Red Dynasty, the Saudi klept

Re:

[JanneM (7445)]

Mostly my worry would not be documenting "shameful" behavior in itself, but being inaccurate about it, and essentially punishing people that have not actually done anything wrong. It can range from taking information out of context (film their dog pooping on the street and cut before you see them conscientiously pick it all up) to completely made-up accusations.

Of course, as mean and narrow-minded people tend to be today, it's probably only a matter of time before so many of us are added to so many "accusat

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

The biggest danger of all in this is false accusation.

I concur, and if I were running such a web site I would not allow anonymous denunciations.

There's a reason why we don't allow anonymous accusers in criminal proceedings.

-jcr

Re:No problem?

[GreggBz (777373)]

I guess I don't think like you, not anymore.

A few years ago one warm summer day, I got fuming mad at some woman who was going rather slow, worrying about something inside her station wagon and could not decide on a lane. I remember this vividly. Latter, honest to god, I saw her checking out at K-Mart. She was buying gatoraide for some reason and chatting with the clerk. She started crying. It turns out she had just moved to the city where I live, someone had stolen her pocket book, she could not find it in here car and she was having a really bad day. I made it a point to apologize for my behavior when we were both driving, cause you see, I was the real asshole.

You don't walk in these peoples shoes, please don't arbitrarily demonize them. Nobody ever gets to know anyone these days. I guess we are to busy hiding behind our gadgets. Really, how well do you know your neighbor? It's easy to judge someone badly, it's a little harder to get to know your fellow humans and see them for what the are, human. People are not just an inconvenience in your self-absorbed little world. Yea, I know, it's scary to say "hello, how are you, I'm such-and-such..." but you'll feel better if you truly live and let live.

Re:

[dangitman (862676)]

Hey everyone! I illegally download from Sealand.

Me too. Yesterday I downloaded a mermaid. Should I be ashamed?

in other news..

[by Anonymous Coward]

Ceiling cat is watching you MASTURBATE.

Re:in other news..

[aonifer (64619)]

*masturbates even more furiously*

Sounds Like Fun

[mfh (56)]

But please, for the survival of the human race... get a real job!

Everyone wants to cash in on the latest gold rush, but isn't it time we rewarded excellence instead of stupidity? Although there must be some form of corrective benefit for being exposed as a petty thief. (although eventually we'll be living in the society where you can't misstep once or you become suddenly exiled from your own life)

Balance? Complacency? A lack of appropriate countermeasures? Who knows how this is going to play out, but many of us will watch it nonetheless!

Dog crap?

[jdavidb (449077)]

One site documents locations where people have failed to pick up after their dogs.

Awesome. I've been waiting for just such a service for years.

I was one step removed from actually mailing the stuff to my fellow apartment dwellers in the mid 1990s. I was so tired of slogging through it on my way down to my car which I could never park in my assigned spot because they took it from us.

Re:Dog crap?

[tomhudson (43916)]

Why not cure both problems - pick up the dog shit they didn't pick up (use a plastic bag) and "fill up" the door handles of their car that they so inconsiderately parked in your spot.

If they "discover" this at night when its dark, so much the better ... shit happens ...

Just remember to post the video :-)

Re:Dog crap?

[jcr (53032)]

The Chicago solution to that problem is a hose and cold weather. People rarely park in the same place after they've had to chip through 3" of ice to get into the car.

-jcr

yeah, yipee, and other happly expletives

[zappepcs (820751)]

For too long, society in large part has not been focussed on what other people think, rather it has been several decades of the ME generation. If I had already installed my X10 motion activated cameras, perhaps I could have caught the little fscks that egged my car within a week of moving to a very nice new neighborhood.

I really don't think that there is anything wrong with someone physical, and personally filming people doing bad things and posting them to the web. Its little to no different than them telling their friends, or passing the gossip around the local grocery store... just a little more convincing :)

The point here is simple; its a bit of advice: if you don't want to have people on youtube seeing you pee off the back patio, don't pee off the back patio.

Sure, there are other cases where things seem to be exaggerated, but for most of this, its not, and it is good to see the community cleaning up in their own back yards.

Now, if this is from police cameras that are perusing neighborhoods on a regular basis, I'm going to shout out against that. But if your neighbor catches you doing something bad, sorry, you shouldn't have been doing that... 'you plays, you pays' as the saying goes.

It seems to me...

[ChePibe (882378)]

...that it's fairly simple to avoid becoming a target of these websites:

Pick up after your dog.

Park correctly.

Don't take things that don't belong to you.

I know that if people in my apartment complex did this, we could all live happier lives, particularly the picking up after dogs bit.

Don't want to have a video of you stealing your neighbor's paper show up on YouTube? Don't steal your neighbor's paper.

Re:

[arun_s (877518)]

What you say is fair enough, roughly summarised as 'if you haven't done anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about anyway'.
But what about the privacy issues involved? Would you like it if your creepy next door neighbour was filming you for a couple of hours every day, just waiting for you to make a wrong move? How about him selling a month's footage of your activities to any 'interested' party? He's got a noble excuse in case he's caught doing the recording, but you never what happens behind you

If I'm not mistaken...

[ChePibe (882378)]

The point of this is to make people uncomfortable.

If you're in public - and, in the case of most of these problems, not even on your own property - your expectation of privacy is zero. Zilch. Therefore, act as if people were watching you because, odds are, they are.

Maybe we could use some more shame in our society. Anything to silence the Britney Spears and Paris Hiltons of the world.

