So basically they just removed the ability for people to hold people in power accountable by making their mischievous acts known in public, while it is known that "proper, lawful" channels would not have worked due to conflict of interest..?
They really don't want people like Andy Ngo posting photos of people rioting / committing crimes / etc.
They also REALLY don't like that Project Veritas uses their service to link people to undercover videos of big tech companies admitting to doing shady stuff. Big tech covers for big tech.
It's frustrating to see how tech is consistently unable to implement systematic yet fair solutions that are possible in law. Not that people aren't genuinely trying - but the nature of automation and the design of platforms just seem at odds with working privacy.
German law, for example, generally protects people's privacy (i.e. you are not allowed to take a photo of people without permission, even in public). But it implements fine-grained exceptions for people of national importance - either globally (i.e. politicians who remain so) or temporarily (i.e. you may take photographs of such people for a time but no longer when they have ceased to be famous).
> you are not allowed to take a photo of people without permission, even in public
This is clearly not true though. People end up in other peoples’ photos all of the time without permission. So it sounds like a bullshit law that can be used to arbitrarily string people up rather than anything actually enforceable or reasonable.
What do you think about the French law that didn't pass, which would have made it illegal to upload photos of the police? Arguably, the actions of police officers are more of a public concern than those of national politicians, but they also fall into the category of non-famous people.
> you are not allowed to take a photo of people without permission, even in public
I'm curious how this is expected to work in practice. Is there a clear definition of "a photo of people"? Taking a close-up portrait of a random stranger in public would be one extreme (and I guess most people would agree it should require permission). Presumably a photo of my kids and their friends having fun at the park is still clearly "a photo of people", and therefore also requires permission.
But if I take a photo of a street scene in Berlin, do I have to get permission from every passer-by who happens to appear? How about a landscape photo where I only realise later, on reviewing the picture, that there were a couple of hikers on a distant hill? To my mind, that's not "a photo of people", yet there are people in the photo.
Somewhere between the extremes, it seems to me there's an awfully wide grey area.
As many people have pointed out, the primary protection in this law is on publishing.
However, there are also penal codes preventing the mere taking of pictures where intimate privacy is affected, i.e. in intimate situations, in your own home, or when you are helpless (i.e. when injured in public).
Unable or unwilling? If their network effects endow them with an impenetrable moat, why would they voluntarily spend lots of money to address a problem that harms only a minority of customers and isn't substantial enough to drive people off the platform?
>German law, for example, generally protects people's privacy (i.e. you are not allowed to take a photo of people without permission, even in public).
So everything from the videos showing Kyle Rittenhouse doing nothing illegal, to Chauvin videos providing evidence that he killed George Floyd wouldn't be allowed in Germany. Got it.
Is this a response to J.K. Rowling's concerns a few days ago? Three people supporting trans rights took a photo in the front of her house, showing the address, and published it on Twitter. In a Twitter thread published by Rowling, she mentions people reporting it to Twitter Support helped to get it removed [1].
I wonder if Twitter will begin to enforce this by requiring photos of people to be tagged, and the subject of the photos to "consent" to Twitter using their photos. If so, and if Twitter behaves like any other tech company in using manipulative tactics engineered to extract "consent", I can only see this ending badly for privacy.
Since we have not had in person conferences or tech meet ups for 2 years it will be interesting to see all the tweets about them in the future not having any of the usual photographs of the crowd, people in the corridors on laptops and participants in sessions, at social events.
I wonder what other behaviours we have forgotten that used to occur? No photos of people in a pub, at a cafe, on vacation. This might make Twitter a less appealing place for the average person.
Why do we hold companies like Twitter in high regard? More so, why do we consider what is primarily a media company to be valued and considered as a technology company when in many regards it is more like the Washington Post or NY Times than it is like Google? I think the whole framing of Twitter as a tech company needs to be rethought and they need to be valued and considered in the same vein as media companies.
People always focus on the big hypotheticals with these kinds of features. The big potential abuses that could stifle speech and damage democracy.
