The Astronomer CEO's Coldplay Concert Fiasco Is Emblematic of Our Social Media Surveillance Dystopia (www.404media.co)
from Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 18:02
https://lemmy.world/post/33191566

#technology

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db2@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 18:07 next collapse

No it isn’t. Plenty of other things are, but not that one.

robolemmy@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 18:08 next collapse

Yeah, people mostly seem to enjoy those crowd cams. If it’s emblematic of anything it would be something about attention-seeking behavior.

garretble@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 18:12 collapse

Yeah I agree.

Had this couple just not freaked out, it wouldn’t have gotten as much traction. Perhaps even the person who took the video and posted it may not have if it was just a “normal” reaction.

I mean, the guy is a piece of shit. And she is too if she’s knowingly having a relationship with a married person, presumably without the consent of his wife who she probably knows.

But this particular thing I don’t think is emblematic of anything other than the FO after the FA.

acosmichippo@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 21:03 collapse

or even if the dude was just not draped all over the lady in a public arena with tens of thousand of other people.

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jul 18:21 next collapse

Lmfao no it’s not. It’s emblematic of CEOs being a category of people that correlate strongly with NPD and psycho/sociopathy. And it’s also emblematic of having a 0/10 poker face. It wouldn’t have gone viral if he had just stopped grabbing her tit (because on the Jumbotron) and doing a shy little chuckle together and keeping their shit together.

angelmountain@feddit.nl on 19 Jul 19:12 next collapse

I don’t really want to be filmed everywhere, especially when it’s later on broadcasted to the entire world. I want to be able to do stupid stuff without other people knowing.

IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 19:31 next collapse

Well then don’t do stupid stuff in public. This idiot could have been busted just as easily by somebody with a mobile phone and a social media following.

HailSeitan@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 21:54 collapse

That’s literally the point of the article?

WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jul 19:41 next collapse

same. but that ship has sailed, forever.

FriendBesto@lemmy.ml on 20 Jul 18:54 collapse

This type of camera use at concerts or stadiums is decades. Although I agree with you, the biggest concern are things like Nest cameras that film random people walking on the street. Or general government surveillance.

In the UK, some guy got arrested because he refused to show his face on a street surveillance camera on principle.

conicalscientist@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 21:53 next collapse

So this article went over everyone’s head??? The surveillance apparatus is the that they were able to be identified immediately. You guys prove the authors point. It’s so normalized it doesn’t seem out of place. Not only that they were blasted around the world just as fast.

The post we’re in right now showing their names and faces. The comment section we’re in. This is part of the mass surveillance machine.

The witch hunt is self evident but I suppose I need to be blunt. It’s because they’re deemed worthy of your scorn. So you accept the dystopian surveillance state because in this instance it has served your purpose.

Crazy times.

db2@lemmy.world on 20 Jul 00:42 next collapse

So they were identified by a government agency or an entity acting within that scope?

conicalscientist@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 02:40 next collapse

dystopian surveillance state

There I fixed it.

Go to reddit and stay there if you want to debase yourself with that obtuse nonsense. Otherwise grow up.

db2@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 05:12 collapse

And blocked. Have a nice day.

ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net on 21 Jul 07:31 collapse

He was right actually. Like 100%.

Samskara@sh.itjust.works on 21 Jul 12:04 collapse

Surveillance capitalism knows more about you than government agencies.

db2@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 14:28 collapse

Facebook proved that well enough, the courts are supposed to be the remedy to that though.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 20 Jul 15:00 next collapse

So you accept the dystopian surveillance state because in this instance it has served your purpose.

Divide et impera.

squaresinger@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 07:10 next collapse

The main problem I see here is that people still don’t seem to understand what “public” means.

That applies to doing shit in public, but also posting shit publically.

If you do something in the open, expect that people will see it.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 21 Jul 08:50 next collapse

See it, sure. But as a society we used to have an expectation of anonymity, for better or worse.

If there was a video of you dancing funny in public, maybe your friends would recognize you, but the whole world wouldn’t know your identity and remember it forever.

Shit, my workplace couldn’t even identify the people who walked in the front door and stole stuff and walked out. The police could see their faces clearly in the security footage, but they weren’t from around here and no one knew who they were.

Society used to be like that.

squaresinger@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 10:51 collapse

See it, sure. But as a society we used to have an expectation of anonymity, for better or worse.

That’s the case if you are some unimportant rando, yes.

But these two people we are talking about are very public figures due to their jobs, and they are compensated very well for this. As a public figure you can’t have the expectation of anonymity. That just comes with the territory.

