'Coldplay Kiss-Cam Flap Proves We're Already Our Own Surveillance State' (theregister.com) 40
Brandon Vigliarolo writes via The Register: A tech executive's alleged affair exposed on a stadium jumbotron is ripe fodder for the gossip rags, but it exhibits something else: proof that we need not wait for an AI-fueled dystopian surveillance state to descend on us -- we're perfectly able and willing to surveil ourselves. The embracing couple caught at a Coldplay concert this week as the jumbotron camera panned around the audience would have been another unremarkable clip, if not for the pair panicking and rushing to hide, triggering attendees to publish the memorable moment on social media. "Either they're having an affair or they're very shy," Coldplay singer Chris Martin said of the pair's reaction.
As is always the case when viral moments of unknown people get uploaded to the internet, they didn't remain anonymous for long, with the internet quickly identifying them as the CEO of data infrastructure outfit Astronomer, Andy Byron, and its Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot. We're not going to weigh in on Byron's, who internet sleuths have determined is married (for now), or Cabot's behavior - making someone pay for the moral transgression of an alleged extramarital affair may be enough reason for the internet to go on a witch hunt, but that's not our concern here.
What's worrying is what this moment says - yet again - about us as a society: We have cameras everywhere, our personal data has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world, and we're all perpetually ready to use that tech to make those we feel have violated the social contract pay publicly for their transgressions. This is hardly a new phenomenon. [...] There's really no reason to set up an expensive and oppressive surveillance state when we all have location tracking, internet-connected shaming machines in our pockets. Big tech gave us the tools of our own surveillance, and as "ColdplayGate" shows yet again, we'll keep using those tools if they'll make us feel better about ourselves - especially if someone else gets knocked down a peg in the process.
As is always the case when viral moments of unknown people get uploaded to the internet, they didn't remain anonymous for long, with the internet quickly identifying them as the CEO of data infrastructure outfit Astronomer, Andy Byron, and its Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot. We're not going to weigh in on Byron's, who internet sleuths have determined is married (for now), or Cabot's behavior - making someone pay for the moral transgression of an alleged extramarital affair may be enough reason for the internet to go on a witch hunt, but that's not our concern here.
What's worrying is what this moment says - yet again - about us as a society: We have cameras everywhere, our personal data has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world, and we're all perpetually ready to use that tech to make those we feel have violated the social contract pay publicly for their transgressions. This is hardly a new phenomenon. [...] There's really no reason to set up an expensive and oppressive surveillance state when we all have location tracking, internet-connected shaming machines in our pockets. Big tech gave us the tools of our own surveillance, and as "ColdplayGate" shows yet again, we'll keep using those tools if they'll make us feel better about ourselves - especially if someone else gets knocked down a peg in the process.
Bad example (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad example (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes this one so funny is they respond SO guiltily. It's hilarious. But I don't need some over-reaching attempt to wordplay it into being a big new social issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Bad example (Score:3)
No, the advice is this: "if you take your mistress out in public, don't act guilty if 'caught'(seen?)"
The ONLY reason anyone outside the auditorium knows about this indiscretion is because of his reaction - if he just stood there the comment would have been "how sweet, cuddling at their age" and everyone, *everyone* would have moved on.
Re: (Score:1)
Even if you're NOT married.
Those things are expensive, crowded and generally obnoxious. Fuck all that.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, I don't know what's supposed to be surprising about this. Going to a rock concert with your mistress absolutely screams "I want to get caught".
Now, imagine an alternate scenario where the guy owned a Tesla and the wife caught the cheating by playing back the sentry mode footage? Then yeah, he'd be hoisted by his own petard. That'd be the missing irony, as increasingly pervasive surveillance backfired.
I'm Surprised (Score:2)
Yeah, I don't know what's supposed to be surprising about this.
A viral kiss-cam video turned out to be (proven) not fake. I can't be quite as dismissive of them now.
Re: Bad example (Score:2)
The first public jumbotron trouble that I can remember is in Ferris Buellers Day Off.
Dystopia this isn't (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I think in broad strokes, infidelity is bad, but when it comes to a specific case, I'd say nobody is in a position to judge without much more context.
And that's what makes this kind of stuff rather shitty. People feel confident filling in all sorts of details from their own imagination and prejudices, and even if you get it mostly right 9 times out of 10 (to be very charitable, in my opinion) does that excuse the 10% of the time where the internet mob is wrong?
Re: Dystopia this isn't (Score:2)
I opened my post with "I think cheating is bad" so what do you think, dummy?