I think it’s interesting to instead think about the number of individuals this might help. People being bullied, harassed, doxxed, etc. It could be life changing for them.
That’s just the standard “think of the children” argument though. Yes, there are some people it will help. That’s not really relevant in the conversation for what rights everyone is losing.
Sure, if it were fairly enforced, it might. But do we trust Twitter to fairly enforce it? Do they have a transparent, accountable process, with the right to appeal? Do they have a trustworthy track record for making fair decisons?
People always focus on the big issues because they are not hypothetical at all.
We are talking about a platform that has had dubious fact check warnings attached to tweets for a year now, which mainly seem to serve to reinforce a false consensus and prevent open debate.
People being bullied, harassed, doxxed, etc are a distraction from this larger issue, and will not benefit from this, because the only ones you ever hear about are people with enough influence and clout to turn being a target into being a public victim.
But Twitter, you haven't even fixed what's "Trending", specifically in the local context. For example, the word "Jane" is trending in your country, Jane is a well known politician who has probably said something interesting. You click the word to see whatsup...twitter returns some random posts that mention "Jane" probably basing on number of likes
Whether this was the CEO's first act of business or not, people should be genuinely scared of him. He doesn't give a fuck about the First Amendment and thinks it's his job to dictate what a healthy conversation is and who gets to participate [0]. People should be abandoning this company immediately, but the sad part is that many of its most active users agree with him ideologically. At least Jack gave the appearance of giving a fuck about free speech.
I don't know much him nor have I read that entire transcript, but one of the main jobs for a CEO is to set the direction and tone for a companies services. They can say/do whatever they want wrt free speech and their own messaging platform.
Uh huh. This will be applied unevenly. Pics that violate this that support one political cause will be allowed, pics that violate this that support the opposite will be banned.
Wouldn't this be an actual ideal use case for facial recognition? Apple wanted to do CSAM before upload, Twitter could do consent-checking before posting.
Users might consider saying "I do not want my images being public" and can be prohibited before posting.
Taking it down after it's posted is useless, it'll be in caches all over the world and by that time, it's too late.
For example, every reddit post ever posted (or near enough) are scraped in real time (pushbullet, bigquery etc) so the take-downs need to happen before it hits public APIs.
I also think we need to enforce consent, and begin taking action against tech firms - if I did not consent and they allowed it to be published, they should be held to account. They need stronger measures to ensure consent was freely and fairly given.
Is it time to create new platforms that decentralize power? If we agree that some level of social digital connections are important, then why should corporations be in charge? Shouldn’t it be a democratic solution?
The one thing I see a lot on Twitter is people "retweeting" the wrong photo of the wrong person. I saw all sorts of people being pictured as that school shooter last week.
Whatever we think of this policy, anyone who tweets or re-tweets a photo of an uninvolved person in a breaking news case should be, by their policy, permanently banned (or shadowbanned).
[+] [-] freakynit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gjulianm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skrowl|4 years ago|reply
They also REALLY don't like that Project Veritas uses their service to link people to undercover videos of big tech companies admitting to doing shady stuff. Big tech covers for big tech.
[+] [-] uniqueuid|4 years ago|reply
German law, for example, generally protects people's privacy (i.e. you are not allowed to take a photo of people without permission, even in public). But it implements fine-grained exceptions for people of national importance - either globally (i.e. politicians who remain so) or temporarily (i.e. you may take photographs of such people for a time but no longer when they have ceased to be famous).
[+] [-] kortilla|4 years ago|reply
This is clearly not true though. People end up in other peoples’ photos all of the time without permission. So it sounds like a bullshit law that can be used to arbitrarily string people up rather than anything actually enforceable or reasonable.
[+] [-] noduerme|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfk13|4 years ago|reply
I'm curious how this is expected to work in practice. Is there a clear definition of "a photo of people"? Taking a close-up portrait of a random stranger in public would be one extreme (and I guess most people would agree it should require permission). Presumably a photo of my kids and their friends having fun at the park is still clearly "a photo of people", and therefore also requires permission.