If a cop can be there

[Snarfangel (203258)]

...a camera can be there. As long as it's a public area and a police officer can be there without warrant, or a private area where the owner consents, I don't see the problem. Only when it's somewhere where the occupant has a reasonable expectation of privacy should there be any question as to whether it should be tolerated.

Re:

[Bones3D_mac (324952)]

Aren't there certain laws about stationary, always-on cameras that dictates how one can use them? Despite the fact that there is no expectation of privacy in public, specifically pointing a fixed camera at another person's house for the sole purpose of monitoring their activity is probably illegal in a lot of states. (Especially since law enforcement officials used to require a warrant for such activities.)

Somehow, I doubt putting a tiny "you are being watched" sticker in your window is going to save your a

So CCTV is OK?

[Frosty Piss (770223)]

It's interesting that so far, most of the posts here are saying "What's the problem? Don't do stupid and shameful things, no problems", yet wherever the issue of CCTV Brit style comes up, it's nothing but outrage. What's the difference?

Re:

[LunarCrisis (966179)]

It's interesting that so far, most of the posts here are saying "What's the problem? Don't do stupid and shameful things, no problems", yet wherever the issue of CCTV Brit style comes up, it's nothing but outrage. What's the difference?

The difference is that in this case the public has access to this material, which causes much less concentration of power (bad in my books) than it being restricted to one centralized organization such as the government. Like it or not, as technology progresses, physical privacy is on the way out. I'd much rather lose my privacy to everyone than lose it only to the government.

Re:

[tomhudson (43916)]

The real problem with the cctv systems in britain is that they haven't resulted in a drop in crime - quite the opposite. What works is police on the streets, not in a station looking at video cameeras.

Also, there's a difference between a camera that is recording everything, 24 hours a day, indiscriminately, of everyone, and you taking a video of someone breaking a law.

The first one breaks the concept of "anonymity in public places", where people have an expectation that, if they aren't doing anything wr

As always, SF saw this coming

[rah1420 (234198)]

Who remembers I See You [fictionwise.com] by Damon Knight? I still remember that little story from a Daw anthology. Creeped me out.

Is shame still an effective deterrent?

[hasbeard (982620)]

To what sense is shame still an effective deterrent? To feel shame requires that one sense that in some way his actions are socially unacceptable. As the boundaries of our culture seemed to have been stretched further and further, what was once unacceptable is now acceptable. For example, once homosexual behavior was deemed unacceptable. Now, it seems at times, homosexuality is almost a "status symbol." Increasingly, rudeness seems to be tolerated. Right wing and Left wing political figures and commentators insult one another with abandon. It seems to me that there are an increasing number of people who seem unable to sense when they have crossed the boundaries (or else they don't care).

Fair game: Its all in public

[atcurtis (191512)]

What people do in public becomes public property.

If someone acts like an arse in public, should not be surprised to find it posted on a website.

If they don't want anyone to post them doing disgraceful things in public, they should either refrain from doing something which people would find offensive... or if they are a true sociopath, they can always murder all the witnesses before they can post it online.

I would so dearly like to attach a video camera to my car, perhaps with a 30 second buffer, so that when I press the button to record an event, everything up to 30 seconds before the event is also recorded. Would much prefer a good quality video camera so that license plates are clearly visible.

I seem to recall that a few years ago, a man in Japan was fined for speeding based upon video evidence posted online...

So...

[dangitman (862676)]

How do we shame people who post on YouTube?

Think hard about your own life

[houghi (78078)]

Have you NEVER done something that could be seen as shamefull? Have you NEVER been drunk as a student? Have you NEVER behaved as an asshole when young? Have you NEVER wore stoopid clothes where people laughed at you? Never ever in your whole life did something you are ashamed of?

Seriously? Are you a bot?

I know I have. It is called learning and living.

It amazes me that so many see no problem in this. It all sounds like: if you don't do anything wrong, there should not be a problem.

This is just a modern version of a pillory without the basic justice even the people in the middle ages had.

Different ethics

[Per Abrahamsen (1397)]

How about movies of women visiting abortion clinics? Men visiting brothels?

Or, where I live, you could risk the life of some Muslim high-school girls by publishing photographs of them kissing non-Muslim boys.

Should two men be allowed to walk hand in hand in a public park, without getting their picture on www.godhategays.com?

Or what about people who aren't doing anything ethically wrong (even by the fanatics who would consider any of the above examples morally evil), like people who are overweight, mentally ill, bad dressers, clumsy, plain ugly, or otherwise doesn't live up to the norm of society?

Well said, ILuvRamen

[Travoltus (110240)]

How about this one.

One guy comes up on you and starts trash talking you for no reason, and you get pissed off and cuss back at them. Someone else, their teammate, is filming you.

Tomorrow, the part where you cussed back at them, is put on Youtube, but not the part where they provoked you.

Now those millions of people you mentioned, believe that you're wrong or bad or undesirable or innapropriate.

I know. I did this to an obnoxious jock way back in college before youtube was a twinkle in God's eye. Back then US

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

Shame SHOULD be a check on social behavior.

Exactly!

People tend to forget that there are all kinds of ways to bring pressure to bear when someone is behaving badly or stupidly, and that leads to stupid shit like state legislators trying to outlaw teenager's fashion choices. [bbc.co.uk] The law is a very blunt instrument.

Incidentally, I would very much like to see shame used to regulate even more egregious examples of legislators wasting our money. [heritage.org]

-jcr