Re: Dystopia this isn't (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"destroyed by their reaction of hiding"
My point was exactly that while we think we have all the context we need, we sometimes don't, to potentially devastating effect. The fact that the internet brigade has a high chance of being "right" in this case doesn't invalidate the point. People can have perfectly legitimate reasons to not want the details of who they're in a relationship with broadcast at large.
All you post tells me is that people are very hungry to see people "get what they deserve" and extrapolat
Re: (Score:2)
I think cheating is acceptable in general. That's how we are done, and it does not cause real harm to anyone. In the past you'd considered a cheating partner or divorced parents to be a shame, but that's not the case anymore in many parts of the Western world. There could be cases where cheating is NOT acceptable, for example if you're very religious (of a religion that views cheating negatively), or if there is a risk that the new partner transmits an STD through the cheating partner, to the non-cheating
Re: (Score:2)
I meant to write: That's how we are made / that's the matter we are made of. I don't know the correct way to formulate it, I'll take suggestions.
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Leaving out all the details leading up to this point (unless you really want to hear them), I was thinking just the other day about a (fictional) situation where I was gone for some period of time, about a year or so, and came home to find my wife with a boyfriend and how would have to shoot him dead right where he stood, without so much as saying a word, and then turn around and leave.
Yeah. That's how I feel about cheaters.
Re: (Score:2)
is your implication that there are circumstances when cheating is acceptable?
Yes. When it is reciprocal.
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Am I the only one felt a bit jealous about this? My boss never buys ME concert tickets.
Re:Going to a Coldplay concert (Score:5, Funny)
I know, right.
His wife is probably at home laughing her arse off bemused at his mistress' appalling taste in music!
Re: (Score:3)
She reportedly already removed his last name from social media profiles.
Like my wife said, "You're not allowed to embarrass me."
Re: (Score:2)
C'mon man. Stadium cam is a bit of fun - see yourself on a big screen with 99,999 others cheering you on.
Having an alleged extramarital affair, well boo-hoo.
The important thing is, fuck Coldplay (Score:2, Insightful)
That band sucks.
People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:1)
The opening scene of Woody Allen's 1979 movie Manhattan featured a couple in a convertible driving by. Unfortunately, the woman in the car was NOT the man's wife and the two of them were in the theater together when that scene played on the big screen! Lots of hilarity ensued...
ultimate embarrasment (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
What a way for your wife to find out you listen to Coldplay
I'm really out of the loop here. Is this just the usual internet hate of all things pop music, the fact that Coldplay really hasn't put out anything good in 14 years, or some TMZ scandal that I missed?
Besides, I thought the rock band that got all the internet meme hate was Nickelback. "Shit, I ain't even mad you were cheatin', but Nickelback? Really!?"
Anonymity in a Crowd of Thousands? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Private and public are opposites.
What you do in public view is observable (and recordable, and publishable) by others.
Want to keep your affair private? Do it in private.
That's the real meaning of privacy.
There are many elephants in this room (Score:2)
OK, so this one guy happens to be CEO of a small-medium sized tech company, and he got caught being a naughty boy. For the most part, people at the upper end of the social food chain don't have to worry about their personal information being used against them, or a few seconds of bad behaviour ruining their life.
I hope this one-in-a-million occurrence doesn't wind up being used as "proof" that the rest of us shouldn't worry about who has access to our personal information, or that our every twitch and fart
Re: There are many elephants in this room (Score:2)
What does this have to do with "personal information"? This guy was a nobody, he was up on the Jumbotron, everyone laughed at the over-reaction, someone posted a video of the over-reaction on the internet, and someone who knows who that nobody was and shared it.
If someone used facial recognition I could see some issues, but in this case? Not buying it.
Fuck all of this (Score:3)
Trying to turn this story into some surveillance state bullshit is just absurd. Read the back of a concert ticket. For at least the past 30 years tickets have clearly informed me I might be photographed and recorded at a concert. They warn you when you're going to buy the fucking things.
Don't take your mistress to a concert, you're just as likely to be seen by a neighbor as you are to be caught on a kiss cam. I don't give a shit about the guy's morals but he's demonstrated he's far too stupid to run a company. I hope his wife cleans him out, she deserves every penny after having to deal with his dumb ass for so long.
Caught on Camera (Score:2)
Good for them (Score:1)
Time Flies (Score:2)
Woah. There's a blast from the past. Coldplay. Still riding on the success of that yellow song?