But if I take a photo of a street scene in Berlin, do I have to get permission from every passer-by who happens to appear? How about a landscape photo where I only realise later, on reviewing the picture, that there were a couple of hikers on a distant hill? To my mind, that's not "a photo of people", yet there are people in the photo.
Somewhere between the extremes, it seems to me there's an awfully wide grey area.
[+] [-] uniqueuid|4 years ago|reply
However, there are also penal codes preventing the mere taking of pictures where intimate privacy is affected, i.e. in intimate situations, in your own home, or when you are helpless (i.e. when injured in public).
[+] [-] csee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loudtieblahblah|4 years ago|reply
>German law, for example, generally protects people's privacy (i.e. you are not allowed to take a photo of people without permission, even in public).
So everything from the videos showing Kyle Rittenhouse doing nothing illegal, to Chauvin videos providing evidence that he killed George Floyd wouldn't be allowed in Germany. Got it.
[+] [-] vadfa|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endisneigh|4 years ago|reply
This is an intractable problem and just exists as another lever to arbitrarily punish people.
[+] [-] 101008|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1462758324177444870 or backup: https://www.rowlingindex.org/work/ttfaddr/
[+] [-] krona|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mansion7|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yosito|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmitriid|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkingemote|4 years ago|reply
I wonder what other behaviours we have forgotten that used to occur? No photos of people in a pub, at a cafe, on vacation. This might make Twitter a less appealing place for the average person.
Imagine if Facebook did this.
[+] [-] rexreed|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] basisword|4 years ago|reply
I think it’s interesting to instead think about the number of individuals this might help. People being bullied, harassed, doxxed, etc. It could be life changing for them.
[+] [-] kortilla|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newsclues|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yosito|4 years ago|reply
Sure, if it were fairly enforced, it might. But do we trust Twitter to fairly enforce it? Do they have a transparent, accountable process, with the right to appeal? Do they have a trustworthy track record for making fair decisons?
[+] [-] stillkicking|4 years ago|reply
We are talking about a platform that has had dubious fact check warnings attached to tweets for a year now, which mainly seem to serve to reinforce a false consensus and prevent open debate.
People being bullied, harassed, doxxed, etc are a distraction from this larger issue, and will not benefit from this, because the only ones you ever hear about are people with enough influence and clout to turn being a target into being a public victim.
[+] [-] thinkingemote|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] user-the-name|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ElectronShak|4 years ago|reply
This would be a nice ticket to fix...
[+] [-] JohnWhigham|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/18/1012066/emtech-s...
[+] [-] prawnsalad|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loudtieblahblah|4 years ago|reply
Uh huh. This will be applied unevenly. Pics that violate this that support one political cause will be allowed, pics that violate this that support the opposite will be banned.
[+] [-] aboringusername|4 years ago|reply
Users might consider saying "I do not want my images being public" and can be prohibited before posting.
Taking it down after it's posted is useless, it'll be in caches all over the world and by that time, it's too late.
For example, every reddit post ever posted (or near enough) are scraped in real time (pushbullet, bigquery etc) so the take-downs need to happen before it hits public APIs.
I also think we need to enforce consent, and begin taking action against tech firms - if I did not consent and they allowed it to be published, they should be held to account. They need stronger measures to ensure consent was freely and fairly given.
[+] [-] freeflight|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://nypost.com/2021/03/24/twitter-censoring-detention-ce...
[+] [-] gnoll_of_gozag|4 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1465831941157052416
https://twitter.com/NotToadMckinley/status/14660133488986931...
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1466155751328530437
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1466218599626854404
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1466232833815420930
[+] [-] protomyth|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fumar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sumosudo|4 years ago|reply
https://ibb.co/yX61n4T
[+] [-] fortran77|4 years ago|reply
Whatever we think of this policy, anyone who tweets or re-tweets a photo of an uninvolved person in a breaking news case should be, by their policy, permanently banned (or shadowbanned).
(And also misinformation, like what Spike Lee did: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/spike-le... )
[+] [-] devmor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LongTimeAnon|4 years ago|reply
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