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."

Sounds Like Fun

[mfh]

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!

yeah, yipee, and other happly expletives

[zappepcs]

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.

Misleading video, punishment fits the crime, etc.

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

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:No problem?

[LionKimbro]

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:No problem?

[alshithead]

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:Redefinition of shame

[LightCecil]

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.

Well said, ILuvRamen

[Travoltus]

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 USENET was youtube.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:If a cop can be there

[Bones3D_mac]

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 ass in court.

Re:Exactly.

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

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 that lives in the building next to me & roams the complex talking to whoever will listen... well, he'd look goofy & probably amusing on YouTube, and I could post it & then have a good laugh over it with all my sensible neighbors, but I don't consider his odd behavior worthy of something like that.

Although some people find it impolite and annoying, I personally could give a rats ass if you talk on your cell phone at the next table at some restaurant. If you were pissing in the coffee pot at work, though, well... I guess conformance in and of itself is neutral, and must be judged according to the thing that is being conformed to.

Re:Exactly.

[Travoltus]

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.

Backfire?

[jimbob666]

Couldn't this backfire? What I mean is that the subjects of these videos might see their activity as even more 'amusing' because it is on YouTube. Like a medal of honour or something. Just like what has happened to Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) here in the UK.