Every time JK Rowling lets out an anti-trans fart, the whole internet is up in arms. When my transphobe uncle does the same, nobody cares. Because one of them is a public figure and the other one is not.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 21 Jul 13:17 collapse

If you would read the article, you would understand the point you’re missing.

No one recognized them because they were public figures. In this case it’s not clear how they were recognized, but in the general sense, it is clear that social media will gleefully dox randos using technology like facial recognition. Attractive security guards, people dancing, etc. Just yesterday, someone took a picture of me at the pool just for walking with messy hair.

The point the article is making is that anybody can be made a public figure now, because of technology.

squaresinger@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 13:37 collapse

I have read the article, and I got your point before, and I still think that it’s totally moot and besides the point.

If they had been two total randos, say Max the car repair man cheating with Mandy the receptionist, then nobody would have even tried to recognize them. Not with social media, not with facial recognition not with anything else.

And even if Peter, the coworker of Max and Mandy would have recognized them, he’d maybe have told their partners, or he might have made fun of them at work, but that’s it. Because these people don’t matter.

To get back to your example: Somebody took a picture of you. Ok. Now what? Did that picture go viral on social media? Did that picture make it into international news? No. Because you don’t matter.

And you said it yourself:

Shit, my workplace couldn’t even identify the people who walked in the front door and stole stuff and walked out. The police could see their faces clearly in the security footage, but they weren’t from around here and no one knew who they were.

Samskara@sh.itjust.works on 21 Jul 12:03 collapse

You should be able to enjoy a concert without being put on display.

I don’t want my picture taken when I’m high as fuck and make out with strangers while partying.

nialv7@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 13:49 collapse

Lol you really think a CEO, of a billion dollar company no less, being recognized on camera is “emblematic” of anything.

Don’t pretend they are like us.

Yes surveillance capitalism is ruining the society, but this is not it. Surprising bad take from 404media.

KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml on 21 Jul 14:31 collapse

They not like us

HailSeitan@lemmy.world on 19 Jul 21:58 next collapse

The schismogenesis in the comments and downvotes here is wild: “dystopia is good when it hurts scumbags”—um, no, both can be bad??

Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world on 20 Jul 06:38 next collapse

So this is what all this “kiss cam at Coldplay concert” is about. Pretty dull stuff.

One thing to note with facial recognition and security cameras is that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

Another thing is that there are legitimate uses for extensive surveillance (catching spies, assasins and collaborators when your country is being invaded). While this is a somewhat extreme example, there are legitimate use cases outside of war time too.

It’s up to us as voters to elect governments that do not abuse surveillance technology.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 20 Jul 14:59 collapse

It’s up to us as voters to elect governments that do not abuse surveillance technology.

Surveillance technology is only feedback.

There’s also the regulator which uses that feedback. It’s means of regulation are bots, properly formed news, law policies, and raw action. Probably even targeted murders.

That system together affects whom “we as voters” elect. Because we are too many to organize, while for regulation our numbers and diversity are actually favorable, to treat us all as one object.

Which means that electoral democracy is dead. Direct democracy with nationwide mandatory participation and rotational sortitioned filling of state roles requiring a working individual (like conscription where you can’t refuse or it’s a process requiring some proof of good reasons) may work.

To increase as much as possible the technical complexity of influencing a society like an object.

One can also (with reservations and limitations and very careful design) look at the Soviet system (one that really functioned in early 20s and late 80s).

The key is nationwide participation. Electing someone else to represent you is just too risky with such crowd control means as available today.

While the technology can be made public-controlled in the widest sense, so that not only a certain JD Vance could see where you are at every moment, but that you could see where he is as well. All state surveillance should be public. And there should be no state secrets.

Samskara@sh.itjust.works on 21 Jul 15:16 collapse

Swiss direct democracy is a better example than Soviet system.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 21 Jul 16:11 collapse

Switzerland is small. Adapting its system for a bigger nation blindly might result in something like Turkey.

But I’ve just refreshed my idea of its system and it’s similar to what I’m describing, yes.

The main difference is actually that Soviet system had a few levels of councils, the lower level electing the next, while in Swiss system there are three levels all elected directly.

We know for sure that Stalin abused that property to gain power. And one can argue that Yeltsin did the same before dismantling it.

KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml on 21 Jul 14:32 collapse

lol they not like us

He got caught dipping his pen in company ink, I’ve seen it happen to staff lower on the totem pole.

Its exactly what needed to happen. Its company policy fairly enforced, because it never is for the C suite.